Public Domain Tales: Ulysses: Book Five (2024)

Public Domain Tales: Ulysses: Book Five is the one-hundred-and-nineteenth book in the Public Domain Tales series.

[ 13 ]

The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysteriousembrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow ofall too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proudpromontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, onthe weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, onthe quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon thestillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance abeacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the eveningscene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time andoft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosychat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, CissyCaffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy andJacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suitswith caps to match and the name _H. M. S. Belleisle_ printed on both.For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and verynoisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling littlefellows with bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. Theywere dabbling in the sand with their spades and buckets, buildingcastles as children do, or playing with their big coloured ball, happyas the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby toand fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled withdelight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still atiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. CissyCaffrey bent over to him to tease his fat little plucks and the daintydimple in his chin.

—Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink ofwater.

And baby prattled after her:

—A jink a jink a jawbo.

Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond ofchildren, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey couldnever be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey thatheld his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brownbread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! Butto be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote inhis new fancy bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort,was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life,always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on hercherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardmanlaughed too at the quaint language of little brother.

But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy andMaster Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception tothis golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sandwhich Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right gowrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor likethe Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jackywas selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman’shouse is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purposethat the wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) thecoveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited MasterTommy drew the attention of the girl friends.

—Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till Icatch you for that.

His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call fortheir big sister’s word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight hewas too after his misadventure. His little man-o’-war top andunmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in theart of smoothing over life’s tiny troubles and very quickly not onespeck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blueeyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she kissedaway the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit andsaid if she was near him she wouldn’t be far from him, her eyes dancingin admonition.

—Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.

She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:

—What’s your name? Butter and cream?

—Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy yoursweetheart?

—Nao, tearful Tommy said.

—Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.

—Nao, Tommy said.

—I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance fromher shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy’s sweetheart. Gerty isTommy’s sweetheart.

—Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.

Cissy’s quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to EdyBoardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentlemancouldn’t see and to mind he didn’t wet his new tan shoes.

But who was Gerty?

Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair aspecimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She waspronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said,she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight andgraceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she hadbeen taking of late had done her a world of good much better than theWidow Welch’s female pills and she was much better of those dischargesshe used to get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her facewas almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouthwas a genuine Cupid’s bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finelyveined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice andqueen of ointments could make them though it was not true that she usedto wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Suppletold that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was blackout at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course theirlittle tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she toldher not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her orshe’d never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. Therewas an innate refinement, a languid queenly _hauteur_ about Gerty whichwas unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep.Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree inher own right and had she only received the benefit of a good educationGerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in theland and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her browand patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay theirdevoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, thatlent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressedmeaning, that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautifuleyes, a charm few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery?Gerty’s were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes anddark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkilyseductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautifulpage of the Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to tryeyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, sobecoming in leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Thenthere was blushing scientifically cured and how to be tall increaseyour height and you have a beautiful face but your nose? That wouldsuit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But Gerty’s crowningglory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown with anatural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account of thenew moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion ofluxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. Andjust now at Edy’s words as a telltale flush, delicate as the faintestrosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweetgirlish shyness that of a surety God’s fair land of Ireland did nothold her equal.

For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She wasabout to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent.The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke outinto a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a youngMay morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edysay that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply alovers’ quarrel. As per usual somebody’s nose was out of joint aboutthe boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always ridingup and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in inthe evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediatethat was on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for adoctor when he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie whowas racing in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Littlerecked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heartsometimes, piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance hemight learn to love her in time. They were protestants in his familyand of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the BlessedVirgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with anexquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, theshape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she wouldknow anywhere something off the common and the way he turned thebicycle at the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the niceperfume of those good cigarettes and besides they were both of a sizetoo he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was sofrightfully clever because he didn’t go and ride up and down in frontof her bit of a garden.

Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary ofDame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might beout. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (becauseit was expected in the _Lady’s Pictorial_ that electric blue would beworn) with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket(in which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with herfavourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navythreequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim gracefulfigure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat ofwideleaved slave straw ontrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggbluechenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesdayweek afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last shefound what she wanted at Clery’s summer sales, the very it, slightlyshopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny.She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it onthen, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back toher! And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knewthat that would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoeswere the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that shewas very _petite_ but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, afive, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just onesmart buckle over her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayedits perfect proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amountand no more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose withhighspliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty’schief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweetseventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it inhis heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully prettystitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted withdifferent coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen,and she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from thewash and ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on becauseshe wouldn’t trust those washerwomen as far as she’d see them scorchingthe things. She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, herown colour and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere onher because the green she wore that day week brought grief because hisfather brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition andbecause she thought perhaps he might be out because when she wasdressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her insideout and that was for luck and lovers’ meeting if you put those thingson inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you solong as it wasn’t of a Friday.

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow isthere all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would giveworlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, givingway to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelingsthough not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before themirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening fallsupon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain.Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a marriagehas been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T.C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be MrsWylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie waswearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue foxwas not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe inlove, a woman’s birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer’s(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole anarm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called herlittle one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (thefirst!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened fromthe room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strengthof character had never been Reggy Wylie’s strong point and he who wouldwoo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting,always waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon beover. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrouslove at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face whohad not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey,and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain herto him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comforther with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one sheyearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to behis only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness inhealth, till death us two part, from this to this day forward.

And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she wasjust thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself hislittle wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went bluein the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because shewould be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creaturecomforts too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man likedthat feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hueand queen Ann’s pudding of delightful creaminess had won goldenopinions from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting afire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the samedirection, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white ofeggs though she didn’t like the eating part when there were any peoplethat made her shy and often she wondered why you couldn’t eat somethingpoetical like violets or roses and they would have a beautifullyappointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the photographof grandpapa Giltrap’s lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it wasso human and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack inClery’s summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would betall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for ahusband) with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmedsweeping moustache and they would go on the continent for theirhoneymoon (three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled down ina nice snug and cosy little homely house, every morning they would bothhave brekky, simple but perfectly served, for their own two selves andbefore he went out to business he would give his dear little wifey agood hearty hug and gaze for a moment deep down into her eyes.

Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so thenshe buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to runoff and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommysaid he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing withthe ball and if he took it there’d be wigs on the green but Tommy saidit was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, ifyou please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little TommyCaffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be offnow with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.

—You’re not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It’s my ball.

But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at herfinger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sandand Tommy after it in full career, having won the day.

—Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.

And she tickled tiny tot’s two cheeks to make him forget and playedhere’s the lord mayor, here’s his two horses, here’s his gingerbreadcarriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopperchin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own waylike that from everyone always petting him.

—I’d like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won’tsay.

—On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.

Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissysaying an unladylike thing like that out loud she’d be ashamed of herlife to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she wassure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin caredCiss.

—Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt ofher nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I’d look athim.

Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes.For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese teaand jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men’s faces onher nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted togo where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to theMiss White. That was just like Cissyc*ms. O, and will you ever forgether the evening she dressed up in her father’s suit and hat and theburned cork moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking acigarette. There was none to come up to her for fun. But she wassincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven evermade, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome.

And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and thepealing anthem of the organ. It was the men’s temperance retreatconducted by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary,sermon and benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were theregathered together without distinction of social class (and a mostedifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves,after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of theimmaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching herto intercede for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virginof virgins. How sad to poor Gerty’s ears! Had her father only avoidedthe clutches of the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powdersthe drink habit cured in Pearson’s Weekly, she might now be rolling inher carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told herself thatas she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lampbecause she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the windowdreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking.But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes hadcast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed inthe home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seenher own father, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himselfcompletely for if there was one thing of all things that Gerty knew itwas that the man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way ofkindness, deserves to be branded as the lowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heardher companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentlemanoff Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so likehimself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw himany way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for afather because he was too old or something or on account of his face(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with thepimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poorfather! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang _Tell me,Mary, how to woo thee_ or _My love and cottage near Rochelle_ and theyhad stewed co*ckles and lettuce with Lazenby’s salad dressing for supperand when he sang _The moon hath raised_ with Mr Dignam that diedsuddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Hermother’s birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tomand Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to havehad a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Nowhe was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be awarning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn’t even go to thefuneral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring himthe letters and samples from his office about Catesby’s cork lino,artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear andalways bright and cheery in the home.

A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in thehouse, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight ingold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who wasit rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn’tlike her mother’s taking pinches of snuff and that was the only singlething they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought theworld of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gasat the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall ofthat place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of limeMr Tunney the grocer’s christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon dayswhere a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with athreecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove witholdtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was astory behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in asoft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was inchocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at themdreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her ownarms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back andthought about those times because she had found out in Walker’spronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about thehalcyon days what they meant.

The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion tillat last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was nogetting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever hecould down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy wasnot slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who wassitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and interceptedthe ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty criesand to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw itto her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and thenthrew it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down theslope and stopped right under Gerty’s skirt near the little pool by therock. The twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick itaway and let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but shewished their stupid ball hadn’t come rolling down to her and she gave akick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.

—If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.

Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into herpretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just liftedher skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the balla jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after itdown towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing elseto draw attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. Shefelt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell,surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchangedglances of the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat sheventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze there in thetwilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she hadever seen.

Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was waftedand with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stainof original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, prayfor us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. Andcareworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and manywho had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for allthat bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had toldthem what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary,the most pious Virgin’s intercessory power that it was not recorded inany age that those who implored her powerful protection were everabandoned by her.

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles ofchildhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played withbaby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air.Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where wasCissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, myword, didn’t the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to saypapa.

—Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.

And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent foreleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture ofhealth, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn outto be something great, they said.

—Haja ja ja haja.

Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him tosit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she criedout, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the halfblanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was mostobstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:

—Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.

And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was allno use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about thegeegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gavehim in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathenwas quickly appeased.

Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home outof that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the littlebrats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like thepaintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the colouredchalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out,the evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth andto hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense theyburned in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heartwent pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaningin his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search herthrough and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were,superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer.She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual facethat he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of MartinHarvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferredbecause she wasn’t stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted theytwo to always dress the same on account of a play but she could not seewhether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly _retroussé_ from where hewas sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the storyof a haunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have givenworlds to know what it was. He was looking up so intently, so still,and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steelbuckles of her shoes if she swung them like that thoughtfully with thetoes down. She was glad that something told her to put on thetransparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that wasfar away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was hewho mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted himbecause she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The veryheart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because sheknew on the instant it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned againstthan sinning, or even, even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wickedman, she cared not. Even if he was a protestant or methodist she couldconvert him easily if he truly loved her. There were wounds that wantedhealing with heartbalm. She was a womanly woman not like other flightygirls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists showing off what theyhadn’t got and she just yearned to know all, to forgive all if shecould make him fall in love with her, make him forget the memory of thepast. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real man,crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, forherself alone.

Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. _Ora pro nobis_. Wellhas it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancycan never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refugefor the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced herown heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, thestained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the bluebanners of the blessed Virgin’s sodality and Father Conroy was helpingCanon O’Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyescast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quietand clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if evershe became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might cometo the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that timewhen she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the rootsof her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that wasonly the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature’s laws, hesaid, in this life and that that was no sin because that came from thenature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Ladyherself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according toThy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought andthought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral designfor him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on themantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a littlehouse to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for theforty hours’ adoration because it was hard to know what sort of apresent to give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin orsome place.

The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jackythrew the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Littlemonkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give thema good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both ofthem. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because theywere afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned.

—Jacky! Tommy!

Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the verylast time she’d ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them andshe ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which hada good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all thethingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn’t get it to growlong because it wasn’t natural so she could just go and throw her hatat it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn’t ripup her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was alot of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piecewhenever she thought she had a good opportunity to show off and justbecause she was a good runner she ran like that so that he could seeall the end of her petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far aspossible. It would have served her just right if she had tripped upover something accidentally on purpose with her high crooked Frenchheels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble. _Tableau!_That would have been a very charming exposé for a gentleman like thatto witness.

Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroyhanded the thurible to Canon O’Hanlon and he put in the incense andcensed the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins andshe was itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but shedidn’t because she thought he might be watching but she never made abigger mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without lookingthat he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O’Hanlon handedthe thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at theBlessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing the _Tantum ergo_ and shejust swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell tothe _Tantumer gosa cramen tum_. Three and eleven she paid for thosestockings in Sparrow’s of George’s street on the Tuesday, no the Mondaybefore Easter and there wasn’t a brack on them and that was what he waslooking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that hadneither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in hishead to see the difference for himself.

Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball withher hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look astreel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she boughtonly a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of herpetticoat hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for amoment to settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrowntresses was never seen on a girl’s shoulders—a radiant little vision,in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travelmany a long mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. Shecould almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyesthat set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that shecould see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe fasterfor her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He waseying her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman’s instinct told her thatshe had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarletswept from throat to brow till the lovely colour of her face became aglorious rose.

Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty,half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse thebaby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that waswhy no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was noconcern of hers. And she said to Gerty:

—A penny for your thoughts.

—What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. Iwas only wondering was it late.

Because she wished to goodness they’d take the snottynosed twins andtheir babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she justgave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edyasked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it washalf past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to knowbecause they were told to be in early.

—Wait, said Cissy, I’ll run ask my uncle Peter over there what’s thetime by his conundrum.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take hishand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with hiswatchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he wasGerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One momenthe had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, andthe next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrolexpressed in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure.

Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was theright time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening toit and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorryhis watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because thesun was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke inmeasured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones.Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle saidhis waterworks were out of order.

Then they sang the second verse of the _Tantum ergo_ and Canon O’Hanlongot up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and hetold Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fireto the flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right andshe could see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to theworks and she swung her leg more in and out in time. It was gettingdarker but he could see and he was looking all the time that he waswinding the watch or whatever he was doing to it and then he put itback and put his hands back into his pockets. She felt a kind of asensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel of her scalpand that irritation against her stays that that thing must be coming onbecause the last time too was when she clipped her hair on account ofthe moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in herevery contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there wasundisguised admiration in a man’s passionate gaze it was there plain tobe seen on that man’s face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and youknow it.

Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gertynoticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effectbecause it was a long way along the strand to where there was the placeto push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins’ caps and tidiedtheir hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O’Hanlonstood up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handedhim the card to read off and he read out _Panem de coelo praestitistieis_ and Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time andasking her but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she justanswered with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was sheheartbroken about her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply.A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that spoke volumes of scornimmeasurable. It hurt—O yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quietway of saying things like that she knew would wound like the confoundedlittle cat she was. Gerty’s lips parted swiftly to frame the word butshe fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless,so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of.She had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and ficklelike all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her andfor an instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears.Their eyes were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort shesparkled back in sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for themto see.

—O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud headflashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it’s leap year.

Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of theringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her youngvoice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. Asfor Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuckhim aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she cast asmuch as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard into adozen pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she could give himone look of measured scorn that would make him shrivel up on the spot.Miss puny little Edy’s countenance fell to no slight extent and Gertycould see by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in atowering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because that shafthad struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she wassomething aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them andnever would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw itso they could put that in their pipe and smoke it.

Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tuckedin the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too becausethe sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy toldhim too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw andbaby looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, andCissy poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby,without as much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all andsundry on to his brandnew dribbling bib.

—O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.

The slight _contretemps_ claimed her attention but in two twos she setthat little matter to rights.

Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edyasked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it wasflying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passedit off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benedictionbecause just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quietseashore because Canon O’Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil thatFather Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with theBlessed Sacrament in his hands.

How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpseof Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same timea bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither,thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights ofthe lighthouses so picturesque she would have loved to do with a box ofpaints because it was easier than to make a man and soon thelamplighter would be going his rounds past the presbyterian churchgrounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walkedand lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turnhis freewheel like she read in that book _The Lamplighter_ by MissCummins, author of _Mabel Vaughan_ and other tales. For Gerty had herdreams that no-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got akeepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with thecoralpink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer ofher toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, wasscrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasuretrove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterosescent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons tochange when her things came home from the wash and there were somebeautiful thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought inHely’s of Dame Street for she felt that she too could write poetry ifshe could only express herself like that poem that appealed to her sodeeply that she had copied out of the newspaper she found one eveninground the potherbs. _Art thou real, my ideal?_ it was called by Louis JWalsh, Magherafelt, and after there was something about _twilight, wiltthou ever?_ and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transientloveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that theyears were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that oneshortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was anaccident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it.But it must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes therewould be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She wouldmake the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share histhoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild hisdays with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she wasdying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wifeor some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the landof song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. Buteven if—what then? Would it make a very great difference? Fromeverything in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctivelyrecoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off theaccommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers andcoarse men with no respect for a girl’s honour, degrading the sex andbeing taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would bejust good friends like a big brother and sister without all that otherin spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it wasan old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. Shethought she understood. She would try to understand him because menwere so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little whitehands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She wouldfollow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her hewas her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love wasthe master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would bewild, untrammelled, free.

Canon O’Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle andgenuflected and the choir sang _Laudate Dominum omnes gentes_ and thenhe locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over andFather Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy askedwasn’t she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out:

—O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too overthe trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.

—It’s fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.

And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church,helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissyholding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn’t fall running.

—Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It’s the bazaar fireworks.

But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck andcall. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said shecould see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her sether pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance,and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face,passion silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they wereleft alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew hecould be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man ofinflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were workingand a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where thefireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fallback looking up and there was no-one to see only him and her when sherevealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supplysoft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of hisheart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion ofmen like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in deadsecret and made her swear she’d never about the gentleman lodger thatwas staying with them out of the Congested Districts Board that hadpictures cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers andshe said he used to do something not very nice that you could imaginesometimes in the bed. But this was altogether different from a thinglike that because there was all the difference because she could almostfeel him draw her face to his and the first quick hot touch of hishandsome lips. Besides there was absolution so long as you didn’t dothe other thing before being married and there ought to be womenpriests that would understand without your telling out and CissyCaffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in her eyesso that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors’photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming onthe way it did.

And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leanedback and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparentand they all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it wasand she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and somethingqueer was flying through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. Andshe saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, inthe tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it wenthigher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look upafter it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffusedwith a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could seeher other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses theskin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven,on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw andthen it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she wastrembling in every limb from being bent so far back that he had a fullview high up above her knee where no-one ever not even on the swing orwading and she wasn’t ashamed and he wasn’t either to look in thatimmodest way like that because he couldn’t resist the sight of thewondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving soimmodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. Shewould fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender armsto him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow, the cry of ayoung girl’s love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that crythat has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shotblind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sighof O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it astream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were allgreeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet,soft!

Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! Sheglanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance ofpiteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl.He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it ishe) stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes.What a brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had calledto him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad hehad been! He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy inthose eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred andsinned and wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. Thatwas their secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and therewas none to know or tell save the little bat that flew so softlythrough the evening to and fro and little bats don’t tell.

Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field toshow what a great person she was: and then she cried:

—Gerty! Gerty! We’re going. Come on. We can see from farther up.

Gerty had an idea, one of love’s little ruses. She slipped a hand intoher kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply ofcourse without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he’s toofar to. She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meetagain, there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of herdream of yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Theirsouls met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached herheart, full of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweetflowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile,a smile that verged on tears, and then they parted.

Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy,to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It wasdarker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand andslippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristicof her but with care and very slowly because—because Gerty MacDowellwas...

Tight boots? No. She’s lame! O!

Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That’s why she’sleft on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something waswrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worsein a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn’t know it when she wason show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn’t mind. Curiosity likea nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one isdelicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. Ihave such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, allright. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquillaconvent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in theend I suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha,she. Something in the air. That’s the moon. But then why don’t allwomen menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Dependson the time they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get outof step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best ofthat. Damned glad I didn’t do it in the bath this morning over hersilly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver thismorning. That gouger M’Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wifeengagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful forsmall mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want itthemselves. Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening pouredout of offices. Reserve better. Don’t want it they throw it at you.Catch em alive, O. Pity they can’t see themselves. A dream ofwellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capelstreet: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy’s hat and what the girls didwith it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake? _Lingerie_does it. Felt for the curves inside her _déshabillé._ Excites them alsowhen they’re. I’m all clean come and dirty me. And they like dressingone another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly’s new blouse.At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I bought herthe violet garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks andturnedup trousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first wemet. His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a womanloses a charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairylost the pin of her. Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion partof their charm. Just changes when you’re on the track of the secret.Except the east: Mary, Martha: now as then. No reasonable offerrefused. She wasn’t in a hurry either. Always off to a fellow when theyare. They never forget an appointment. Out on spec probably. Theybelieve in chance because like themselves. And the others inclined togive her an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms round each other’snecks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets aboutnothing in the convent garden. Nuns with whitewashed faces, cool coifsand their rosaries going up and down, vindictive too for what theycan’t get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write to me. And I’ll write toyou. Now won’t you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till Mr Right comes along,then meet once in a blue moon. _Tableau!_ O, look who it is for thelove of God! How are you at all? What have you been doing withyourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes ineach other’s appearance. You’re looking splendid. Sister souls. Showingtheir teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn’t lend eachother a pinch of salt.

Ah!

Devils they are when that’s coming on them. Dark devilish appearance.Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of myfoot. O that way! O, that’s exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to restonce in a way. Wonder if it’s bad to go with them then. Safe in oneway. Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about witheringplants I read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers shewears she’s a flirt. All are. Daresay she felt I. When you feel likethat you often meet what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they lookat. Always know a fellow courting: collars and cuffs. Well co*cks andlions do the same and stags. Same time might prefer a tie undone orsomething. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislikerough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me.Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap withbearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his dexter optic. To aidgentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn’tlet her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and uglymen marrying. Beauty and the beast. Besides I can’t be so if Molly.Took off her hat to show her hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face,meeting someone might know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowersto smell. Hair strong in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly’s combings whenwe were on the rocks in Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave hermoney. Why not? All a prejudice. She’s worth ten, fifteen, more, apound. What? I think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion.Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I sentto Flynn? And the day I went to Drimmie’s without a necktie. Wranglewith Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding: he’sanother. Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch stopped at half past four.Dust. Shark liver oil they use to clean. Could do it myself. Save. Wasthat just when he, she?

O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.

Ah!

Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, thatlittle limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect notpleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don’t care.Complimented perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say nightprayers with the kiddies. Well, aren’t they? See her as she is spoilall. Must have the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music.The name too. _Amours_ of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, MaudBranscombe. Curtain up. Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discoveredwith pensive bosom. Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel.The strength it gives a man. That’s the secret of it. Good job I letoff there behind the wall coming out of Dignam’s. Cider that was.Otherwise I couldn’t have. Makes you want to sing after. _Lacaus esanttaratara_. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if youdon’t know how to end the conversation. Ask them a question they askyou another. Good idea if you’re stuck. Gain time. But then you’re in acart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and you see she’son for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way Inearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meathstreet that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong ofcourse. My arks she called it. It’s so hard to find one who. Aho! Ifyou don’t answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till theyharden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two shillings.Parrots. Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she hadn’tcalled me sir. O, her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with asingle girl! That’s what they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman.Or even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get away from otherchap’s wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the Burton todayspitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in my pocketbook.Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, I don’t think.Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How theychange the venue when it’s not what they like. Ask you do you likemushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask you whatsomeone was going to say when he changed his mind and stopped. Yet if Iwent the whole hog, say: I want to, something like that. Because I did.She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want somethingawfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must have beenthinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she cameto the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. Thepropitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell bytheir eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that tilltheir dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under theMoorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breastswere developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was whenwe drove home. Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lordmayor had his eye on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic.

There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Uplike a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be,waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing inmother’s clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world.And the dark one with the mop head and the slave mouth. I knew shecould whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclasswhor* in Jammet’s wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind,please, telling me the right time? I’ll tell you the right time up adark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure forfat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game.Of course they understand birds, animals, babies. In their line.

Didn’t look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn’t give thatsatisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls.Fine eyes she had, clear. It’s the white of the eye brings that out notso much the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sittingbeyond a dog’s jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the highschool drawing a picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Callthat innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her.Never see them sit on a bench marked _Wet Paint_. Eyes all over them.Look under the bed for what’s not there. Longing to get the fright oftheir lives. Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man atthe corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like,twigged at once he had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that?Typist going up Roger Greene’s stairs two at a time to show herunderstandings. Handed down from father to, mother to daughter, I mean.Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on themirror to save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman’s eyeon a mirror. And when I sent her for Molly’s Paisley shawl toPrescott’s by the way that ad I must, carrying home the change in herstocking! Clever little minx. I never told her. Neat way she carriesparcels too. Attract men, small thing like that. Holding up her hand,shaking it, to let the blood flow back when it was red. Who did youlearn that from? Nobody. Something the nurse taught me. O, don’t theyknow! Three years old she was in front of Molly’s dressingtable, justbefore we left Lombard street west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Whoknows? Ways of the world. Young student. Straight on her pins anywaynot like the other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are.Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point.Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one inGrafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zradsand zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to seeand Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of therocks. Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion.Darling, I saw, your. I saw all.

Lord!

Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan’s, Dignam’s. Forthis relief much thanks. In _Hamlet,_ that is. Lord! It was all thingscombined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt ofmy tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He’s right. Might have made aworse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then Iwill tell you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. Itcouldn’t be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be false name howeverlike my name and the address Dolphin’s barn a blind.

 Her maiden name was Jemina Brown And she lived with her mother in Irishtown.

Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush.Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as ifit understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throwanything straight at school. Crooked as a ram’s horn. Sad howeverbecause it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwallopingand papa’s pants will soon fit Willy and fuller’s earth for the babywhen they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps themout of harm’s way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam.Children’s hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not evenclosed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds.Oughtn’t to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it upwith wind. Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder isnurse Callan there still. She used to look over some nights when Mollywas in the Coffee Palace. That young doctor O’Hare I noticed herbrushing his coat. And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too,marriageable. Worst of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the CityArms. Husband rolling in drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat.Have that in your nose in the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask inthe morning: was I drunk last night? Bad policy however to fault thehusband. Chickens come home to roost. They stick by one another likeglue. Maybe the women’s fault also. That’s where Molly can knock spotsoff them. It’s the blood of the south. Moorish. Also the form, thefigure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just compare for instance thoseothers. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me tointroduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of a nondescript,wouldn’t know what to call her. Always see a fellow’s weak point in hiswife. Still there’s destiny in it, falling in love. Have their ownsecrets between them. Chaps that would go to the dogs if some womandidn’t take them in hand. Then little chits of girls, height of ashilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them he matchedthem. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought makes one.Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May and repentin December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin isnot back. Better detach.

Ow!

Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and theshort of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch.Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magneticinfluence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, Isuppose, at once. Cat’s away, the mice will play. I remember looking inPill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism.Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement.And time, well that’s the time the movement takes. Then if one thingstopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it’s allarranged. Magnetic needle tells you what’s going on in the sun, thestars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come.Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress upand look and suggest and let you see and see more and defy you ifyou’re a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, lookand if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly.

Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before thirdperson. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjawstuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs atthe horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. Finevoice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did. Likeflowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in thepaint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped herslipper on the floor so they wouldn’t hear. But lots of them can’t kickthe beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general allround over me and half down my back.

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That’s her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leaveyou this to think of me when I’m far away on the pillow. What is it?Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She’d like scent of thatkind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her,with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At thedance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. Shewas wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Goodconductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there’s some connection.For instance if you go into a cellar where it’s dark. Mysterious thingtoo. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself,slow but sure. Suppose it’s ever so many millions of tiny grains blownacross. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese thismorning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It’s like a finefine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do youcall it gossamer, and they’re always spinning it out of them, fine asanything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everythingshe takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: littlekick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniffin her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too.Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. Thereor the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holesand corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something.Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years.Dogs at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm.Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it thatway. We’re the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they havetheir period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on.Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off thegrass.

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves longJohn had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drinkgives that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that becausepriests that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it likeflies round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. Thetree of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to.That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life.And it’s extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me.

Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat.Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that’s the soap.

O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Neverwent back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hagthis morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I couldmention Meagher’s just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph.Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he’ll have. Call tomorrow. How much doI owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him givingcredit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows runup a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets intosomewhere else.

Here’s this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went asfar as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: hada good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supperwalk a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, governmentsit. Walk after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today.Still you learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long aswomen don’t mock what matter? That’s the way to find out. Ask yourselfwho is he now. _The Mystery Man on the Beach_, prize titbit story by MrLeopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And thatfellow today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on hiskismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rainthey say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The bodyfeels the atmosphere. Old Betty’s joints are on the rack. MotherShipton’s prophecy that is about ships around they fly in thetwinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hillsseem coming nigh.

Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change orthey might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid ofthe dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamondsflash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurtyou. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you throughthe small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against.Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too inthe shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest.Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,violet. A star I see. Venus? Can’t tell yet. Two. When three it’snight. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantomship. No. Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land ofthe setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My nativeland, goodnight.

Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on whitefluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight hisway up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold,sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of theposition. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don’tknow how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Greenapples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it’s the only time we crosslegs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happychairs under them. But it’s the evening influence. They feel all that.Open like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes,in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in MatDillon’s garden where I kissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full lengthoilpainting of her then. June that was too I wooed. The year returns.History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I’m with you once again.Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about herlame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity.They take advantage.

All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. Therhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I theplumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change:that’s all. Lovers: yum yum.

Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out ofme, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once itcomes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not thesame. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothingnew under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin’s Barn. Are you not happy inyour? Naughty darling. At Dolphin’s barn charades in Luke Doyle’shouse. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy,Louy, Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And theold major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, Ian only child. So it returns. Think you’re escaping and run intoyourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when heand she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip:tear in Henny Doyle’s overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle:co*ckles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. Sheleaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep inSleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rustyfrom the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I’m atree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed youcould be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There hegoes. Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Verylikely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared himout, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Prayfor us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition.Same thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there’s thelight in the priest’s house. Their frugal meal. Remember about themistake in the valuation when I was in Thom’s. Twentyeight it is. Twohouses they have. Gabriel Conroy’s brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonderwhy they come out at night like mice. They’re a mixed breed. Birds arelike hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise? Better sitstill. All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the end ofa jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is withtiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a blueywhite. Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for examplelike the eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wantsto stamp his trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morningon the staircase. Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them withthree colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the_City Arms_ with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty differentcolours. Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That’s how thatwise man what’s his name with the burning glass. Then the heather goeson fire. It can’t be tourists’ matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dryrub together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles in the furze actas a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have it! My memory’s notso bad.

Ba. Who knows what they’re always flying for. Insects? That bee lastweek got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might bethe one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or whatthey say. Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve theyhave to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms,telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes ofoceangoing steamers floundering along in the dark, lowing out likeseacows. _Faugh a ballagh!_ Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others invessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wakewhen the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years atthe ends of the earth somewhere. No ends really because it’s round.Wife in every port they say. She has a good job if she minds it tillJohnny comes marching home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tailend of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor’sweighed. Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well.And the tephilim no what’s this they call it poor papa’s father had onhis door to touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and intothe house of bondage. Something in all those superstitions because whenyou go out never know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride ofa beam for grim life, lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, andthat’s the last of his nibs till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fishever get seasick?

Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid,crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones’ locker, moon looking down sopeaceful. Not my fault, old co*ckalorum.

A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search offunds for Mercer’s hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster ofviolet but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. Theshepherd’s hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst. From house tohouse, giving his everwelcome double knock, went the nine o’clockpostman, the glowworm’s lamp at his belt gleaming here and therethrough the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees a hoistedlintstock lit the lamp at Leahy’s terrace. By screens of lightedwindows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing: _EveningTelegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup races!_ and fromthe door of Dignam’s house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the batflew here, flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept,grey. Howth settled for slumber, tired of long days, of yumyumrhododendrons (he was old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift,ruffle his fell of ferns. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deepand slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank theanchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom.

Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. IrishLights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket andbreeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise inthe Erin’s King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in thezoo. Filthy trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Pukingoverboard to feed the herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God intheir faces. Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing.Don’t know what death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean.But being lost they fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. Ididn’t want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them withmasks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch them. I’ll murder you.Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How canpeople aim guns at each other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Onlytroubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that.After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. Whatdo they love? Another themselves? But the morning she chased her withthe umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking.Little hand it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says whenyou touch. Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays Iremember. Made me laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one ismore sensitive, I think. Mine too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselvesout if fat is in fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakeningme. Frightened she was when her nature came on her first. Poor child!Strange moment for the mother too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar.Looking from Buena Vista. O’Hara’s tower. The seabirds screaming. OldBarbary ape that gobbled all his family. Sundown, gunfire for the mento cross the lines. Looking out over the sea she told me. Evening likethis, but clear, no clouds. I always thought I’d marry a lord or a richgentleman coming with a private yacht. _Buenas noches, señorita. Elhombre ama la muchacha hermosa_. Why me? Because you were so foreignfrom the others.

Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes youdull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for_Leah, Lily of Killarney._ No. Might be still up. Call to the hospitalto see. Hope she’s over. Long day I’ve had. Martha, the bath, funeral,house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus’ song. Then thatbawler in Barney Kiernan’s. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters whatI said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Oughtto go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling incompany. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me.Look at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt hemeant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law hehawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty.Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife ofthe wild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the earlymorning at close range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when hekissed the cow. But Dignam’s put the boots on it. Houses of mourning sodepressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Mustcall to those Scottish Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it forgranted we’re going to pop off first. That widow on Monday was itoutside Cramer’s that looked at me. Buried the poor husband butprogressing favourably on the premium. Her widow’s mite. Well? What doyou expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate tosee. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O’Connor wife and five childrenpoisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronlywoman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter face anda large apron. Ladies’ grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings apair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say.Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow wedie. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played thetrick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed.Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. Shehad red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does?Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti’s gone.Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes’s. WorkHynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put inthem. What’s that? Might be money.

Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. Hebrought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can’t read. Better go.Better. I’m tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes andpebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle withstory of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Childrenalways want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on thewaters. What’s this? Bit of stick.

O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come heretomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderersdo. Will I?

Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Writea message for her. Might remain. What?

I.

Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tidecomes here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, darkmirror, breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars andletters. O, those transparent! Besides they don’t know. What is themeaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do notlike.

AM. A.

No room. Let it go.

Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand.Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here.Except Guinness’s barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half bydesign.

He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Nowif you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn’t. Chance.We’ll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Mademe feel so young.

Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone.Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. Iwon’t go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes amoment. Won’t sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Batagain. No harm in him. Just a few.

O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made medo love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bedmet him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hairheave under embon _señorita_ young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvanWinkle red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tailend Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers returnnext in her next her next.

A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloomwith open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Justfor a few

 Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo.

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed where CanonO’Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. weretaking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsupand talking about

 Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo.

Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house totell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was therebecause she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was GertyMacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that wassitting on the rocks looking was

 Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo.

[ 14 ]

Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Sendus bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send usbright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!

Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptiveconcerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably bymortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of thatwhich the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that inthem high mind’s ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintainwhen by general consent they affirm that other circ*mstances beingequal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation moreefficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may haveprogressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferentcontinuance which of evils the original if it be absent whenfortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollentnature’s incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of somesignificance has apprehended but is conscious that that exteriorsplendour may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality oron the contrary anyone so is there unilluminated as not to perceivethat as no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase soit behoves every most just citizen to become the exhortator andadmonisher of his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the pastbeen by the nation excellently commenced might be in the future notwith similar excellence accomplished if an inverecund habit shall havegradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs tothat thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively whowould have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offencecan for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangelsimultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecyof abundance or with diminution’s menace that exalted of reiteratedlyprocreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?

It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historiansrelate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its natureadmirable admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured.Not to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves,their greatest doctors, the O’Shiels, the O’Hickeys, the O’Lees, havesedulously set down the divers methods by which the sick and therelapsed found again health whether the malady had been the tremblingwithering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public workwhich in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be withimportance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted(whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of experience itis difficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequentinquirers are not up to the present congrued to render manifest)whereby maternity was so far from all accident possibility removed thatwhatever care the patient in that allhardest of woman hour chieflyrequired and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her whonot being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcelycould subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument wasprovided.

To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to bemolestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferentmothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had receivedeternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when thecase was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carryingdesire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to bereceived into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely inbeing seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised thatthey her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenlyto be about to be cherished had been begun she felt!

Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever inthat one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attendedwith wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as thoughforthbringing were now done and by wise foresight set: but to this noless of what drugs there is need and surgical implements which arepertaining to her case not omitting aspect of all very distractingspectacles in various latitudes by our terrestrial orb offered togetherwith images, divine and human, the cogitation of which by sejunctfemales is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the high sunbrightwellbuilt fair home of mothers when, ostensibly far gone andreproductitive, it is come by her thereto to lie in, her term up.

Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night’s oncoming. OfIsrael’s folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Starkruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house.

Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teemingmothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns haleso God’s angel to Mary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sistersin ward sleepless. Smarts they still, sickness soothing: in twelvemoons thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horneholding wariest ward.

In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft risingwith swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leapinglightens in eyeblink Ireland’s westward welkin. Full she drad that Godthe Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins.Christ’s rood made she on breastbone and him drew that he would ratheinfare under her thatch. That man her will wotting worthful went inHorne’s house.

Loth to irk in Horne’s hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stowhe ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then overland and seafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her intownhithe meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now hecraved with good ground of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face,hers, so young then had looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom ofblushes his word winning.

As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Gladafter she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O’Hare Doctortidings sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answeredthat O’Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hearthat him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruingdeath for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God’s rightwiseness towithsay. She said that he had a fair sweet death through God Hisgoodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men’s oilto his limbs. The man then right earnest asked the nun of which deaththe dead man was died and the nun answered him and said that he wasdied in Mona Island through bellycrab three year agone come Childermasand she prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in hisundeathliness. He heard her sad words, in held hat sad staring. Sostood they there both awhile in wanhope sorrowing one with other.

Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and thedust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he camenaked forth from his mother’s womb so naked shall he wend him at thelast for to go as he came.

The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwomanand he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there inchildbed. The nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was inthroes now full three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth tobear but that now in a little it would be. She said thereto that shehad seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was thatwoman’s birth. Then she set it all forth to him for because she knewthe man that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened toher words for he felt with wonder women’s woe in the travail that theyhave of motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fairface for any man to see but yet was she left after long years ahandmaid. Nine twelve bloodflows chiding her childless.

And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and therenighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And therecame against the place as they stood a young learningknight ycleptDixon. And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happedthat they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord wherethis learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to behealed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith ahorrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make asalve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And hesaid now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry withthem that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should gootherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the ladywas of his avis and repreved the learningknight though she trowed wellthat the traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. Butthe learningknight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement ne havehim in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was amarvellous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle forto rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marchesenvironing in divers lands and sometime venery.

And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandyand it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst notmove more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords andknives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of whiteflames that they fix then in the horns of buffalos and stags that thereabound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magicof Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath thathe blases in to them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich wason the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And therewas a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which laystrange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this bepossible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And thesefishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because ofthe fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. Andalso it was a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make acompost out of fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid ofcertain angry spirits that they do in to it swells up wondrously liketo a vast mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwinethemselves up on long sticks out of the ground and of the scales ofthese serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead.

And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halpthereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childeLeopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhatin amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by andanon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass andhis neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castlewith them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God.

This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them atthe reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailingfor there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose timehied fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wonderedwhat cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he,that it be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was wareand saw a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that wasolder than any of the tother and for that they both were knightsvirtuous in the one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoketo him full gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bringforth by God His bounty and have joy of her childing for she hathwaited marvellous long. And the franklin that had drunken said,Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took the cup that stoodtofore him for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him todrink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably, and he quaffed as faras he might to their both’s health for he was a passing good man of hislustiness. And sir Leopold that was the goodliest guest that ever satin scholars’ hall and that was the meekest man and the kindest thatever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was the very truest knightof the world one that ever did minion service to lady gentle pledgedhim courtly in the cup. Woman’s woe with wonder pondering.

Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to bedrunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either sidethe board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint MaryMerciable’s with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars ofmedicine, and the franklin that hight Lenehan and one from Alba Longa,one Crotthers, and young Stephen that had mien of a frere that was athead of the board and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello all longof a mastery of him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved youngStephen, he was the most drunken that demanded still of more mead) andbeside the meek sir Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for thathe promised to have come and such as intended to no goodness said howhe had broke his avow. And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fastfriendship to sir Simon and to this his son young Stephen and for thathis languor becalmed him there after longest wanderings insomuch asthey feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner. Ruth redhim, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.

For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns eachgen other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintainingthat put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallenout a matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne’s housethat now was trespassed out of this world and the self night nextbefore her death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of hercase). And they said farther she should live because in the beginning,they said, the woman should bring forth in pain and wherefore they thatwere of this imagination affirmed how young Madden had said truth forhe had conscience to let her die. And not few and of these was youngLynch were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as itwas never other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but thelaw nor his judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This wasscant said but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother,the wife should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxedhot upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking butthe franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that atthe least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all thewhole affair and said how that she was dead and how for holy religionsake by rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to SaintUltan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death wherebythey were all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these wordsfollowing: Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe andparent now glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other inpurgefire. But, gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that wenightly impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, VeryGod, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. Weare means to those small creatures within us and nature has other endsthan we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends.But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him wasthat he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid orleman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead.Whereat Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi’s praise of thatbeast the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, theother all this while, pricked forward with their jibes wherewith theydid malice him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus hisengines that he was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man todo. Thereat laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sirLeopold which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humourwhich he would not bewray and also for that he rued for her that barewhoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous ofmother Church that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons,of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds ofbrightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgiliussaith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower oran she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectusecuto_, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions ofAverroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how at the end of thesecond month a human soul was infused and how in all our holy motherfoldeth ever souls for God’s greater glory whereas that earthly motherwhich was but a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith hethat holdeth the fisherman’s seal, even that blessed Peter on whichrock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors thenasked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person asrisk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fittedall and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, thatas it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might alayman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen anaccident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blow hadbirth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped theirquestions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnantword. Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man and heaverred that he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for hewas of a wild manner when he was drunken and that he was now in thattaking it appeared eftsoons.

But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still hadpity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour andas he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an onlymanchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of artcould save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heartfor that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet oflamb’s wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly andlie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now sirLeopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon himhis friend’s son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happinessand as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (forall accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measurefor young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels andmurdered his goods with whor*s.

About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood emptyso as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowedtheir approach from him that still plied it very busily who, prayingfor the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledgethe vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drinkwe, quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeedparcel of my body but my soul’s bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread tothem that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want forthis will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And heshowed them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes theworth of two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a songwhich he writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in suchdearth of money as was herebefore. His words were then these asfolloweth: Know all men, he said, time’s ruins build eternity’smansions. What means this? Desire’s wind blasts the thorntree but afterit becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Markme now. In woman’s womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of themaker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away.This is the postcreation. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. No question buther name is puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer,Healer and Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable andBernardus saith aptly that She hath an _omnipotentiam deiparaesupplicem_, that is to wit, an almightiness of petition because she isthe second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other,our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis ofnavelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin.But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and wasbut creature of her creature, _vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio_, orshe knew him not and then stands she in the one denial or ignorancywith Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and withJoseph the joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages,_parceque M. Léo Taxil nous a dit que qui l’avait mise dans cettefichue position c’était le sacré pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder_transubstantiality _oder_ consubstantiality but in no casesubsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. Apregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body withoutblemish, a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervourworship. With will will we withstand, withsay.

Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and wouldsing a bawdy catch _Staboo Stabella_ about a wench that was put in podof a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack:_The first three months she was not well, Staboo,_ when here nurseQuigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor wasit not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have allorderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that nogasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was anancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, inhabit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did herhortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was ofthem all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudenesssome and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they allchode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at,thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thouchitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou,to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, thegood sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet,margerain gentle, advising also the time’s occasion as most sacred andmost worthy to be most sacred. In Horne’s house rest should reign.

To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary inEccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why hehad not cided to take friar’s vows and he answered him obedience in thewomb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. MasterLenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deedsand how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtueof a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they allintershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But hesaid very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he wasthe eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the moreand they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobingand deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island,she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain,with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyriesand the anthem _Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium_ till she wasthere unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by thosedelicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that isin their _Maid’s Tragedy_ that was writ for a like twining of lovers:_To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanableconcent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of mostmollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferousflambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal prosceniumof connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed,but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecherfor, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephensaid indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy betweenthem and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous forlife ran very high in those days and the custom of the country approvedwith it. Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man laydown his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or wordsto that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of Frenchletters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man towhom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower itwill go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. _Orate, fratres,pro memetipso_. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thygenerations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and bymy word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornicationin my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thousinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave ofservants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Whyhast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me fora merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indianof dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forthnow, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Neboand from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing withmilk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moonand my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone forever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hastthou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded tosay, hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so muchas mentioned for the Orient from on high which brake hell’s gatesvisited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minoratesatrocities (as Tully saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his fathershoweth the prince no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noonof life is an Egypt’s plague which in the nights of prenativity andpostmortemity is their most proper _ubi_ and _quomodo_. And as the endsand ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure with theirinceptions and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leadsforth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosisthat minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable untonature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us intolife: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: overus dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, amongbulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of amountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcatand the ossifrage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus norto what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet orto Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward seefrom what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetchedhis whenceness.

Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly _Etienne chanson_ but heloudly bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vastmajestic longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, allin applepie order, a penny for him who finds the pea.

 Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack See the malt stored in many a refluent sack, In the proud cirque of Jackjohn’s bivouac.

A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud onleft Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now thestorm that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care toflout and witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate andpaganry. And he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan asthey might all mark and shrank together and his pitch that was beforeso haught uplift was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heartshook within the cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of thatstorm. Then did some mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hardagain to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and hewas indeed but a word and a blow on any the least colour. But thebraggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in his cups it wasmuchwhat indifferent and he would not lag behind his lead. But this wasonly to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne’s hall. Hedrank indeed at one draught to pluck up a heart of any grace for itthundered long rumblingly over all the heavens so that Master Madden,being godly certain whiles, knocked him on his ribs upon that crack ofdoom and Master Bloom, at the braggart’s side, spoke to him calmingwords to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thingbut a hubbub noise that he heard, the discharge of fluid from thethunderhead, look you, having taken place, and all of the order of anatural phenomenon.

But was young Boasthard’s fear vanquished by Calmer’s words? No, for hehad in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words bedone away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like theother? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. Butcould he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth thebottle Holiness that then he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was notthere to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of thegod Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard?Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up the tubeUnderstanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he sawthat he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain oneday die as he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he notaccept to die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he thoughhe must nor would he make more shows according as men do with wiveswhich Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wottedhe nought of that other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is theland of promise which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be forever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving nor motheringat which all shall come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had toldhim of that land and Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reasonwas that in the way he fell in with a certain whor* of an eyepleasingexterior whose name, she said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled himwrongways from the true path by her flatteries that she said to him as,Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither and I will show you a braveplace, and she lay at him so flatteringly that she had him in her grotwhich is named Two-in-the-Bush or, by some learned, CarnalConcupiscence.

This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse ofMothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whor*Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and awicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her andknow her. For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else butnotion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first,Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot andin it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these wordsprinted on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek byJowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters theycared not for them for Preservative had given them a stout shield ofoxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspringthat was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which wasnamed Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and MrSometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon,Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company,were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in avery grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and spilltheir souls for their abuses and their spillings done by themcontrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth.

So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy andafter hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water afifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won’t sprout, fieldsathirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too.Hard to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed withoutsprinkle this long while back as no man remembered to be without. Therosy buds all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the hills noughtbut dry flag and woodcuts at would catch at first fire. All the worldsaying, for aught they knew, the big wind of last February a year thatdid havoc the land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness.But by and by, as said, this evening after sundown, the wind sitting inthe west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased andthe weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at firstand after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunderand in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for thesmoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout orkerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as thepour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke’s lawn, thence throughMerrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that wasbefore bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but nomore crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr JusticeFitzgibbon’s door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon thecollege lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman’s gentleman that had but comefrom Mr Moore’s the writer’s (that was a papish but is now, folk say, agood Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which arenow in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town fromMullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M’s brother will stay amonth yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there,he bound home and he to Andrew Horne’s being stayed for to crush a cupof wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big ofher age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain andso both together on to Horne’s. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford’s journalsitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixonjun., scholar of my lady of Mercy’s, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will.Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D.Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, he havingdreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slipperson in a pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to befor a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleadingher belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term,the midwives sore put to it and can’t deliver, she queasy for a bowl ofriceslop that is a shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath veryheavy more than good and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, theysay, but God give her soon issue. ’Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear,and Lady day bit off her last chick’s nails that was then a twelvemonthand with other three all breastfed that died written out in a fair handin the king’s bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes thesacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boysoff Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or ina punt he has trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag,I hear. In sum an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed andwill much increase the harvest yet those in ken say after wind andwater fire shall come for a prognostication of Malachi’s almanac (and Ihear that Mr Russell has done a prophetical charm of the same gist outof the Hindustanish for his farmer’s gazette) to have three things inall but this a mere fetch without bottom of reason for old crones andbairns yet sometimes they are found in the right guess with theirqueerities no telling how.

With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how theletter was in that night’s gazette and he made a show to find it abouthim (for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) buton Stephen’s persuasion he gave over the search and was bidden to sitnear by which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentlemanthat went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged ofwomen, horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth hewas mean in fortunes and for the most part hankered about thecoffeehouses and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul’s men,runners, flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other roguesof the game or with a chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often atnights till broad day of whom he picked up between his sackpossets muchloose gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook’s and if he had butgotten into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with abare tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with histongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that everymother’s son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello thatis, hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, hesays, Frank (that was his name), ’tis all about Kerry cows that are tobe butchered along of the plague. But they can go hang, says he with awink, for me with their bully beef, a pox on it. There’s as good fishin this tin as ever came out of it and very friendly he offered to takeof some salty sprats that stood by which he had eyed wishly in themeantime and found the place which was indeed the chief design of hisembassy as he was sharpset. _Mort aux vaches_, says Frank then in theFrench language that had been indentured to a brandyshipper that has awinelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like a gentleman too. From achild this Frank had been a donought that his father, a headborough,who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the use ofthe globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics buthe took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiarwith the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. Onetime he would be a playactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then noughtwould keep him from the bearpit and the co*cking main, then he was forthe ocean sea or to hoof it on the roads with the romany folk,kidnapping a squire’s heir by favour of moonlight or f*cking maids’linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He had been off as many timesas a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets as many more tohis father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as he sawhim. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands across, that was earnest toknow the drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest I saw them butthis day morning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can scarcebelieve ’tis so bad, says he. And he had experience of the like broodbeasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wool, having beensome years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmasterthat drove his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by MrGavin Low’s yard in Prussia street. I question with you there, says he.More like ’tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr Stephen, a littlemoved but very handsomely told him no such matter and that he haddispatches from the emperor’s chief tailtickler thanking him for thehospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the bestquotedcowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to take thebull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. He’llfind himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a bull that’sIrish, says he. Irish by name and irish by nature, says Mr Stephen, andhe sent the ale purling about, an Irish bull in an English chinashop. Iconceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was sent to ourisland by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreeder of them all, withan emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent cross thetable, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper and aportlier bull, says he, never sh*t on shamrock. He had horns galore, acoat of cloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of hisnostrils so that the women of our island, leaving doughballs androllingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains.What for that, says Mr Dixon, but before he came over farmer Nicholasthat was a eunuch had him properly gelded by a college of doctors whowere no better off than himself. So be off now, says he, and do all mycousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer’s blessing,and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap andthe blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up hetaught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbessand widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of themonth whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on thenape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping youngravisher in the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in hisword: And they dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoatwith a tippet and girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped hisforelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stablesfor him at every turn of the road with a gold manger in each full ofthe best hay in the market so that he could doss and dung to hisheart’s content. By this time the father of the faithful (for so theycalled him) was grown so heavy that he could scarce walk to pasture. Toremedy which our cozening dames and damsels brought him his fodder intheir apronlaps and as soon as his belly was full he would rear up onhis hind quarters to show their ladyships a mystery and roar and bellowout of him in bulls’ language and they all after him. Ay, says another,and so pampered was he that he would suffer nought to grow in all theland but green grass for himself (for that was the only colour to hismind) and there was a board put up on a hillock in the middle of theisland with a printed notice, saying: By the Lord Harry, Green is thegrass that grows on the ground. And, says Mr Dixon, if ever he gotscent of a cattleraider in Roscommon or the wilds of Connemara or ahusbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much as a handful of mustard ora bag of rapeseed out he’d run amok over half the countryside rootingup with his horns whatever was planted and all by lord Harry’s orders.There was bad blood between them at first, says Mr Vincent, and thelord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks in the world and anold whor*master that kept seven trulls in his house and I’ll meddle inhis matters, says he. I’ll make that animal smell hell, says he, withthe help of that good pizzle my father left me. But one evening, saysMr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to go todinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for himself but thefirst rule of the course was that the others were to row withpitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull andon picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry hefound sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famouschampion bull of the Romans, _Bos Bovum_, which is good bog Latin forboss of the show. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put hishead into a cow’s drinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiersand pulling it out again told them all his new name. Then, with thewater running off him, he got into an old smock and skirt that hadbelonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the bulls’ languageto study but he could never learn a word of it except the firstpersonal pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and ifever he went out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to writeit upon what took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table ora bale of cotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Irelandwere soon as fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says MrStephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help wastoward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft,loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set allmasts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spreadthree sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighedanchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three timesthree, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to seato recover the main of America. Which was the occasion, says MrVincent, of the composing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty:

_—Pope Peter’s but a pissabed.

A man’s a man for a’ that._

Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorwayas the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friendwhom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon,who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or acornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civilenough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with aproject of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touchedon. Whereat he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cardswhich he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell’s bearing a legendprinted in fair italics: _Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser andIncubator. Lambay Island_. His project, as he went on to expound, wasto withdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chiefbusiness of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town andto devote himself to the noblest task for which our bodily organism hasbeen framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. Imake no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both. ’Tis ascheap sitting as standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation and,expatiating upon his design, told his hearers that he had been led intothis thought by a consideration of the causes of sterility, both theinhibitory and the prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn weredue to conjugal vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well aswhether the prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or fromproclivities acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see thenuptial couch defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon somany agreeable females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilestbonzes, who hide their flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenialcloister or lose their womanly bloom in the embraces of someunaccountable muskin when they might multiply the inlets of happiness,sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when a hundred prettyfellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made his heartweep. To curb this inconvenient (which he concluded due to asuppression of latent heat), having advised with certain counsellors ofworth and inspected into this matter, he had resolved to purchase infee simple for ever the freehold of Lambay island from its holder, lordTalbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of note much in favour with ourascendancy party. He proposed to set up there a national fertilisingfarm to be named _Omphalos_ with an obelisk hewn and erected after thefashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful yeoman services for thefecundation of any female of what grade of life soever who should theredirect to him with the desire of fulfilling the functions of hernatural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he take a penny forhis pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the opulent lady offashion, if so be their constructions and their tempers were warmpersuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man. For hisnutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a dietof savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of theselatter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, bothbroiled and stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicumchillies. After this homily which he delivered with much warmth ofasseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchiefwith which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtakenby the rain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, asmight be observed by Mr Mulligan’s smallclothes of a hodden grey whichwas now somewhat piebald. His project meanwhile was very favourablyentertained by his auditors and won hearty eulogies from all though MrDixon of Mary’s excepted to it, asking with a finicking air did hepurpose also to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan however madecourt to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics which, asit dwelt upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful support ofhis contention: _Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, utmatresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libicititillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibuscenturionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt_, while for those of ruderwit he drove home his point by analogies of the animal kingdom moresuitable to their stomach, the buck and doe of the forest glade, thefarmyard drake and duck.

Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a properman of person, this talkative now applied himself to his dress withanimadversions of some heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmosphericswhile the company lavished their encomiums upon the project he hadadvanced. The young gentleman, his friend, overjoyed as he was at apassage that had late befallen him, could not forbear to tell it hisnearest neighbour. Mr Mulligan, now perceiving the table, asked forwhom were those loaves and fishes and, seeing the stranger, he made hima civil bow and said, Pray, sir, was you in need of any professionalassistance we could give? Who, upon his offer, thanked him veryheartily, though preserving his proper distance, and replied that hewas come there about a lady, now an inmate of Horne’s house, that wasin an interesting condition, poor body, from woman’s woe (and here hefetched a deep sigh) to know if her happiness had yet taken place. MrDixon, to turn the table, took on to ask of Mr Mulligan himself whetherhis incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied him, betokened anovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb or was due,as with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in thestomach. For answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls,smote himself bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirabledroll mimic of Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sexthough ’tis pity she’s a trollop): There’s a belly that never bore abastard. This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirthand threw the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight.The spry rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for somelarum in the antechamber.

Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a littlefume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashionwith the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salientpoint, having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have theobligingness to pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time bya questioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding hadnot achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an equivalent butcontrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as wasever done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it. _Mais biensûr_, noble stranger, said he cheerily, _et mille compliments_. Thatyou may and very opportunely. There wanted nothing but this cup tocrown my felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but a crust inmy wallet and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would acceptof them and find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and givethanks to the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giverof good things. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips,took a complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, openinghis bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that verypicture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein.Gazing upon those features with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, hesaid, had you but beheld her as I did with these eyes at that affectinginstant with her dainty tucker and her new coquette cap (a gift for herfeastday as she told me prettily) in such an artless disorder, of somelting a tenderness, ’pon my conscience, even you, Monsieur, had beenimpelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the handsof such an enemy or to quit the field for ever. I declare, I was neverso touched in all my life. God, I thank thee, as the Author of my days!Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature will bless with herfavours. A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these words and, havingreplaced the locket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again.Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how greatand universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold inthrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polishedcoxcomb, the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband ofmaturer years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingledand imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed inanguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to take mycloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had pouredseven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me,he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new dayand, thousand thunders, I know of a _marchand de capotes_, MonsieurPoyntz, from whom I can have for a _livre_ as snug a cloak of theFrench fashion as ever kept a lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries LeFécondateur, tripping in, my friend Monsieur Moore, that mostaccomplished traveller (I have just cracked a half bottle _avec lui_ ina circle of the best wits of the town), is my authority that in CapeHorn, _ventre biche_, they have a rain that will wet through any, eventhe stoutest cloak. A drenching of that violence, he tells me, _sansblague_, has sent more than one luckless fellow in good earnestposthaste to another world. Pooh! A _livre!_ cries Monsieur Lynch. Theclumsy things are dear at a sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than afairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. No woman of any wit wouldwear one. My dear Kitty told me today that she would dance in a delugebefore ever she would starve in such an ark of salvation for, as shereminded me (blushing piquantly and whispering in my ear though therewas none to snap her words but giddy butterflies), dame Nature, by thedivine blessing, has implanted it in our hearts and it has become ahousehold word that _il y a deux choses_ for which the innocence of ouroriginal garb, in other circ*mstances a breach of the proprieties, isthe fittest, nay, the only garment. The first, said she (and here mypretty philosopher, as I handed her to her tilbury, to fix myattention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer chamber of my ear),the first is a bath... But at this point a bell tinkling in the hallcut short a discourse which promised so bravely for the enrichment ofour store of knowledge.

Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, whileall were conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and,having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired witha profound bow to the company. The presence even for a moment among aparty of debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty andnot less severe than beautiful refrained the humourous sallies even ofthe most licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak ofribaldry. Strike me silly, said Costello, a low fellow who was fuddled.A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! I’ll be sworn she has rendezvousedyou. What, you dog? Have you a way with them? Gad’s bud, immensely so,said Mr Lynch. The bedside manner it is that they use in the Materhospice. Demme, does not Doctor O’Gargle chuck the nuns there under thechin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has beenwardmaid there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, criedthe young blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper andwith immodest squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat theman! Bless me, I’m all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you’re as bad as dearlittle Father Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four halfchoke me, cried Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows a ladywhat’s got a white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. The youngsurgeon, however, rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat asthe nurse had just then informed him that he was needed in the ward.Merciful providence had been pleased to put a period to the sufferingsof the lady who was _enceinte_ which she had borne with a laudablefortitude and she had given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience,said he, with those who, without wit to enliven or learning toinstruct, revile an ennobling profession which, saving the reverencedue to the Deity, is the greatest power for happiness upon the earth. Iam positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud ofwitnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so farfrom being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the humanbreast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiableMiss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment ofours? And at an instant the most momentous that can befall a puny childof clay? Perish the thought! I shudder to think of the future of a racewhere the seeds of such malice have been sown and where no rightreverence is rendered to mother and maid in house of Horne. Havingdelivered himself of this rebuke he saluted those present on the by andrepaired to the door. A murmur of approval arose from all and some werefor ejecting the low soaker without more ado, a design which would havebeen effected nor would he have received more than his bare deserts hadhe not abridged his transgression by affirming with a horridimprecation (for he swore a round hand) that he was as good a son ofthe true fold as ever drew breath. Stap my vitals, said he, them wasalways the sentiments of honest Frank Costello which I was bred up mostparticular to honour thy father and thy mother that had the best handto a rolypoly or a hasty pudding as you ever see what I always looksback on with a loving heart.

To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious ofsome impudent mocks which he however had borne with as being the fruitsof that age upon which it is commonly charged that it knows not pity.The young sparks, it is true, were as full of extravagancies asovergrown children: the words of their tumultuary discussions weredifficultly understood and not often nice: their testiness andoutrageous _mots_ were such that his intellects resiled from: nor werethey scrupulously sensible of the proprieties though their fund ofstrong animal spirits spoke in their behalf. But the word of MrCostello was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretchthat seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, bornout of wedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first intothe world, which the dint of the surgeon’s pliers in his skull lentindeed a colour to, so as to put him in thought of that missing link ofcreation’s chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It wasnow for more than the middle span of our allotted years that he hadpassed through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, being of awary ascendancy and self a man of rare forecast, he had enjoined hisheart to repress all motions of a rising choler and, by interceptingthem with the readiest precaution, foster within his breast thatplenitude of sufferance which base minds jeer at, rash judgers scornand all find tolerable and but tolerable. To those who createthemselves wits at the cost of feminine delicacy (a habit of mind whichhe never did hold with) to them he would concede neither to bear thename nor to herit the tradition of a proper breeding: while for suchthat, having lost all forbearance, can lose no more, there remained thesharp antidote of experience to cause their insolency to beat aprecipitate and inglorious retreat. Not but what he could feel withmettlesome youth which, caring nought for the mows of dotards or thegruntlings of the severe, is ever (as the chaste fancy of the HolyWriter expresses it) for eating of the tree forbid it yet not so farforth as to pretermit humanity upon any condition soever towards agentlewoman when she was about her lawful occasions. To conclude, whilefrom the sister’s words he had reckoned upon a speedy delivery he was,however, it must be owned, not a little alleviated by the intelligencethat the issue so auspicated after an ordeal of such duress nowtestified once more to the mercy as well as to the bounty of theSupreme Being.

Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to expresshis notion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance toexpress one) was that one must have a cold constitution and a frigidgenius not to be rejoiced by this freshest news of the fruition of herconfinement since she had been in such pain through no fault of hers.The dressy young blade said it was her husband’s that put her in thatexpectation or at least it ought to be unless she were another Ephesianmatron. I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the tableso as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurumwas round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferringthrough his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as hecalls her. I bade him hold himself in readiness for that the eventwould burst anon. ’Slife, I’ll be round with you. I cannot but extolthe virile potency of the old bucko that could still knock anotherchild out of her. All fell to praising of it, each after his ownfashion, though the same young blade held with his former view thatanother than her conjugial had been the man in the gap, a clerk inorders, a linkboy (virtuous) or an itinerant vendor of articles neededin every household. Singular, communed the guest with himself, thewonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them, thatthe puerperal dormitory and the dissecting theatre should be theseminaries of such frivolity, that the mere acquisition of academictitles should suffice to transform in a pinch of time these votaries oflevity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywiseeminent have esteemed the noblest. But, he further added, it is mayhapto relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for I havemore than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together.

But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron,has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admittedto civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our internalpolity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should havecounselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporaryadvantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize thatmoment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he is atenant at will while he trembled for the security of his four percents? Has he forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or isit that from being a deluder of others he has become at last his owndupe as he is, if report belie him not, his own and his only enjoyer?Far be it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a respectable lady,the daughter of a gallant major, or to cast the most distantreflections upon her virtue but if he challenges attention there (as itwas indeed highly his interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappywoman, she has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimateprerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feeling thanthe derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a verypelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties ofnature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawnfrom the lowest strata of society! Nay, had the hussy’s scouringbrushnot been her tutelary angel, it had gone with her as hard as withHagar, the Egyptian! In the question of the grazing lands his peevishasperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe’s hearing brought upon him froman indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in terms asstraightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him to preach thatgospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for thewant of the ploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is secondnature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must dispense his balmof Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste to restore tohealth a generation of unfledged profligates let his practice consistbetter with the doctrines that now engross him. His marital breast isthe repository of secrets which decorum is reluctant to adduce. Thelewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for a consortneglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and healer ofills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in its nativeorient, throve and flourished and was abundant in balm but,transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have lost theirquondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is stagnant,acid and inoperative.

The news was imparted with a circ*mspection recalling the ceremonialusage of the Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to thejunior medical officer in residence, who in his turn announced to thedelegation that an heir had been born. When he had betaken himself tothe women’s apartment to assist at the prescribed ceremony of theafterbirth in the presence of the secretary of state for domesticaffairs and the members of the privy council, silent in unanimousexhaustion and approbation the delegates, chafing under the length andsolemnity of their vigil and hoping that the joyful occurrence wouldpalliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail andobstetrician rendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife oftongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouringto urge, to mollify, to refrain. The moment was too propitious for thedisplay of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of unionamong tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation wassuccessively eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers,the Caesarean section, posthumity with respect to the father and, thatrarer form, with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known asthe Childs Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of MrAdvocate Bushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused,the rights of primogeniture and king’s bounty touching twins andtriplets, miscarriages and infanticides, simulated or dissimulated, theacardiac _foetus in foetu_ and aprosopia due to a congestion, theagnathia of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan)in consequence of defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along themedial line so that (as he said) one ear could hear what the otherspoke, the benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, the prolongationof labour pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure on thevein, the premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified inthe actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix,artificial insemination by means of syringes, involution of the wombconsequent upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of thespecies in the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, thatdistressing manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers_Sturzgeburt,_ the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled andmonstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or ofconsanguineous parents—in a word all the cases of human nativity whichAristotle has classified in his masterpiece with chromolithographicillustrations. The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicinewere examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on thestate of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to stepover a countrystile lest, by her movement, the navelcord shouldstrangle her creature and the injunction upon her in the event of ayearning, ardently and ineffectually entertained, to place her handagainst that part of her person which long usage has consecrated as theseat of castigation. The abnormalities of harelip, breastmole,supernumerary digits, negro’s inkle, strawberry mark and portwine stainwere alleged by one as a _prima facie_ and natural hypotheticalexplanation of those swineheaded (the case of Madame Grissel Steevenswas not forgotten) or doghaired infants occasionally born. Thehypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced by the Caledonian envoy andworthy of the metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for,envisaged in such cases an arrest of embryonic development at somestage antecedent to the human. An outlandish delegate sustained againstboth these views, with such heat as almost carried conviction, thetheory of copulation between women and the males of brutes, hisauthority being his own avouchment in support of fables such as that ofthe Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet has handed downto us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression made by hiswords was immediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily as it hadbeen evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein ofpleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, postulating asthe supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. Contemporaneously,a heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate Madden and MrCandidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological dilemma createdin the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other, the difficultyby mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom for instantsubmittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether thebetter to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of thegarb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward voice, hedelivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily theecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God hasjoined.

But Malachias’ tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured upthe scene before them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid backand in the recess appeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel hisflesh creep! He had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand,in the other a phial marked _Poison._ Surprise, horror, loathing weredepicted on all faces while he eyed them with a ghostly grin. Ianticipated some such reception, he began with an eldritch laugh, forwhich, it seems, history is to blame. Yes, it is true. I am themurderer of Samuel Childs. And how I am punished! The inferno has noterrors for me. This is the appearance is on me. Tare and ages, whatway would I be resting at all, he muttered thickly, and I trampingDublin this while back with my share of songs and himself after me thelike of a soulth or a bullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland’s, is in thislife. It is what I tried to obliterate my crime. Distractions,rookshooting, the Erse language (he recited some), laudanum (he raisedthe phial to his lips), camping out. In vain! His spectre stalks me.Dope is my only hope... Ah! Destruction! The black panther! With a cryhe suddenly vanished and the panel slid back. An instant later his headappeared in the door opposite and said: Meet me at Westland Row stationat ten past eleven. He was gone. Tears gushed from the eyes of thedissipated host. The seer raised his hand to heaven, murmuring: Thevendetta of Mananaun! The sage repeated: _Lex talionis_. Thesentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immensedebtorship for a thing done. Malachias, overcome by emotion, ceased.The mystery was unveiled. Haines was the third brother. His real namewas Childs. The black panther was himself the ghost of his own father.He drank drugs to obliterate. For this relief much thanks. The lonelyhouse by the graveyard is uninhabited. No soul will live there. Thespider pitches her web in the solitude. The nocturnal rat peers fromhis hole. A curse is on it. It is haunted. Murderer’s ground.

What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of thechameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with themerry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable asher mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewingthe cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of amodest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He isyoung Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirrorwithin a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figureof then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning fromthe old house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, his booksatchelon him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, amother’s thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, inhis first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, afullfledged traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook,a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of brighttrinketware (alas! a thing now of the past!) and a quiverful ofcompliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it outupon her fingertips or for a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (butthe heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile, but,more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address, brought home atduskfall many a commission to the head of the firm, seated with Jacob’spipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, youmay be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles somepaper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror isbreathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to atiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these abouthim might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his ownchild. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by thebonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a childof shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and herluckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as tworaincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly!He will never forget the name, ever remember the night: first night,the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willerwith the willed, and in an instant (_fiat!_) light shall flood theworld. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath ’twasdone but—hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl flees awaythrough the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of night.She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold. Name andmemory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength wastaken from thee—and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There isnone now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph.

The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is theinfinite of space: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted overregions of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where greytwilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields,shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows hermother with ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Twilightphantoms are they, yet moulded in prophetic grace of structure, slimshapely haunches, a supple tendonous neck, the meek apprehensive skull.They fade, sad phantoms: all is gone. Agendath is a waste land, a homeof screechowls and the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is no more.And on the highway of the clouds they come, muttering thunder ofrebellion, the ghosts of beasts. Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalksbehind and goads them, the lancinating lightnings of whose brow arescorpions. Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth andmastodon, they come trooping to the sunken sea, _Lacus Mortis_. Ominousrevengeful zodiacal host! They moan, passing upon the clouds, hornedand capricorned, the trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned, thegiantantlered, snouter and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, alltheir moving moaning multitude, murderers of the sun.

Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horriblegulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equineportent grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven’sown magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo,wonder of metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbingerof the daystar, the bride, ever virgin. It is she, Martha, thou lostone, Millicent, the young, the dear, the radiant. How serene does shenow arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucanhour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do youcall it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh andloose it streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained oncurrents of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simplyswirling, writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after amyriad metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangledsign upon the forehead of Taurus.

Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been atschool together in Conmee’s time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades,Pisistratus. Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of thepast and its phantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call theminto life across the waters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop tomy call? Who supposes it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriendingbard, am lord and giver of their life. He encircled his gadding hairwith a coronal of vineleaves, smiling at Vincent. That answer and thoseleaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitly when somethingmore, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call yourgenius father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire tosee you bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim youStephaneforos. I heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, VincentLenehan said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him. Have no fear. Hecould not leave his mother an orphan. The young man’s face grew dark.All could see how hard it was for him to be reminded of his promise andof his recent loss. He would have withdrawn from the feast had not thenoise of voices allayed the smart. Madden had lost five drachmas onSceptre for a whim of the rider’s name: Lenehan as much more. He toldthem of the race. The flag fell and, huuh! off, scamper, the mare ranout freshly with O. Madden up. She was leading the field. All heartswere beating. Even Phyllis could not contain herself. She waved herscarf and cried: Huzzah! Sceptre wins! But in the straight on the runhome when all were in close order the dark horse Throwaway drew level,reached, outstripped her. All was lost now. Phyllis was silent: hereyes were sad anemones. Juno, she cried, I am undone. But her loverconsoled her and brought her a bright casket of gold in which lay someoval sugarplums which she partook. A tear fell: one only. A whackingfine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. Four winners yesterday and threetoday. What rider is like him? Mount him on the camel or the boisterousbuffalo the victory in a hack canter is still his. But let us bear itas was the ancient wont. Mercy on the luckless! Poor Sceptre! he saidwith a light sigh. She is not the filly that she was. Never, by thishand, shall we behold such another. By gad, sir, a queen of them. Doyou remember her, Vincent? I wish you could have seen my queen today,Vincent said. How young she was and radiant (Lalage were scarce fairbeside her) in her yellow shoes and frock of muslin, I do not know theright name of it. The chestnuts that shaded us were in bloom: the airdrooped with their persuasive odour and with pollen floating by us. Inthe sunny patches one might easily have cooked on a stone a batch ofthose buns with Corinth fruit in them that Periplipomenes sells in hisbooth near the bridge. But she had nought for her teeth but the armwith which I held her and in that she nibbled mischievously when Ipressed too close. A week ago she lay ill, four days on the couch, buttoday she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. She is more taking then.Her posies too! Mad romp that she is, she had pulled her fill as wereclined together. And in your ear, my friend, you will not think whomet us as we left the field. Conmee himself! He was walking by thehedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, a wittyletter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. The sweet creatureturned all colours in her confusion, feigning to reprove a slightdisorder in her dress: a slip of underwood clung there for the verytrees adore her. When Conmee had passed she glanced at her lovely echoin that little mirror she carries. But he had been kind. In going by hehad blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said. If I had poorluck with Bass’s mare perhaps this draught of his may serve me morepropensely. He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it andwithheld his act, pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label.Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is faraway. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to beborn. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to theincorruptible eon of the gods. Do you not think it, Stephen? Theosophostold me so, Stephen answered, whom in a previous existence Egyptianpriests initiated into the mysteries of karmic law. The lords of themoon, Theosophos told me, an orangefiery shipload from planet Alpha ofthe lunar chain would not assume the etheric doubles and these weretherefore incarnated by the rubycoloured egos from the secondconstellation.

However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about himbeing in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised whichwas entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, wasnot the case at all. The individual whose visual organs while the abovewas going on were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms ofanimation was as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybodythat conjectured the contrary would have found themselves prettyspeedily in the wrong shop. During the past four minutes or thereaboutshe had been staring hard at a certain amount of number one Bass bottledby Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent which happened to be situatedamongst a lot of others right opposite to where he was and which wascertainly calculated to attract anyone’s remark on account of itsscarlet appearance. He was simply and solely, as it subsequentlytranspired for reasons best known to himself, which put quite analtogether different complexion on the proceedings, after the momentbefore’s observations about boyhood days and the turf, recollecting twoor three private transactions of his own which the other two were asmutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however, boththeir eyes met and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the otherwas endeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarilydetermined to help him himself and so he accordingly took hold of theneck of the mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluidsought after and made a capacious hole in it by pouring a lot of it outwith, also at the same time, however, a considerable degree ofattentiveness in order not to upset any of the beer that was in itabout the place.

The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of thecourse of life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. Thedebaters were the keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged onthe loftiest and most vital. The high hall of Horne’s house had neverbeheld an assembly so representative and so varied nor had the oldrafters of that establishment ever listened to a language soencyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made. Crotthers was there atthe foot of the table in his striking Highland garb, his face glowingfrom the briny airs of the Mull of Galloway. There too, opposite tohim, was Lynch whose countenance bore already the stigmata of earlydepravity and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the placeassigned to Costello, the eccentric, while at his side was seated instolid repose the squat form of Madden. The chair of the residentindeed stood vacant before the hearth but on either flank of it thefigure of Bannon in explorer’s kit of tweed shorts and salted cowhidebrogues contrasted sharply with the primrose elegance and townbredmanners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of theboard was the young poet who found a refuge from his labours ofpedagogy and metaphysical inquisition in the convivial atmosphere ofSocratic discussion, while to right and left of him were accommodatedthe flippant prognosticator, fresh from the hippodrome, and thatvigilant wanderer, soiled by the dust of travel and combat and stainedby the mire of an indelible dishonour, but from whose steadfast andconstant heart no lure or peril or threat or degradation could everefface the image of that voluptuous loveliness which the inspiredpencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come.

It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the pervertedtranscendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div. Scep.) contentionswould appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counterto accepted scientific methods. Science, it cannot be too oftenrepeated, deals with tangible phenomena. The man of science like theman in the street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinkedand explain them as best he can. There may be, it is true, somequestions which science cannot answer—at present—such as the firstproblem submitted by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the futuredetermination of sex. Must we accept the view of Empedocles ofTrinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assertothers) is responsible for the birth of males or are the too longneglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or isit, as most embryologists incline to opine, such as Culpepper,Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, Leopold and Valenti, a mixtureof both? This would be tantamount to a cooperation (one of nature’sfavourite devices) between the _nisus formativus_ of the nemasperm onthe one hand and on the other a happily chosen position, _succubitusfelix_, of the passive element. The other problem raised by the sameinquirer is scarcely less vital: infant mortality. It is interestingbecause, as he pertinently remarks, we are all born in the same way butwe all die in different ways. Mr M. Mulligan (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) blamesthe sanitary conditions in which our greylunged citizens contractadenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. by inhaling the bacteria which lurkin dust. These factors, he alleged, and the revolting spectaclesoffered by our streets, hideous publicity posters, religious ministersof all denominations, mutilated soldiers and sailors, exposed scorbuticcardrivers, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic bachelorsand unfructified duennas—these, he said, were accountable for any andevery fallingoff in the calibre of the race. Kalipedia, he prophesied,would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life, genuinelygood music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructivepictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such asVenus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, allthese little attentions would enable ladies who were in a particularcondition to pass the intervening months in a most enjoyable manner. MrJ. Crotthers (Disc. Bacc.) attributes some of these demises toabdominal trauma in the case of women workers subjected to heavylabours in the workshop and to marital discipline in the home but byfar the vast majority to neglect, private or official, culminating inthe exposure of newborn infants, the practice of criminal abortion orin the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the former (we arethinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he cites ofnurses forgetting to count the sponges in the peritoneal cavity is toorare to be normative. In fact when one comes to look into it the wonderis that so many pregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they do,all things considered and in spite of our human shortcomings whichoften baulk nature in her intentions. An ingenious suggestion is thatthrown out by Mr V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) that both natality andmortality, as well as all other phenomena of evolution, tidalmovements, lunar phases, blood temperatures, diseases in general,everything, in fine, in nature’s vast workshop from the extinction ofsome remote sun to the blossoming of one of the countless flowers whichbeautify our public parks is subject to a law of numeration as yetunascertained. Still the plain straightforward question why a child ofnormally healthy parents and seemingly a healthy child and properlylooked after succumbs unaccountably in early childhood (though otherchildren of the same marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet’swords, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good andcogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability such deathsare due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbousgerms have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusivelyshown that only the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tendto disappear at an increasingly earlier stage of development, anarrangement which, though productive of pain to some of our feelings(notably the maternal), is nevertheless, some of us think, in the longrun beneficial to the race in general in securing thereby the survivalof the fittest. Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div. Scep.) remark (or should it becalled an interruption?) that an omnivorous being which can masticate,deglute, digest and apparently pass through the ordinary channel withpluterperfect imperturbability such multifarious aliments as cancrenousfemales emaciated by parturition, corpulent professional gentlemen, notto speak of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, might possiblyfind gastric relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob, revealsas nought else could and in a very unsavoury light the tendency abovealluded to. For the enlightenment of those who are not so intimatelyacquainted with the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as thismorbidminded esthete and embryo philosopher who for all his overweeningbumptiousness in things scientific can scarcely distinguish an acidfrom an alkali prides himself on being, it should perhaps be statedthat staggering bob in the vile parlance of our lowerclass licensedvictuallers signifies the cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newlydropped from its mother. In a recent public controversy with Mr L.Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took place in the commons’ hall of theNational Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, of which, asis well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is theable and popular master, he is reported by eyewitnesses as havingstated that once a woman has let the cat into the bag (an esthete’sallusion, presumably, to one of the most complicated and marvellous ofall nature’s processes—the act of sexual congress) she must let it outagain or give it life, as he phrased it, to save her own. At the riskof her own, was the telling rejoinder of his interlocutor, none theless effective for the moderate and measured tone in which it wasdelivered.

Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about ahappy _accouchement._ It had been a weary weary while both for patientand doctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the bravewoman had manfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight andnow she was very very happy. Those who have passed on, who have gonebefore, are happy too as they gaze down and smile upon the touchingscene. Reverently look at her as she reclines there with themotherlight in her eyes, that longing hunger for baby fingers (a prettysight it is to see), in the first bloom of her new motherhood,breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving to One above, the UniversalHusband. And as her loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only oneblessing more, to have her dear Doady there with her to share her joy,to lay in his arms that mite of God’s clay, the fruit of their lawfulembraces. He is older now (you and I may whisper it) and a triflestooped in the shoulders yet in the whirligig of years a grave dignityhas come to the conscientious second accountant of the Ulster bank,College Green branch. O Doady, loved one of old, faithful lifemate now,it may never be again, that faroff time of the roses! With the oldshake of her pretty head she recalls those days. God! How beautiful nowacross the mist of years! But their children are grouped in herimagination about the bedside, hers and his, Charley, Mary Alice,Frederick Albert (if he had lived), Mamy, Budgy (Victoria Frances),Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little Bobsy (called after ourfamous hero of the South African war, lord Bobs of Waterford andCandahar) and now this last pledge of their union, a Purefoy if everthere was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Young hopeful will bechristened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousin of MrPurefoy in the Treasury Remembrancer’s office, Dublin Castle. And sotime wags on: but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let nosigh break from that bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock theashes from your pipe, the seasoned briar you still fancy when thecurfew rings for you (may it be the distant day!) and dout the lightwhereby you read in the Sacred Book for the oil too has run low, and sowith a tranquil heart to bed, to rest. He knows and will call in Hisown good time. You too have fought the good fight and played loyallyyour man’s part. Sir, to you my hand. Well done, thou good and faithfulservant!

There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evilmemories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of theheart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to growdim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuadehimself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chanceword will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confronthim in the most various circ*mstances, a vision or a dream, or whiletimbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquilityof the evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled withwine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that liesunder her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living butshrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote,reproachful.

The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession ofthat false calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studiedtrick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their speaker anunhealthiness, a _flair,_ for the cruder things of life. A scenedisengages itself in the observer’s memory, evoked, it would seem, by aword of so natural a homeliness as if those days were really presentthere (as some thought) with their immediate pleasures. A shaven spaceof lawn one soft May evening, the wellremembered grove of lilacs atRoundtown, purple and white, fragrant slender spectators of the gamebut with much real interest in the pellets as they run slowly forwardover the sward or collide and stop, one by its fellow, with a briefalert shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves attimes in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood,Floey, Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what ofarresting in her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace ofthem pendent from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skinso daintily against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five inlinseywoolsey (blossomtime but there will be cheer in the kindly hearthwhen ere long the bowls are gathered and hutched) is standing on theurn secured by that circle of girlish fond hands. He frowns a littlejust as this young man does now with a perhaps too conscious enjoymentof the danger but must needs glance at whiles towards where his motherwatches from the _piazzetta_ giving upon the flowerclose with a faintshadow of remoteness or of reproach (_alles Vergängliche_) in her gladlook.

Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter thatantechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note theirfaces. Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent. Quietude ofcustody, rather, befitting their station in that house, the vigilantwatch of shepherds and of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda longago. But as before the lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy withpreponderant excess of moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended,compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending above parchedfield and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till inan instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation ofthe thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise wasthe transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance ofthe word.

Burke’s! outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag andbobtail of all them after, co*ckerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor,punctual Bloom at heels with a universal grabbing at headgear,ashplants, bilbos, Panama hats and scabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks andwhat not. A dedale of lusty youth, noble every student there. NurseCallan taken aback in the hallway cannot stay them nor smiling surgeoncoming downstairs with news of placentation ended, a full pound if amilligramme. They hark him on. The door! It is open? Ha! They are out,tumultuously, off for a minute’s race, all bravely legging it, Burke’sof Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Dixon follows giving themsharp language but raps out an oath, he too, and on. Bloom stays withnurse a thought to send a kind word to happy mother and nurseling upthere. Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet. Looks she too not other now? Wardof watching in Horne’s house has told its tale in that washedoutpallor. Then all being gone, a glance of motherwit helping, he whispersclose in going: Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee?

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essencecelestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny _coelum._God’s air, the Allfather’s air, scintillant circumambient cessile air.Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast donea doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablestprogenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding mostfarraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgivenpreformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum ofman’s work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandogand let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all theirdaddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher’sbills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up!For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See,thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? Acanting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tellthee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, notworth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I!Herod’s slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables,forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw,bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps,quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney,Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet,varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and allsuch congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not.With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait andnever—do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge tocover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? _Deine KuhTrübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters_. See! itdisplodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother’smilk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoningstars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as thoserioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, thehoneymilk of Canaan’s land. Thy cow’s dug was tough, what? Ay, but hermilk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick richbonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! _Per deam Partulam etPertundam nunc est bibendum!_

All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides.Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like oleBillyo. Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil’ssawbones and ole clo? Sorra one o’ me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forwardto the ribbon counter. Where’s Punch? All serene. Jay, look at thedrunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! _Benedicat vosomnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius_. A make, mister. The Denzille laneboys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of thebleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusion in life. Louheap good man. Allee samee dis bunch. _En avant, mes enfants!_ Fireaway number one on the gun. Burke’s! Burke’s! Thence they advanced fiveparasangs. Slattery’s mounted foot. Where’s that bleeding awfur? ParsonSteve, apostates’ creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead.Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What’s on you? _Mamère m’a mariée._ British Beatitudes! _Retamplatan digidi boumboum_.Ayes have it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by twodesigning females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in artshades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time. _Silentium!_Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annexliquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (attitudes!)parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs battleships, buggeryand bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer, beef, trample thebibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation!Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt!Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! Youhurt? Most amazingly sorry!

Query. Who’s astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall.Declare misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at methis week gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the _Übermensch._Dittoh. Five number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, thecabby’s caudle. Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stoppedshort never to go again when the old. Absinthe for me, savvy?_Caramba!_ Have an eggnog or a prairie oyster. Enemy? Avuncular’s gotmy timepiece. Ten to. Obligated awful. Don’t mention it. Got a pectoraltrauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wussettin sleepin in hes bit garten. Digs up near the Mater. Buckled heis. Know his dona? Yup, sartin I do. Full of a dure. See her in herdishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean kine,not much. Pull down the blind, love. Two Ardilauns. Same here. Lookslippery. If you fall don’t wait to get up. Five, seven, nine. Fine!Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and heranker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes andallbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot. Sir? Spud again therheumatiz? All poppyco*ck, you’ll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. Ivear thee beest a gert vool. Well, doc? Back fro Lapland? Yourcorporosity sagaciating O K? How’s the squaws and papooses? Womanbodyafter going on the straw? Stand and deliver. Password. There’s hair.Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Hi! Spit in your own eye,boss! Mummer’s wire. Cribbed out of Meredith. Jesified, orchidised,polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine’s writing Pa Kinch. Baddybad Stephenlead astray goodygood Malachi.

Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock brawHielentman’s your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpotboil! My tipple. _Merci._ Here’s to us. How’s that? Leg before wicket.Don’t stain my brandnew sitinems. Give’s a shake of peppe, you there.Catch aholt. Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence.Every cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. _Les petites femmes_.Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her.Hauding Sara by the wame. On the road to Malahide. Me? If she whoseduced me had left but the name. What do you want for ninepence?Machree, macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull alltogether. _Ex!_

Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like,seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He’ve got thechink _ad lib_. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn.Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with theoof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they there Frenchybilks? Won’t wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise decutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are naefou. We’re nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you.

’Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir.Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have aglint, do. Gum, I’m jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full forwords. With a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he’d like? Rose ofCastile. Rows of cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look atBantam’s flowers. Gemini. He’s going to holler. The colleen bawn. Mycolleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firmhand. Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffincly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. He strike atelegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joeyand grahamise. Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell acram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Surething. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman beck copped the game.Madden back Madden’s a maddening back. O lust our refuge and ourstrength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide myblushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome, our Bantam.Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. Cornfide.Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse.No fake, old man Leo. S’elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers if Ihad. There’s a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses,if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Throughyerd our lord, Amen.

You move a motion? Steve boy, you’re going it some. More bluggydrunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder ofmost extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminateone expensive inaugurated libation? Give’s a breather. Landlord,landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree.Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthe the lot. _Nos omnesbiberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria_.Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you sayonions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo’s papli, by all that’s gorgeous. Playlow, pardner. Slide. _Bonsoir la compagnie_. And snares of thepoxfiend. Where’s the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, yemaun e’en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wilyu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tulay crown of his hed 2 night. Crickey, I’m about sprung. Tarnally doggone my shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet. Item,curate, couple of cookies for this child. Cot’s plood and prandypalls,none! Not a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with himthose other licensed spirits. Time, gents! Who wander through theworld. Health all! _À la vôtre_!

Golly, whatten tunket’s yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peepat his wearables. By mighty! What’s he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, byJames. Wants it real bad. D’ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in theRichmond? Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis.Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once aprosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden allforlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love. WalkingMackintosh of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix forthe hornies. Pardon? Seen him today at a runefal? Chum o’ yourn passedin his checks? Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou’ll no be telling methot, Pold veg! Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney wastook off in black bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. Inever see the like since I was born. _Tiens, tiens_, but it is wellsad, that, my faith, yes. O, get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Liveaxle drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy wellhollow. Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worsefor him, says he, nor any Rooshian. Time all. There’s eleven of them.Get ye gone. Forward, woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah theExcellent One your soul this night ever tremendously conserve.

Your attention! We’re nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. Theleast tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominableregions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my true love. Yook. Mona, my own love.Ook.

Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes.Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up! Pflaap! Tally ho. You notcome? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap!

Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o’ me. Denzille lane this way. Change here forBawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is.Righto, any old time. _Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis_. You coming long?Whisper, who the sooty hell’s the johnny in the black duds? Hush!Sinned against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shallcome to judge the world by fire. Pflaap! _Ut implerentur scripturae_.Strike up a ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medicalDavy. Christicle, who’s this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrionhall? Elijah is coming! Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Come on youwinefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Come on, youdog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained,weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, youtriple extract of infamy! Alexander J Christ Dowie, that’s my name,that’s yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach toVladivostok. The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to youthat He’s on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He’sthe grandest thing yet and don’t you forget it. Shout salvation in KingJesus. You’ll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if youwant to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He’s got acoughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his back pocket.Just you try it on.