STEPHEN: _(Catches sight of Lynch’s and Kitty’s heads.)_ Hail, Sisyphus. _(He points to himself and the others.)_ Poetic. Uropoetic.
VOICES: Shes faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn’t half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy.)_ Was he insulting you while me and him was having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON: _(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded.)_ Theirs not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN: _(To Private Compton.)_ I don’t know your name but you are quite right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY: _(To the crowd.)_ No, I was with the privates.
STEPHEN: _(Amiably.)_ Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR: _(His cap awry, advances to Stephen.)_ Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN: _(Looks up to the sky.)_ How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. _(He waves his hand.)_ Hand hurts me slightly. _Enfin ce sont vos oignons._ _(To Cissy Caffrey.)_ Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely?
DOLLY GRAY: _(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of the heroine of Jericho.)_ Rahab. Cook’s son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
_(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)_
BLOOM: _(Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen’s sleeve vigorously.)_ Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN: _(Turns.)_ Eh? _(He disengages himself.)_ Why should I not speak to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? _(He points his finger.)_ I’m not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. Retaining the perpendicular.
_(He staggers a pace back.)_
BLOOM: _(Propping him.)_ Retain your own.
STEPHEN: _(Laughs emptily.)_ My centre of gravity is displaced. I have forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. _(He taps his brow.)_ But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP: Did you hear what the professor said? He’s a professor out of the college.
CUNTY KATE: I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP: He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology.
CUNTY KATE: Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Pulls himself free and comes forward.)_ What’s that you’re saying about my king?
_(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner’s and Probyn’s horse, Lincoln’s Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked_ made in Germany. _In his left hand he holds a plasterer’s bucket on which is printed_ Défense d’uriner. _A roar of welcome greets him.)_
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.)_ Peace, perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. _(He turns to his subjects.)_ We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a bak.
_(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)_
PRIVATE CARR: _(To Stephen.)_ Say it again.
STEPHEN: _(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.)_ I understand your point of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point. You die for your country. Suppose. _(He places his arm on Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn’t want it to die. Damn death. Long live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)_
My methods are new and are causing surprise. To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! _(He falls back a pace.)_ Come somewhere and we’ll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one into Jerry.
BLOOM: _(To the privates, softly.)_ He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster. I know him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right.
STEPHEN: _(Nods, smiling and laughing.)_ Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR: I don’t give a bugger who he is.
PRIVATE COMPTON: We don’t give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN: I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
_(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o’-day boy’s hat signs to Stephen.)_
KEVIN EGAN: H’lo! _Bonjour!_ The _vieille ogresse_ with the _dents jaunes_.
_(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.)_
PATRICE: _Socialiste!_
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: _(In medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the privates.)_ Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM: _(To Stephen.)_ Come home. You’ll get into trouble.
STEPHEN: _(Swaying.)_ I don’t avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP: One immediately observes that he is of patrician lineage.
THE VIRAGO: Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD: The red’s as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers! Up King Edward!
A ROUGH: _(Laughs.)_ Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN: _(With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)_
May the God above Send down a dove With teeth as sharp as razors To slit the throats Of the English dogs That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY: _(The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing bowels with both hands.)_
I bear no hate to a living thing, But I love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: _(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, advances with gladstone bag which he opens.)_ Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the unfortunate female’s throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent Seddon to the gallows.
_(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim’s legs and drag him downward, grunting: the croppy boy’s tongue protrudes violently.)_
THE CROPPY BOY:
Horhot ho hray hor hother’s hest.
_(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)_
RUMBOLD: I’m near it myself. _(He undoes the noose.)_ Rope which hanged the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness. _(He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.)_ My painful duty has now been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and sings with soft contentment.)_
On coronation day, on coronation day, O, won’t we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN: _(Throws up his hands.)_ O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. _(He searches his pockets vaguely.)_ Gave it to someone.
PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN: _(Tries to move off.)_ Will someone tell me where I am least likely to meet these necessary evils? _Ça se voit aussi à Paris._ Not that I... But, by Saint Patrick...!
_(The women’s heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)_
STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Rocking to and fro.)_ Ireland’s sweetheart, the king of Spain’s daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! _(She keens with banshee woe.)_ Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! _(She wails.)_ You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where’s the third person of the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY: _(Shrill.)_ Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH: Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Tugging at his belt.)_ I’ll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM: _(Terrified.)_ He said nothing. Not a word. A pure misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN: _Erin go bragh!_
_(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)_
PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He’s a proboer.
STEPHEN: Did I? When?
BLOOM: _(To the redcoats.)_ We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Isn’t that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our monarch.
THE NAVVY: _(Staggering past.)_ O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a krowawr! O! Bo!
_(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the pilgrim warrior’s sign of the knights templars.)_
MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Growls gruffly.)_ Rorke’s Drift! Up, guards, and at them! Mahar shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR: I’ll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Waves the crowd back.)_ Fair play, here. Make a bleeding butcher’s shop of the bugger.
_(Massed bands blare_ Garryowen _and_ God save the King.)
CISSY CAFFREY: They’re going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE: _(Blushing deeply.)_ Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me!
STEPHEN:
The harlot’s cry from street to street Shall weave Old Ireland’s windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Loosening his belt, shouts.)_ I’ll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM: _(Shakes Cissy Caffrey’s shoulders.)_ Speak, you! Are you struck dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver!
CISSY CAFFREY: _(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Amn’t I with you? Amn’t I your girl? Cissy’s your girl. _(She cries.)_ Police!
STEPHEN: _(Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)_
White thy fambles, red thy gan And thy quarrons dainty is.
VOICES: Police!
DISTANT VOICES: Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s burning! On fire, on fire!
_(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete’s singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons’ teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against Daniel O’Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M’Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O’Leary against Lear O’Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O’Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The O’Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the fieldaltar of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi O’Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant’s head an open umbrella.)_
FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN: _Introibo ad altare diaboli._
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: To the devil which hath made glad my young days.
FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN: _(Takes from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) Corpus meum._
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: _(Raises high behind the celebrant’s petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck.)_ My body.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!
_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_
ADONAI: Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!
_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_
ADONAI: Goooooooooood!
_(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing_ Kick the Pope _and_ Daily, daily sing to Mary.)
PRIVATE CARR: _(With ferocious articulation.)_ I’ll do him in, so help me fucking Christ! I’ll wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!
_(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)_
OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen’s hand.)_ Remove him, acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. _(She prays.)_ O good God, take him!
BLOOM: _(Runs to Lynch.)_ Can’t you get him away?
LYNCH: He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! _(To Bloom.)_ Get him away, you. He won’t listen to me.
_(He drags Kitty away.)_
STEPHEN: _(Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit._
BLOOM: _(Runs to Stephen.)_ Come along with me now before worse happens. Here’s your stick.
STEPHEN: Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.
CISSY CAFFREY: _(Pulling Private Carr.)_ Come on, you’re boosed. He insulted me but I forgive him. _(Shouting in his ear.)_ I forgive him for insulting me.
BLOOM: _(Over Stephen’s shoulder.)_ Yes, go. You see he’s incapable.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Breaks loose.)_ I’ll insult him.
_(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)_
MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Loudly.)_ Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute!
THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking furiously.)_ Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.
THE CROWD: Let him up! Don’t strike him when he’s down! Air! Who? The soldier hit him. He’s a professor. Is he hurted? Don’t manhandle him! He’s fainted!
A HAG: What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers!
THE BAWD: Listen to who’s talking! Hasn’t the soldier a right to go with his girl? He gave him the coward’s blow.
_(They grab at each other’s hair, claw at each other and spit.)_
THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking.)_ Wow wow wow.
BLOOM: _(Shoves them back, loudly.)_ Get back, stand back!
PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Tugging his comrade.)_ Here. Bugger off, Harry. Here’s the cops! _(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group.)_
FIRST WATCH: What’s wrong here?
PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady. And he insulted us. And assaulted my chum. _(The retriever barks.)_ Who owns the bleeding tyke?
CISSY CAFFREY: _(With expectation.)_ Is he bleeding!
A MAN: _(Rising from his knees.)_ No. Gone off. He’ll come to all right.
BLOOM: _(Glances sharply at the man.)_ Leave him to me. I can easily...
SECOND WATCH: Who are you? Do you know him?
PRIVATE CARR: _(Lurches towards the watch.)_ He insulted my lady friend.
BLOOM: _(Angrily.)_ You hit him without provocation. I’m a witness. Constable, take his regimental number.
SECOND WATCH: I don’t want your instructions in the discharge of my duty.
PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Pulling his comrade.)_ Here, bugger off Harry. Or Bennett’ll shove you in the lockup.
PRIVATE CARR: _(Staggering as he is pulled away.)_ God fuck old Bennett. He’s a whitearsed bugger. I don’t give a shit for him.
FIRST WATCH: _(Takes out his notebook.)_ What’s his name?
BLOOM: _(Peering over the crowd.)_ I just see a car there. If you give me a hand a second, sergeant...
FIRST WATCH: Name and address.
_(Corny Kelleher, weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand, appears among the bystanders.)_
BLOOM: _(Quickly.)_ O, the very man! _(He whispers.)_ Simon Dedalus’ son. A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.
SECOND WATCH: Night, Mr Kelleher.
CORNY KELLEHER: _(To the watch, with drawling eye.)_ That’s all right. I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. _(He laughs.)_ Twenty to one. Do you follow me?
FIRST WATCH: _(Turns to the crowd.)_ Here, what are you all gaping at? Move on out of that.
_(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)_
CORNY KELLEHER: Leave it to me, sergeant. That’ll be all right. _(He laughs, shaking his head.)_ We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse. What? Eh, what?
FIRST WATCH: _(Laughs.)_ I suppose so.
CORNY KELLEHER: _(Nudges the second watch.)_ Come and wipe your name off the slate. _(He lilts, wagging his head.)_ With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
SECOND WATCH: _(Genially.)_ Ah, sure we were too.
CORNY KELLEHER: _(Winking.)_ Boys will be boys. I’ve a car round there.
SECOND WATCH: All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.
CORNY KELLEHER: I’ll see to that.
BLOOM: _(Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.)_ Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you. _(He mumbles confidentially.)_ We don’t want any scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand.
FIRST WATCH: O. I understand, sir.
SECOND WATCH: That’s all right, sir.
FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I’d have to report it at the station.
BLOOM: _(Nods rapidly.)_ Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
SECOND WATCH: It’s our duty.
CORNY KELLEHER: Good night, men.
THE WATCH: _(Saluting together.)_ Night, gentlemen. _(They move off with slow heavy tread.)_
BLOOM: _(Blows.)_ Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?...
CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to the car brought up against the scaffolding.)_ Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet’s. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan’s car and down to nighttown.
BLOOM: I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs.)_ Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. _(He laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye.)_ Thanks be to God we have it in the house, what, eh, do you follow me? Hah, hah, hah!
BLOOM: _(Tries to laugh.)_ He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don’t know him (poor fellow, he’s laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just making my way home...
_(The horse neighs.)_
THE HORSE: Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!
CORNY KELLEHER: Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen’s and I told him to pull up and got off to see. _(He laughs.)_ Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Will I give him a lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM: No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
_(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the horse. Bloom, in gloom, looms down.)_
CORNY KELLEHER: _(Scratches his nape.)_ Sandycove! _(He bends down and calls to Stephen.)_ Eh! _(He calls again.)_ Eh! He’s covered with shavings anyhow. Take care they didn’t lift anything off him.
BLOOM: No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
CORNY KELLEHER: Ah, well, he’ll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I’ll shove along. _(He laughs.)_ I’ve a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the dead. Safe home!
THE HORSE: _(Neighs.)_ Hohohohohome.
BLOOM: Good night. I’ll just wait and take him along in a few...
_(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse harness jingles.)_
CORNY KELLEHER: _(From the car, standing.)_ Night.
BLOOM: Night.
_(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom’s plight. The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephen’s hat, festooned with shavings, and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by the shoulder.)_
BLOOM: Eh! Ho! _(There is no answer; he bends again.)_ Mr Dedalus! _(There is no answer.)_ The name if you call. Somnambulist. _(He bends again and, hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.)_ Stephen! _(There is no answer. He calls again.)_ Stephen!
STEPHEN: _(Groans.)_ Who? Black panther. Vampire. _(He sighs and stretches himself, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.)_
Who... drive... Fergus now And pierce... wood’s woven shade?...
_(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)_
BLOOM: Poetry. Well educated. Pity. _(He bends again and undoes the buttons of Stephen’s waistcoat.)_ To breathe. _(He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen’s clothes with light hand and fingers.)_ One pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. _(He listens.)_ What?
STEPHEN: _(Murmurs.)_
... shadows... the woods ... white breast... dim sea.
_(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom, holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the distance. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on Stephen’s face and form.)_
BLOOM: _(Communes with the night.)_ Face reminds me of his poor mother. In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. _(He murmurs.)_... swear that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts... _(He murmurs.)_... in the rough sands of the sea... a cabletow’s length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows ...
_(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)_
BLOOM: _(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.)_ Rudy!
RUDY: _(Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom’s eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)_
— III —
Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His (Stephen’s) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry water available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit upon an expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman’s shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he was rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in their then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly after a few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had done yeoman service in the shaving line, they both walked together along Beaver street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier’s and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin’s. But as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice.
This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett’s and the Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though, entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company’s sandstrewer happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his companion _à propos_ of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and passing the backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station. Between this point and the high at present unlit warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird’s the stonecutter’s in his mind somehow in Talbot place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting as his _fidus Achates_ inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke’s city bakery, situated quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread, at Rourke’s the baker’s it is said.
_En route_ to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in complete possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober, spoke a word of caution _re_ the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while though not as a habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for young fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under the influence of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu for every contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if you didn’t look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finis might have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A division in Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never on the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the city, Pembroke road for example, the guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason being they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go off at any time which was tantamount to inciting them against civilians should by any chance they fall out over anything. You frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also character besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the _demimonde_ ran away with a lot of £. s. d. into the bargain and the greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing aperient virtues (notably a good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond a certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen by all his pubhunting _confrères_ but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the part of his brother medicos under all the circs.
—And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing whatsoever of any kind.
Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for no special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the light emanating from the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a _quondam_ friend of his father’s, Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge.
—Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.
A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches saluted again, calling:
—Night!
Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but nevertheless remained on the _qui vive_ with just a shade of anxiety though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.
Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters, though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley’s breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had enjoyed the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This therefore was the reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley.
Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell. Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night’s lodgings. His friends had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of other uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to tell him where on God’s earth he could get something, anything at all, to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they were connected through the mother in some way, both occurrences happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn’t a complete fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow he was all in.
—I wouldn’t ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows I’m on the rocks.
—There’ll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys’ school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You may mention my name.
—Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn’t teach in a school, man. I was never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck twice in the junior at the christian brothers.
—I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.
Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but M’Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he hadn’t said a word about it.
Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it still Stephen’s feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew that Corley’s brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly deserving of much credence. However _haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco etcetera_ as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley’s head that he was living in affluence and hadn’t a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for the moment whether he had lost as well he might have or left because in that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse in fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried to recollect. About biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly gave them he wondered or where was or did he buy. However in another pocket he came across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously however, as it turned out.
—Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.
And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him one of them.
—Thanks, Corley answered, you’re a gentleman. I’ll pay you back one time. Who’s that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good word for us to get me taken on there. I’d carry a sandwichboard only the girl in the office told me they’re full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you’ve to book ahead, man, you’d think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don’t give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as a crossing sweeper.
Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam’s, the shipchandler’s, bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle’s back with O’Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and refusing to go with the constable.
Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation watchman’s sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time now and then at Stephen’s anything but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a question of one preying on his nextdoor neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the street chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude with or without the option of a fine would be a very _rara avis_ altogether. In any case he had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.
The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said, laughingly, Stephen, that is:
—He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana, moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair, whereupon he observed evasively:
—Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?
—Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep somewhere.
—Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he with a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of the question. And even supposing you did you won’t get in after what occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I don’t mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father’s house?
—To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer.
—I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of conversation that he had moved.
—I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly. Why?
—A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects than one and a born _raconteur_ if ever there was one. He takes great pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion, which they did.
There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it was, Stephen’s mind’s eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or something like that.
—No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn’t notice as much as I did. But it wouldn’t occasion me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some ulterior object.
He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple.
—Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by friendliness which he gave at Stephen’s at present morose expression of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw through the affair and for some reason or other best known to himself allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.