Ulysses
the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the
door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused
extraordinary interest at the time when the facts, to make matters
worse, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed
between them full of sweet nothings. First it was strictly Platonic
till nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them till
bit by bit matters came to a climax and the matter became the talk of
the town till the staggering blow came as a welcome intelligence to not
a few evildisposed, however, who were resolved upon encompassing his
downfall though the thing was public property all along though not to
anything like the sensational extent that it subsequently blossomed
into. Since their names were coupled, though, since he was her declared
favourite, where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the
rank and file from the housetops, the fact, namely, that he had shared
her bedroom which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went
through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape
of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a
particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment
with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel, having gained
admittance in the same fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the
lubric a little, simply coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the
simple fact of the case was it was simply a case of the husband not
being up to the scratch, with nothing in common between them beyond the
name, and then a real man arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of
weakness, falling a victim to her siren charms and forgetting home
ties, the usual sequel, to bask in the loved one’s smiles. The eternal
question of the life connubial, needless to say, cropped up. Can real
love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case, exist
between married folk? Poser. Though it was no concern of theirs
absolutely if he regarded her with affection, carried away by a wave of
folly. A magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly augmented
obviously by gifts of a high order, as compared with the other military
supernumerary that is (who was just the usual everyday _farewell, my
gallant captain_ kind of an individual in the light dragoons, the 18th
hussars to be accurate) and inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader,
that is, not the other) in his own peculiar way which she of course,
woman, quickly perceived as highly likely to carve his way to fame
which he almost bid fair to do till the priests and ministers of the
gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents, and his beloved
evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman service in the rural parts
of the country by taking up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that
exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very effectually cooked his
matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on his head much in
the same way as the fabled ass’s kick. Looking back now in a
retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of dream. And then
coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it went without
saying you would feel out of place as things always moved with the
times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a locality he had not
been in for quite a number of years looked different somehow since, as
it happened, he went to reside on the north side. North or south,
however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and
simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the
very thing he was saying as she also was Spanish or half so, types that
wouldn’t do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting
every shred of decency to the winds.
—Just bears out what I was saying, he, with glowing bosom said to
Stephen, about blood and the sun. And, if I don’t greatly mistake she
was Spanish too.
—The king of Spain’s daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or
other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and
the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and
so many.
—Was she? Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any
means, I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it
was as she lived there. So, Spain.
Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket _Sweets of_, which reminded him
by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out
his pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained
rapidly finally he.
—Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded
photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type?
Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large
sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as she
was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously
low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than
vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth,
standing near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which
was _In Old Madrid_, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all
the vogue. Her (the lady’s) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about
to smile about something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland
street, Dublin’s premier photographic artist, being responsible for the
esthetic execution.
—Mrs Bloom, my wife the _prima donna_ Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom
indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like
her then.
Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his
legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major
Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a
singer having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered
barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking likeness in
expression but it did not do justice to her figure which came in for a
lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the best advantage
in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, have posed for
the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the. He dwelt,
being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female form in
general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later than that
afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues, perfectly developed as
works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give the original,
shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes, puritanisme, it
does though, Saint Joseph’s sovereign thievery alors (Bandez!) Figne
toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply wasn’t art in a
word.
The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar’s
good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to
speak for itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the
beauty for himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in
itself which the camera could not at all do justice to. But it was
scarcely professional etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort
of a night now yet wonderfully cool for the season considering, for
sunshine after storm. And he did feel a kind of need there and then to
follow suit like a kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by
moving a motion. Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly
soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear
however, and looked away thoughtfully with the intention of not further
increasing the other’s possible embarrassment while gauging her
symmetry of heaving _embonpoint_. In fact the slight soiling was only
an added charm like the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new,
much better in fact with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he?
I looked for the lamp which she told me came into his mind but merely
as a passing fancy of his because he then recollected the morning
littered bed etcetera and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses
(_sic_) in it which must have fell down sufficiently appropriately
beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies to Lindley Murray.
The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated,
_distingué_ and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of
the bunch though you wouldn’t think he had it in him yet you would.
Besides he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it
was though at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An
awful lot of makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a
lifelong slur with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same
old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or
the newest stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about
the whole business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment
sprang up between the two so that their names were coupled in the
public eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy
and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they
openly cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside
hotel and relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in
due course intimate. Then the decree _nisi_ and the King’s proctor
tries to show cause why and, he failing to quash it, _nisi_ was made
absolute. But as for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they
largely were in one another, could safely afford to ignore it as they
very largely did till the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor
who filed a petition for the party wronged in due course. He, B,
enjoyed the distinction of being close to Erin’s uncrowned king in the
flesh when the thing occurred on the historic _fracas_ when the fallen
leader’s, who notoriously stuck to his guns to the last drop even when
clothed in the mantle of adultery, (leader’s) trusty henchmen to the
number of ten or a dozen or possibly even more than that penetrated
into the printing works of the _Insuppressible_ or no it was _United
Ireland_ (a by no means by the by appropriate appellative) and broke up
the typecases with hammers or something like that all on account of
some scurrilous effusions from the facile pens of the O’Brienite
scribes at the usual mudslinging occupation reflecting on the erstwhile
tribune’s private morals. Though palpably a radically altered man he
was still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with
that look of settled purpose which went a long way with the
shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast discomfiture that
their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a pedestal which
she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were particularly hot
times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor injury from a
nasty prod of some chap’s elbow in the crowd that of course congregated
lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, fortunately not of a
grave character. His hat (Parnell’s) a silk one was inadvertently
knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who
picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to
return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity)
who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat
at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the
country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos
of the thing than anything else, what’s bred in the bone instilled into
him in infancy at his mother’s knee in the shape of knowing what good
form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and
thanked him with perfect _aplomb_, saying: _Thank you, sir_, though in
a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the legal
profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the
course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after