Ulysses
host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were
not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a
grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four
coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously
spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him
in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and honestly well
worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark.
—Come, he counselled to close the _séance_.
Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the
shelter or shanty together and the _élite_ society of oilskin and
company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their
_dolce far niente_. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and
fagged out, paused at the, for a moment, the door.
—One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur of
the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs
upside down, on the tables in cafés. To which impromptu the
neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment’s hesitation, saying
straight off:
—To sweep the floor in the morning.
So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same
time apologetic to get on his companion’s right, a habit of his, by the
bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The
night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit
weak on his pins.
—It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in a
moment. The only thing is to walk then you’ll feel a different man.
Come. It’s not far. Lean on me.
Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen’s right and led him on
accordingly.
—Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange
kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and
all that.
Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where the
municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and
purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming
of fresh fields and pastures new. And _apropos_ of coffin of stones the
analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the
part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the
time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the
selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings.
So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which
Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made
tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though
confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to
follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante’s _Huguenots_,
Meyerbeer’s _Seven Last Words on the Cross_ and Mozart’s _Twelfth Mass_
he simply revelled in, the _Gloria_ in that being, to his mind, the
acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else
into a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the
catholic church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line
such as those Moody and Sankey hymns or _Bid me to live and I will live
thy protestant to be_. He also yielded to none in his admiration of
Rossini’s _Stabat Mater_, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers,
in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable
sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laurels and
putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers’ church
in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the
doors to hear her with virtuosos, or _virtuosi_ rather. There was the
unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it
to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was
a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring
preferably light opera of the _Don Giovanni_ description and _Martha_,
a gem in its line, he had a _penchant_, though with only a surface
knowledge, for the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And
talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about the old
favourites, he mentioned _par excellence_ Lionel’s air in _Martha,
M’appari_, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be
more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from
the lips of Stephen’s respected father, sung to perfection, a study of
the number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat.
Stephen, in reply to a politely put query, said he didn’t sing it but
launched out into praises of Shakespeare’s songs, at least of in or
about that period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near
Gerard the herbalist, who _anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus_, an
instrument he was contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch,
whom B. did not quite recall though the name certainly sounded
familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their _dux_
and _comes_ conceits and Byrd (William) who played the virginals, he
said, in the Queen’s chapel or anywhere else he found them and one
Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull.
On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond
the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground,
brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not
perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to
sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the
political celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical
names, as a striking coincidence.
By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving,
Bloom, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other’s
sleeve gently, jocosely remarking:
—Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller.
They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth
anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite
near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even
flesh because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a
blackbuttocker, a taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot
foremost the while the lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with
his thoughts. But such a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn’t a lump
of sugar but, as he wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared
for every emergency that might crop up. He was just a big nervous
foolish noodly kind of a horse, without a second care in the world. But
even a dog, he reflected, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan’s, of the
same size, would be a holy horror to face. But it was no animal’s fault
in particular if he was built that way like the camel, ship of the
desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them
all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring
the bees. Whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of
his back and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my
eagle eye. These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field
occupied his mind somewhat distracted from Stephen’s words while the
ship of the street was manœuvring and Stephen went on about the highly
interesting old.
—What’s this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging _in
medias res_, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your
acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind.
He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen,
image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome
blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after
as he was perhaps not that way built.
Still, supposing he had his father’s gift as he more than suspected, it
opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall’s Irish
industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in
general.
Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air _Youth here has
End_ by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows
come from. Even more he liked an old German song of _Johannes Jeep_
about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men,
which boggled Bloom a bit:
Von der Sirenen Listigkeit
Tun die Poeten dichten.
These opening bars he sang and translated _extempore_. Bloom, nodding,
said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which
he did.
A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons,
which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could
easily, if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice
production such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the
bargain, command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and
procure for its fortunate possessor in the near future an _entrée_ into
fashionable houses in the best residential quarters of financial
magnates in a large way of business and titled people where with his
university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly
bearing to all the more influence the good impression he would
infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains which
also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his
clothes were properly attended to so as to the better worm his way into
their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in society’s sartorial
niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate
against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and he could easily
foresee him participating in their musical and artistic
_conversaziones_ during the festivities of the Christmas season, for
choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and
being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, cases of which, as he
happened to know, were on record—in fact, without giving the show away,
he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could easily have. Added
to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be
sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition fees. Not, he
parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily
embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy space of
time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or nay and
both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his dignity
in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be handed a
cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. Besides, though
taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original music like that,
different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue
as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin’s musical world after the
usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a confiding public
by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their _genus omne_. Yes,
beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with all the cards in his hand and
he had a capital opening to make a name for himself and win a high
place in the city’s esteem where he could command a stiff figure and,
booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King street
house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him upstairs,
so to speak, a big _if_, however, with some impetus of the goahead sort
to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped up a too
much fêted prince of good fellows. And it need not detract from the
other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have heaps of time
to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so doing
without its clashing with his vocal career or containing anything
derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself alone. In fact, he
had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason why the other,