Ulysses
when they note delightful result like a cool drink of fresh spring
water on a sultry summer’s day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen
friends, lasts a lifetime. Insert long round end. Wonderworker.
Were there testimonials?
Numerous. From clergyman, British naval officer, wellknown author, city
man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of five, absentminded beggar.
How did absentminded beggar’s concluding testimonial conclude?
What a pity the government did not supply our men with wonderworkers
during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been!
What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects?
A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.)
from Martha Clifford (find M. C.).
What pleasant reflection accompanied this action?
The reflection that, apart from the letter in question, his magnetic
face, form and address had been favourably received during the course
of the preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie
Powell), a nurse, Miss Callan (Christian name unknown), a maid,
Gertrude (Gerty, family name unknown).
What possibility suggested itself?
The possibility of exercising virile power of fascination in the not
immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in
the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately
mercenary, variously instructed, a lady by origin.
What did the 2nd drawer contain?
Documents: the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom: an endowment
assurance policy of £ 500 in the Scottish Widows’ Assurance Society,
intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at 25 years as
with profit policy of £ 430, £ 462-10-0 and £ 500 at 60 years or death,
65 years or death and death, respectively, or with profit policy
(paidup) of £ 299-10-0 together with cash payment of £ 133-10-0, at
option: a bank passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green branch
showing statement of a/c for halfyear ending 31 December 1903, balance
in depositor’s favour: £ 18-14-6 (eighteen pounds, fourteen shillings
and sixpence, sterling), net personalty: certificate of possession of £
900, Canadian 4% (inscribed) government stock (free of stamp duty):
dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries’ (Glasnevin) Committee, relative to
a graveplot purchased: a local press cutting concerning change of name
by deedpoll.
Quote the textual terms of this notice.
I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at no 52 Clanbrassil street, Dublin,
formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby give notice
that I have assumed and intend henceforth upon all occasions and at all
times to be known by the name of Rudolph Bloom.
What other objects relative to Rudolph Bloom (born Virag) were in the
2nd drawer?
An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolf Virag and his father Leopold
Virag executed in the year 1852 in the portrait atelier of their
(respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag of Szesfehervar,
Hungary. An ancient haggadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex
spectacles inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual
prayers for Pessach (Passover): a photocard of the Queen’s Hotel,
Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom: an envelope addressed: _To My Dear
Son Leopold_.
What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words
evoke?
Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to be
... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... all
for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... always...
of me... _das Herz... Gott... dein_...
What reminiscences of a human subject suffering from progressive
melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom?
An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered,
sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: aconite, resorted to by increasing doses
of grains and scruples as a palliative of recrudescent neuralgia: the
face in death of a septuagenarian, suicide by poison.
Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse?
Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain
beliefs and practices.
As?
The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal: the
hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract, perfervidly concrete
mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots: the circumcision of male
infants: the supernatural character of Judaic scripture: the
ineffability of the tetragrammaton: the sanctity of the sabbath.
How did these beliefs and practices now appear to him?
Not more rational than they had then appeared, not less rational than
other beliefs and practices now appeared.
What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)?
Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a
retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between
Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely with
statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresia,
empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having
taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves).
Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant
consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by
suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in
the various centres mentioned.
Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these
migrations in narrator and listener?
In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of
narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence
of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences.
What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of
amnesia?
Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat.
Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an
inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of
food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of
paper.
What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent?
The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon
repletion.
What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences?
The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the
possession of scrip.
Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which
these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values
to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity.
Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor
hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and
doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy:
that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1/4d in
the £, sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant,
insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated
bailiff’s man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric
public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded
perforated umbrella. Destitution: the inmate of Old Man’s House (Royal
Hospital), Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson’s Hospital for reduced but
respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of
misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic
pauper.
With which attendant indignities?
The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the
contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the
simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of
illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of
decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less
than nothing.
By what could such a situation be precluded?
By decease (change of state): by departure (change of place).
Which preferably?
The latter, by the line of least resistance.
What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable?
Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects.
The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The
necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of
arrest.
What considerations rendered departure not irrational?
The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which
being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if
not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication,
which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting
parties, which was impossible.
What considerations rendered departure desirable?
The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad,
as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or in
special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and
hachures.
In Ireland?
The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with
submerged petrified city, the Giant’s Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort
Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the
pastures of royal Meath, Brigid’s elm in Kildare, the Queen’s Island
shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.
Abroad?
Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea to Thomas Kernan, agent for
Pulbrook, Robertson and Co, 2 Mincing Lane, London, E. C., 5 Dame
street, Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and gate
of Damascus, goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique
birthplace of Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues of nude
Grecian divinities), the Wall street money market (which controlled
international finance), the Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where
O’Hara of the Camerons had slain the bull), Niagara (over which no
human being had passed with impunity), the land of the Eskimos (eaters
of soap), the forbidden country of Thibet (from which no traveller
returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to die), the Dead Sea.
Under what guidance, following what signs?
At sea, septentrional, by night the polestar, located at the point of
intersection of the right line from beta to alpha in Ursa Maior
produced and divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse of the
rightangled triangle formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the
line alpha delta of Ursa Maior. On land, meridional, a bispherical
moon, revealed in imperfect varying phases of lunation through the
posterior interstice of the imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose
negligent perambulating female, a pillar of the cloud by day.
What public advertisement would divulge the occultation of the
departed?
£ 5 reward, lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles street,
missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold (Poldy),
height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since
grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will
be paid for information leading to his discovery.
What universal binomial denominations would be his as entity and
nonentity?
Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman.
What tributes his?
Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman. A nymph
immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman.
Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear?
Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his
cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic
planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of
space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere
imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey
the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of
the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the
constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of