Ulysses
Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.
—I’ll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.
—Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you
come back.
—Good, Mr Bloom said.
He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the
coolwrappered soap in his left hand.
At his armpit Bantam Lyons’ voice and hand said:
—Hello, Bloom. What’s the best news? Is that today’s? Show us a minute.
Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look
younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.
Bantam Lyons’s yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a
wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears’
soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.
—I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, Bantam
Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.
Barber’s itch. Tight collar he’ll lose his hair. Better leave him the
paper and get shut of him.
—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
—Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the
second.
—I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
—What’s that? his sharp voice said.
—I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away
that moment.
Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread
sheets back on Mr Bloom’s arms.
—I’ll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped off towards Conway’s corner. God speed scut.
Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap
in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it
lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large
tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming
embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now.
They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a
mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He
eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist
doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it
round like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the
hub big: college. Something to catch the eye.
There’s Hornblower standing at the porter’s lodge. Keep him on hands:
might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower?
How do you do, sir?
Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.
Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play it
here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the
Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in
their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M’Carthy took the
floor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Always passing, the stream of life, which
in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all.
Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid
stream. This is my body.
He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of
warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk
and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward,
lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of
his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father
of thousands, a languid floating flower.
[ 6 ]
Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking
carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in
after him, curving his height with care.
—Come on, Simon.
—After you, Mr Bloom said.
Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:
—Yes, yes.
—Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.
Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to
after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm
through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow
at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman
peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she
was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad
to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them.
Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he’d
wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming
making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know
who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the
nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same
after. Unclean job.
All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am
sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in my hip pocket. Better
shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity.
All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer:
then horses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and
swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of
the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar.
At walking pace.
They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were
passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels
rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook
rattling in the doorframes.
—What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.
—Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.
Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.
—That’s a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died
out.
All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by
passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the
smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man,
clad in mourning, a wide hat.
—There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.
—Who is that?
—Your son and heir.
—Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.
The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back
to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus
fell back, saying:
—Was that Mulligan cad with him? His _fidus Achates_!
—No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.
—Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding
faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa’s little lump
of dung, the wise child that knows her own father.
Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the
bottleworks: Dodder bridge.
Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls
the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing
in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the
landlady’s two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night.
Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife
ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they
are. About six hundred per cent profit.
—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a
contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks
all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’ll
make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother
or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a
gate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.
He cried above the clatter of the wheels:
—I won’t have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper’s
son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M’Swiney’s. Not likely.
He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power’s mild
face and Martin Cunningham’s eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy
selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If
little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house.
Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange
feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that
morning in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogs
at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning
up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us
a touch, Poldy. God, I’m dying for it. How life begins.
Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.
I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent.
Learn German too.
—Are we late? Mr Power asked.
—Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch.
Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping
Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she’s a dear girl. Soon be a
woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too.
Life, life.
The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.
—Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.
—He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn’t that squint troubling him. Do
you follow me?
He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away
crustcrumbs from under his thighs.
—What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?
—Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power
said.
All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless
leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward
and said:
—Unless I’m greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?
—It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite
clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.
Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.
—After all, he said, it’s the most natural thing in the world.
—Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of
his beard gently.
—Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He’s behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.
—And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.
—At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.
—I met M’Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he’d try to come.
The carriage halted short.
—What’s wrong?
—We’re stopped.
—Where are we?
Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.
—The grand canal, he said.
Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got
it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame
really. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed
tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t miss
this chance. Dogs’ home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos,
Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave.
A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men’s
dogs usually are.
A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower
spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a
colander. I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now.
—The weather is changing, he said quietly.
—A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said.
—Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There’s the sun again coming
out.
Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled
a mute curse at the sky.
—It’s as uncertain as a child’s bottom, he said.
—We’re off again.
The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed
gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard.
—Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking
him off to his face.
—O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear
him, Simon, on Ben Dollard’s singing of _The Croppy Boy_.