Ulysses
—Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus cried. By God, you’re as good as ever you
were.
—Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad,
upon my soul and honour it is.
—Lablache, said Father Cowley.
Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed and
all big roseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering
castagnettes in the air.
Big Benaben Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben.
Rrr.
And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all
laughing they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer.
—You’re looking rubicund, George Lidwell said.
Miss Douce composed her rose to wait.
—Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben’s fat back shoulderblade.
Fit as a fiddle only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his
person.
Rrrrrrrsss.
—Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled.
Richie rift in the lute alone sat: Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly
he waited. Unpaid Pat too.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankard one.
—Mr Dollard, they murmured low.
—Dollard, murmured tankard.
Tank one believed: miss Kenn when she: that doll he was: she doll: the
tank.
He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that
is to say. That was to say he had heard the name of. Dollard, was it?
Dollard, yes.
Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely,
murmured Mina. Mr Dollard. And _The last rose of summer_ was a lovely
song. Mina loved that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina.
’Tis the last rose of summer dollard left bloom felt wind wound round
inside.
Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J’s
one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street.
Wish I hadn’t promised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your
nerves. Beerpull. Her hand that rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth.
That rules the world.
Far. Far. Far. Far.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady,
with sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went
Poldy on.
Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap.
Cowley, he stuns himself with it: kind of drunkenness. Better give way
only half way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All
ears. Not lose a demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time.
Dotty. You daren’t budge. Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking
shop. Fiddlefaddle about notes.
All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you
never know exac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year.
Queer up there in the cockloft, alone, with stops and locks and keys.
Seated all day at the organ. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself
or the other fellow blowing the bellows. Growl angry, then shriek
cursing (want to have wadding or something in his no don’t she cried),
then all of a soft sudden wee little wee little pipy wind.
Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom’s little wee.
—Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning with fetched pipe. I was with him
this morning at poor little Paddy Dignam’s...
—Ay, the Lord have mercy on him.
—By the bye there’s a tuningfork in there on the...
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
—The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked.
—O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw,
forgot it when he was here.
Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so
exquisitely, treat to hear. Exquisite contrast: bronzelid, minagold.
—Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out!
—’lldo! cried Father Cowley.
Rrrrrr.
I feel I want...
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap
—Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine.
Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely,
last sardine of summer. Bloom alone.
—Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Bloom went by Barry’s. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had.
Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Counted them. Litigation. Love
one another. Piles of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of
attorney. Goulding, Collis, Ward.
But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation:
Mickey Rooney’s band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home
after pig’s cheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing
his band part. Pom. Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses’ skins. Welt
them through life, then wallop after death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be
what you call yashmak or I mean kismet. Fate.
Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane came taptaptapping by
Daly’s window where a mermaid hair all streaming (but he couldn’t see)
blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn’t), mermaid, coolest whiff of
all.
Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even comb
and tissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in
Lombard street west, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its
own, don’t you see? Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? _Cloche.
Sonnez la._ Shepherd his pipe. Pwee little wee. Policeman a whistle.
Locks and keys! Sweep! Four o’clock’s all’s well! Sleep! All is lost
now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait. I know. Towncrier, bumbailiff. Long John.
Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor little _nominedomine._ Pom. It is
music. I mean of course it’s all pom pom pom very much what they call
_da capo._ Still you can hear. As we march, we march along, march
along. Pom.
I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of
custom shah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same he
must have been a bit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap.
Muffled up. Wonder who was that chap at the grave in the brown macin.
O, the whore of the lane!
A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the
day along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form
endearing? Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn.
Who had the? Heehaw shesaw. Off her beat here. What is she? Hope she.
Psst! Any chance of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady
does be with you in the brown costume. Put you off your stroke, that.
Appointment we made knowing we’d never, well hardly ever. Too dear too
near to home sweet home. Sees me, does she? Looks a fright in the day.
Face like dip. Damn her. O, well, she has to live like the rest. Look
in here.
In Lionel Marks’s antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold
dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged battered
candlesticks melodeon oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain: six bob. Might
learn to play. Cheap. Let her pass. Course everything is dear if you
don’t want it. That’s what good salesman is. Make you buy what he wants
to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish razor he shaved me with. Wanted to
charge me for the edge he gave it. She’s passing now. Six bob.
Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund.
Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking
glasses all, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia’s tempting
last rose of summer, rose of Castile. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a
fifth: Lidwell, Si Dedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and big Ben Dollard.
Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall.
Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks’s window. Robert
Emmet’s last words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is.
—True men like you men.
—Ay, ay, Ben.
—Will lift your glass with us.
They lifted.
Tschink. Tschunk.
Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw
not gold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor
Richie nor Pat. Hee hee hee hee. He did not see.
Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. _When my country
takes her place among._
Prrprr.
Must be the bur.
Fff! Oo. Rrpr.
_Nations of the earth._ No-one behind. She’s passed. _Then and not till
then._ Tram kran kran kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I’m
sure it’s the burgund. Yes. One, two. _Let my epitaph be._ Kraaaaaa.
_Written. I have._
Pprrpffrrppffff.
_Done._
[ 12 ]
I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the
corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along
and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have
the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony
Batter only Joe Hynes.
—Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody
chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush?
—Soot’s luck, says Joe. Who’s the old ballocks you were talking to?
—Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I’m on two minds not to give that
fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and
ladders.
—What are you doing round those parts? says Joe.
—Devil a much, says I. There’s a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the
garrison church at the corner of Chicken lane—old Troy was just giving
me a wrinkle about him—lifted any God’s quantity of tea and sugar to
pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a
hop-of-my-thumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury
street.
—Circumcised? says Joe.
—Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I’m
hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can’t get a
penny out of him.
—That the lay you’re on now? says Joe.
—Ay, says I. How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtful
debts. But that’s the most notorious bloody robber you’d meet in a
day’s walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of
rain. _Tell him,_ says he, _I dare him,_ says he, _and I doubledare him
to send you round here again or if he does,_ says he, _I’ll have him
summonsed up before the court, so I will, for trading without a
licence._ And he after stuffing himself till he’s fit to burst. Jesus,
I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out. _He drink me
my teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he no pay me my moneys?_
For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin’s
parade in the city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter
called the vendor, and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty,
esquire, of 29 Arbour hill in the city of Dublin, Arran quay ward,
gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser, videlicet, five pounds
avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings and no pence per
pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed
crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor
to the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling
for value received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said
vendor in weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three
shillings and no pence sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall
not be pawned or pledged or sold or otherwise alienated by the said
purchaser but shall be and remain and be held to be the sole and
exclusive property of the said vendor to be disposed of at his good
will and pleasure until the said amount shall have been duly paid by
the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein set forth as
this day hereby agreed between the said vendor, his heirs, successors,
trustees and assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his heirs,
successors, trustees and assigns of the other part.
—Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe.
—Not taking anything between drinks, says I.
—What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe.
—Who? says I. Sure, he’s out in John of God’s off his head, poor man.
—Drinking his own stuff? says Joe.
—Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain.
—Come around to Barney Kiernan’s, says Joe. I want to see the citizen.