Ulysses
wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so
saith the Lord.
So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom
comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the
business and the old dog smelling him all the time I’m told those
jewies does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about
I don’t know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on.
—There’s one thing it hasn’t a deterrent effect on, says Alf.
—What’s that? says Joe.
—The poor bugger’s tool that’s being hanged, says Alf.
—That so? says Joe.
—God’s truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in
Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when
they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like
a poker.
—Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said.
—That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It’s only a natural
phenomenon, don’t you see, because on account of the...
And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science
and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon.
The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered
medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the
cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would,
according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be
calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent
ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus,
thereby causing the elastic pores of the _corpora cavernosa_ to rapidly
dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood
to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ
resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty a
morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection _in articulo
mortis per diminutionem capitis._
So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and
he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard
and the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe
with him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported
for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this,
that and the other. Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a
new dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all
round the place and scratching his scabs. And round he goes to Bob
Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could
get. So of course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him:
—Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw
here! Give us the paw!
Arrah, bloody end to the paw he’d paw and Alf trying to keep him from
tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking
all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and
intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few
bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs’ tin he told Terry to
bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging
out of him a yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry
bloody mongrel.
And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the
brothers Sheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet
and die for your country, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and
she’s far from the land. And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown
cigar putting on swank with his lardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he
married is a nice old phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley.
Time they were stopping up in the _City Arms_ pisser Burke told me
there was an old one there with a cracked loodheramaun of a nephew and
Bloom trying to get the soft side of her doing the mollycoddle playing
bézique to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will and not eating
meat of a Friday because the old one was always thumping her craw and
taking the lout out for a walk. And one time he led him the rounds of
Dublin and, by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought
him home as drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him
the evils of alcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn’t near
roast him, it’s a queer story, the old one, Bloom’s wife and Mrs O’Dowd
that kept the hotel. Jesus, I had to laugh at pisser Burke taking them
off chewing the fat. And Bloom with his _but don’t you see?_ and _but
on the other hand_. And sure, more be token, the lout I’m told was in
Power’s after, the blender’s, round in Cope street going home footless
in a cab five times in the week after drinking his way through all the
samples in the bloody establishment. Phenomenon!
—The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and
glaring at Bloom.
—Ay, ay, says Joe.
—You don’t grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is...
—_Sinn Fein!_ says the citizen. _Sinn Fein amhain!_ The friends we love
are by our side and the foes we hate before us.
The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far
and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the
gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums
punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening
claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the
ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its
supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain
poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the bared
heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at the lowest
computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of Dublin
Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person
maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and
reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on
their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from
the cradle by Speranza’s plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains
and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our
country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable
amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and
M-ll-g-n who sang _The Night before Larry was stretched_ in their usual
mirth-provoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade
with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody
who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will
grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and
Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking the
scene were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day’s
entertainment and a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the
Poor for their excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and
motherless children a genuinely instructive treat. The viceregal
houseparty which included many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their
Excellencies to the most favourable positions on the grandstand while
the picturesque foreign delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald
Isle was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation,
present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone
(the semiparalysed _doyen_ of the party who had to be assisted to his
seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul
Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the
Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha
Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos
Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Señor Hidalgo
Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la
Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen,
Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr
Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident
Hans Chuechli-Steuerli,
Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentge
neralhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the
delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest
possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which
they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which
all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as to whether the eighth
or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland’s
patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars,
boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas,
catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to
and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable
MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly
restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth
of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending
parties. The readywitted ninefooter’s suggestion at once appealed to
all and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily
congratulated by all the F. O. T. E. I., several of whom were bleeding
profusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from
underneath the presidential armchair, it was explained by his legal
adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the various articles secreted in his
thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by him during the affray from the
pockets of his junior colleagues in the hope of bringing them to their
senses. The objects (which included several hundred ladies’ and
gentlemen’s gold and silver watches) were promptly restored to their
rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme.
Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless
morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the _Gladiolus
Cruentus_. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough
which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking
yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the
worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the
huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in
their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates
cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, _hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio,
chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah_, amid which the ringing
_evviva_ of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling
those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani
beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It
was exactly seventeen o’clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly
given by megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the
commendatore’s patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession
of his family since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his
medical adviser in attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who
administered the last comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when
about to pay the death penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a
pool of rainwater, his cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to
the throne of grace fervent prayers of supplication. Hard by the block
stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in
a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which
his eyes glowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested
the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or
decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been
provided by the admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a
handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering
knife, the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially