Ulysses
voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem
sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animæ tutelam Te auctore
percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum._
—And so say all of us, says Jack.
—Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.
—Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.
I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike
when be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a
hurry.
—I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope
I’m not...
—No, says Martin, we’re ready.
Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver.
Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There’s
a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to
five.
—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen.
—Beg your pardon, says he.
—Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now.
—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It’s a
secret.
And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.
—Bye bye all, says Martin.
And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or
whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be
all at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car.
—Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey.
The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop
the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off
forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely
nymphs drew nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the
sides of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the
cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the
equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds
them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas
they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so
did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters.
And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark
clave the waves.
But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the
citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the
dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and
candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little
Alf round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him.
—Let me alone, says he.
And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls
out of him:
—Three cheers for Israel!
Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ’ sake
and don’t be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there’s
always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about
bloody nothing. Gob, it’d turn the porter sour in your guts, so it
would.
And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and
Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and
Alf and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews
and the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him
to sit down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a
patch over his eye starts singing _If the man in the moon was a jew,
jew, jew_ and a slut shouts out of her:
—Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!
And says he:
—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And
the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.
—He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.
—Whose God? says the citizen.
—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a
jew like me.
Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.
—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy
name. By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.
—Stop! Stop! says Joe.
A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from
the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid
farewell to Nagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander
Thom’s, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for
the distant clime of Százharminczbrojúgulyás-Dugulás (Meadow of
Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great _éclat_ was
characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll
of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to
the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the
community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket,
tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work
which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob _agus_ Jacob.
The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of
those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of
Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of _Come Back to Erin_,
followed immediately by _Rakóczsy’s March_. Tarbarrels and bonfires
were lighted along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the
Hill of Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains
of Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the
Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of
M’Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid
cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a
big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills,
the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final
floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who were
present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river,
escorted by a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and
Custom House were dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical
power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light.
_Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra!_ Gone but not
forgotten.
Gob, the devil wouldn’t stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin
anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he
shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen’s
royal theatre:
—Where is he till I murder him?
And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.
—Bloody wars, says I, I’ll be in for the last gospel.
But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag’s head round the other
way and off with him.
—Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!
Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the
sun was in his eyes or he’d have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent
it into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old
mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting
and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street.
The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The
observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the
fifth grade of Mercalli’s scale, and there is no record extant of a
similar seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534,
the year of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to
have been that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn’s Quay
ward and parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres,
two roods and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in
the vicinity of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble
edifice itself, in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal
debates were in progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it
is to be feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the
reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were
accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic
character. An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the
much respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a
silk umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, crest, coat
of arms and house number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of
quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been
discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island
respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant’s
causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in
the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other
eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent object of
enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a terrifying
velocity in a trajectory directed southwest by west. Messages of
condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all parts of the
different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously
pleased to decree that a special _missa pro defunctis_ shall be
celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral
church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority
of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who
have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. The work of
salvage, removal of _débris,_ human remains etc has been entrusted to
Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T.
and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and
officers of the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry under the general
supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir
Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C.,
K. C. B., M. P., J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I.
A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P.
I. and F. R. C. S. I.
You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that
lottery ticket on the side of his poll he’d remember the gold cup, he
would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and
battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by
furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And
he let a volley of oaths after him.
—Did I kill him, says he, or what?
And he shouting to the bloody dog:
—After him, Garry! After him, boy!
And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old
sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his
lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb.
Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise
you.
When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld
the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in
the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having
raiment as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they
durst not look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling:
_Elijah! Elijah!_ And He answered with a main cry: _Abba! Adonai!_ And
they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels
ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees
over Donohoe’s in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel.
[ 13 ]
The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious
embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of
all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud
promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on
the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on
the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the
stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a
beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.
The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening
scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and