Ulysses
lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephen’s hat, festooned with shavings,
and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by
the shoulder.)_
BLOOM: Eh! Ho! _(There is no answer; he bends again.)_ Mr Dedalus!
_(There is no answer.)_ The name if you call. Somnambulist. _(He bends
again and, hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate
form.)_ Stephen! _(There is no answer. He calls again.)_ Stephen!
STEPHEN: _(Groans.)_ Who? Black panther. Vampire. _(He sighs and
stretches himself, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.)_
Who... drive... Fergus now
And pierce... wood’s woven shade?...
_(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)_
BLOOM: Poetry. Well educated. Pity. _(He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen’s waistcoat.)_ To breathe. _(He brushes the
woodshavings from Stephen’s clothes with light hand and fingers.)_ One
pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. _(He listens.)_ What?
STEPHEN: _(Murmurs.)_
... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim sea.
_(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom,
holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the
distance. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks
down on Stephen’s face and form.)_
BLOOM: _(Communes with the night.)_ Face reminds me of his poor mother.
In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A
girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. _(He murmurs.)_... swear
that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts,
art or arts... _(He murmurs.)_... in the rough sands of the sea... a
cabletow’s length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows
...
_(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure
appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed
in an Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a
book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling,
kissing the page.)_
BLOOM: _(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.)_ Rudy!
RUDY: _(Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom’s eyes and goes on reading,
kissing, smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has
diamond and ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory
cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat
pocket.)_
— III —
[ 16 ]
Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of
the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up
generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His
(Stephen’s) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a
bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr
Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry
water available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit
upon an expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the
cabman’s shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt
bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk
and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce
he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon
him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and
means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he
was rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly
advisable to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in
their then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen,
always assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly
after a few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having
forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had
done yeoman service in the shaving line, they both walked together
along Beaver street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier’s and
the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of
Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence
debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin’s. But
as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for
hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some
fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was
no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was
anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by
emitting a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head,
twice.
This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently
there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it
which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett’s and the
Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the
direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped
by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had,
to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though,
entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made
light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed
for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it
cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they
dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a
fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company’s
sandstrewer happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his
companion _à propos_ of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of
some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great
Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of
course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and passing the
backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say
gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the
Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its
C division police station. Between this point and the high at present
unlit warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen,
associated with Baird’s the stonecutter’s in his mind somehow in Talbot
place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting as
his _fidus Achates_ inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of
James Rourke’s city bakery, situated quite close to where they were,
the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities
of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of
life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread, at Rourke’s the
baker’s it is said.
_En route_ to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not
yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in
complete possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact
disgustingly sober, spoke a word of caution _re_ the dangers of
nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen, which, barely
permissible once in a while though not as a habitual practice, was of
the nature of a regular deathtrap for young fellows of his age
particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under the influence
of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu for every contingency as
even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if
you didn’t look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the
scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for
that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finis might
have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward or,
failing that, the bridewell and an appearance in the court next day
before Mr Tobias or, he being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant
to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got
bruited about. The reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those
policemen, whom he cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in
the service of the Crown and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or
two in the A division in Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole
through a ten gallon pot. Never on the spot when wanted but in quiet
parts of the city, Pembroke road for example, the guardians of the law
were well in evidence, the obvious reason being they were paid to
protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented on was equipping
soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go off
at any time which was tantamount to inciting them against civilians
should by any chance they fall out over anything. You frittered away
your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also character
besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the
_demimonde_ ran away with a lot of £. s. d. into the bargain and the
greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the
much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old
wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing
aperient virtues (notably a good burgundy which he was a staunch
believer in) still never beyond a certain point where he invariably
drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing of
your being at the tender mercy of others practically. Most of all he
commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen by all his pubhunting
_confrères_ but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the part of his
brother medicos under all the circs.
—And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing
whatsoever of any kind.
Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back
of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a
brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one
attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord
stopped for no special reason to look at the heap of barren
cobblestones and by the light emanating from the brazier he could just
make out the darker figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom
of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this had happened or had
been mentioned as having happened before but it cost him no small
effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a
_quondam_ friend of his father’s, Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew
nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge.
—Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.
A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches
saluted again, calling:
—Night!
Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the
compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch
as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but
nevertheless remained on the _qui vive_ with just a shade of anxiety
though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he
knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next
to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising
peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some
secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames
embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply
marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell
swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there
to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.
Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,
though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley’s
breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him
and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of
inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a