Ulysses
certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His
grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of
a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot.
Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of
the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably
fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or
some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had
enjoyed the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This
therefore was the reason why the still comparatively young though
dissolute man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with
facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley.
Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.
Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night’s lodgings. His friends
had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called
him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of
other uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of
Stephen to tell him where on God’s earth he could get something,
anything at all, to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the
washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they
were connected through the mother in some way, both occurrences
happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn’t a complete
fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow he was all in.
—I wouldn’t ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows
I’m on the rocks.
—There’ll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys’
school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You
may mention my name.
—Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn’t teach in a school, man. I was
never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck
twice in the junior at the christian brothers.
—I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.
Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to
do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody
tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs
Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but
M’Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over
in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person
addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he
hadn’t said a word about it.
Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it
still Stephen’s feelings got the better of him in a sense though he
knew that Corley’s brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was
hardly deserving of much credence. However _haud ignarus malorum
miseris succurrere disco etcetera_ as the Latin poet remarks especially
as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the
month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of
fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream
of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley’s head that he was
living in affluence and hadn’t a thing to do but hand out the needful.
Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of
finding any food there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a
bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get
sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his
chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the
result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for the
moment whether he had lost as well he might have or left because in
that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse
in fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough
search though he tried to recollect. About biscuits he dimly
remembered. Who now exactly gave them he wondered or where was or did
he buy. However in another pocket he came across what he surmised in
the dark were pennies, erroneously however, as it turned out.
—Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.
And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him
one of them.
—Thanks, Corley answered, you’re a gentleman. I’ll pay you back one
time. Who’s that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse
in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good
word for us to get me taken on there. I’d carry a sandwichboard only
the girl in the office told me they’re full up for the next three
weeks, man. God, you’ve to book ahead, man, you’d think it was for the
Carl Rosa. I don’t give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as
a crossing sweeper.
Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six
he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky
that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam’s, the shipchandler’s,
bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle’s back with
O’Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he
was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and
disorderly and refusing to go with the constable.
Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the
cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation
watchman’s sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him,
was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own
private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same
time now and then at Stephen’s anything but immaculately attired
interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though
where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the
remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded individual who could give
points to not a few in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on
his very dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally
testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his
hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a question of one
preying on his nextdoor neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put
it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the street
chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude with or without the
option of a fine would be a very _rara avis_ altogether. In any case he
had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that
hour of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.
The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his
practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the
blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he
said, laughingly, Stephen, that is:
—He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr
Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the
direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,
moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair,
whereupon he observed evasively:
—Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it
his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much
did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?
—Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep
somewhere.
—Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the
intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he
invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according
to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he
with a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of
the question. And even supposing you did you won’t get in after what
occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I
don’t mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why
did you leave your father’s house?
—To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer.
—I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom
diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on
yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of
conversation that he had moved.
—I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly.
Why?
—A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects
than one and a born _raconteur_ if ever there was one. He takes great
pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he
hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row
terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan,
that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred
their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally
station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion,
which they did.
There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it
was, Stephen’s mind’s eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his
family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by
the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell
cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he
could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings
they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and
Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells
and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in
accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain on
the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or
something like that.
—No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust
in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element,
Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your
shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all
probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals.
Of course you didn’t notice as much as I did. But it wouldn’t occasion
me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic
was put in your drink for some ulterior object.
He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a
versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was
rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified,
bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future
as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services
in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from
certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid
at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an
exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that
frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be
at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or
jealousy, pure and simple.
—Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking
your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by
friendliness which he gave at Stephen’s at present morose expression of
features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the
problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge
by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about
saw through the affair and for some reason or other best known to
himself allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that
effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities