Ulysses
though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both
ends meet.
Adjacent to the men’s public urinal they perceived an icecream car
round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were
getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a
particularly animated way, there being some little differences between
the parties.
—_Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!_
_—Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano più..._
_—Dice lui, però!_
_—Mezzo._
_—Farabutto! Mortacci sui!_
_—Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa più..._
Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious
wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been
before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few
hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat
Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual
facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few
moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet
corner only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous
collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the
genus _homo_ already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified
by conversation for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked
curiosity.
—Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest
to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the
shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description.
Accordingly his first act was with characteristic _sangfroid_ to order
these commodities quietly. The _hoi polloi_ of jarvies or stevedores or
whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes
apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous
individual, portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still
stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention
to the floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech,
he having just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute,
though, to be sure, rather in a quandary over _voglio_, remarked to his
_protégé_ in an audible tone of voice _à propos_ of the battle royal in
the street which was still raging fast and furious:
—A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not
write your poetry in that language? _Bella Poetria_! It is so melodious
and full. _Belladonna. Voglio._
Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering
from lassitude generally, replied:
—To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.
—Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the
inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that
surrounds it.
The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this _tête-à-tête_ put a
boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the
table and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed.
After which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to
have a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For
which reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he
did the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was
temporarily supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him.
—Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time,
like names. Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle.
Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What’s in a name?
—Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name
was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across.
The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded
Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely
by asking:
—And what might your name be?
Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion’s boot but
Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected
quarter, answered:
—Dedalus.
The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,
rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old
Hollands and water.
—You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.
—I’ve heard of him, Stephen said.
Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently
eavesdropping too.
—He’s Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same
way and nodding. All Irish.
—All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.
As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole
business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when
the sailor of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the
shelter with the remark:
—I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his
shoulder. The lefthand dead shot.
Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his
gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.
—Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles.
Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims.
He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then
he screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the
night with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.
—Pom! he then shouted once.
The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation,
there being still a further egg.
—Pom! he shouted twice.
Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding
bloodthirstily:
_—Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,
Never missed nor he never will._
A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness’ sake just felt like
asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the
Bisley.
—Beg pardon, the sailor said.
—Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth.
—Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic
influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years. He
toured the wide world with Hengler’s Royal Circus. I seen him do that
in Stockholm.
—Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively.
—Murphy’s my name, the sailor continued. D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe.
Know where that is?
—Queenstown harbour, Stephen replied.
—That’s right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That’s
where I hails from. I belongs there. That’s where I hails from. My
little woman’s down there. She’s waiting for me, I know. _For England,
home and beauty_. She’s my own true wife I haven’t seen for seven years
now, sailing about.
Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the homecoming
to the mariner’s roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones, a
rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a
number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic,
Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember
Caoc O’Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way
of poor John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way.
Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the
absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he
finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent
his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but
I’ve come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow,
at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the
deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or Tomkin, as the case might be, the
publican of the Crown and Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and
onions. No chair for father. Broo! The wind! Her brandnew arrival is on
her knee, _post mortem_ child. With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my
galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to the inevitable. Grin and bear it. I
remain with much love your brokenhearted husband W. B. Murphy.
The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one
of the jarvies with the request:
—You don’t happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you?
The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die
of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object
was passed from hand to hand.
—Thank you, the sailor said.
He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow
stammers, proceeded:
—We come up this morning eleven o’clock. The threemaster _Rosevean_
from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this
afternoon. There’s my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S.
In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket
and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document.
—You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked,
leaning on the counter.
—Why, the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, I’ve circumnavigated
a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and
North America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. I
seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea,
the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever
scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. _Gospodi pomilyou_. That’s how the
Russians prays.
—You seen queer sights, don’t be talking, put in a jarvey.
—Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen queer
things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an
anchor same as I chew that quid.
He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his
teeth, bit ferociously:
—Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and
the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent
me.
He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed
to be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table.
The printed matter on it stated: _Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia._
All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage
women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning,
sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of
them) outside some primitive shanties of osier.
—Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like
breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can’t bear no more
children.
See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse’s liver
raw.
His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns
for several minutes if not more.
—Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally.
Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying:
—Glass. That boggles ’em. Glass.
Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the
card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran
as follows: _Tarjeta Postal, Señor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago,
Chile._ There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice.
Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the
eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the
Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in _Maritana_ on which
occasion the former’s ball passed through the latter’s hat) having
detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he
represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours after
having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and the
fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some
suspicions of our friend’s _bona fides_ nevertheless it reminded him in
a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some
Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London _via_ long sea not to say
that he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was