Ulysses

pisode 13: Nausicaa

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
oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy
chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy
Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and
Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits
with caps to match and the name H. M. S. Belleisle printed on both.
For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very
noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little
fellows with bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They
were dabbling in the sand with their spades and buckets, building
castles as children do, or playing with their big coloured ball, happy
as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to
and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled with
delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a
tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy
Caffrey bent over to him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty
dimple in his chin.

—Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of
water.

And baby prattled after her:

—A jink a jink a jawbo.

Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of
children, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could
never be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that
held his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown
bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But
to be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in
his new fancy bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort,
was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life,
always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her
cherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman
laughed too at the quaint language of little brother.

But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and
Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to
this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand
which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go
wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like
the Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky
was selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman’s
house is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose
that the wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the
coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master
Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends.

—Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,
Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I
catch you for that.

His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for
their big sister’s word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he
was too after his misadventure. His little man-o’-war top and
unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the
art of smoothing over life’s tiny troubles and very quickly not one
speck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue
eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she kissed
away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and
said if she was near him she wouldn’t be far from him, her eyes dancing
in admonition.

—Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.

She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:

—What’s your name? Butter and cream?

—Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your
sweetheart?

—Nao, tearful Tommy said.

—Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.

—Nao, Tommy said.

—I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from
her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy’s sweetheart. Gerty is
Tommy’s sweetheart.

—Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.

Cissy’s quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to Edy
Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman
couldn’t see and to mind he didn’t wet his new tan shoes.

But who was Gerty?

Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,
gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a
specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was
pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said,
she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and
graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had
been taking of late had done her a world of good much better than the
Widow Welch’s female pills and she was much better of those discharges
she used to get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face
was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth
was a genuine Cupid’s bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely
veined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and
queen of ointments could make them though it was not true that she used
to wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple
told that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black
out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their
little tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told
her not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or
she’d never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There
was an innate refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which
was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep.
Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in
her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education
Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the
land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow
and patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their
devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that
lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed
meaning, that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful
eyes, a charm few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery?
Gerty’s were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and
dark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily
seductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful
page of the Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try
eyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so
becoming in leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then
there was blushing scientifically cured and how to be tall increase
your height and you have a beautiful face but your nose? That would
suit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But Gerty’s crowning
glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a
natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account of the
new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion of
luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. And
just now at Edy’s words as a telltale flush, delicate as the faintest
rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet
girlish shyness that of a surety God’s fair land of Ireland did not
hold her equal.

For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was
about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.
Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent.
The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out
into a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young
May morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy
say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a
lovers’ quarrel. As per usual somebody’s nose was out of joint about
the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding
up and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in
the evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate
that was on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a
doctor when he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who
was racing in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little
recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart
sometimes, piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he
might learn to love her in time. They were protestants in his family
and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed
Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an
exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the
shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would
know anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the
bicycle at the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice
perfume of those good cigarettes and besides they were both of a size
too he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was so
frightfully clever because he didn’t go and ride up and down in front
of her bit of a garden.

Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of
Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be
out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because
it was expected in the Lady’s Pictorial that electric blue would be
worn) with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket
(in which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her
favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy
threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful
figure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of
wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue
chenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday
week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she
found what she wanted at Clery’s summer sales, the very it, slightly
shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny.
She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on
then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to
her! And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew
that that would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes
were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she
was very petite but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a
five, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one
smart buckle over her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed
its perfect proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount
and no more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with
highspliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty’s
chief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet
seventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in
his heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty
stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with
different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen,
and she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from the
wash and ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because
she wouldn’t trust those washerwomen as far as she’d see them scorching
the things. She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her
own colour and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on
her because the green she wore that day week brought grief because his
father brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and
because she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was
dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside
out and that was for luck and lovers’ meeting if you put those things
on inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so
long as it wasn’t of a Friday.

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is
there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give
worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving
way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings
though not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before the
mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls
upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain.
Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a marriage
has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T.
C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be Mrs
Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was
wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox
was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in
love, a woman’s birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer’s
(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an
arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her
little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the
first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from
the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength
of character had never been Reggy Wylie’s strong point and he who would
woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting,
always waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be
over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous
love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who
had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey,
and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her
to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort
her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she
yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be
his only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in
health, till death us two part, from this to this day forward.

And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was
just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his
little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue
in the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she
would be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature
comforts too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked
that feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue
and queen Ann’s pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden
opinions from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a
fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same
direction, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of
eggs though she didn’t like the eating part when there were any people
that made her shy and often she wondered why you couldn’t eat something
poetical like violets or roses and they would have a beautifully
appointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the photograph
of grandpapa Giltrap’s lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was
so human and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack in
Clery’s summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be
tall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a
husband) with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed
sweeping moustache and they would go on the continent for their
honeymoon (three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled down in
a nice snug and cosy little homely house, every morning they would both
have brekky, simple but perfectly served, for their own two selves and
before he went out to business he would give his dear little wifey a
good hearty hug and gaze for a moment deep down into her eyes.

Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then
she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run
off and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy
said he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with
the ball and if he took it there’d be wigs on the green but Tommy said
it was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if
you please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy
Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off
now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.

—You’re not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It’s my ball.

But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her
finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand
and Tommy after it in full career, having won the day.

—Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.

And she tickled tiny tot’s two cheeks to make him forget and played
here’s the lord mayor, here’s his two horses, here’s his gingerbread
carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper
chin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way
like that from everyone always petting him.

—I’d like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won’t
say.

—On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.

Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy
saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she’d be ashamed of her
life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was
sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared
Ciss.

—Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of
her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I’d look at
him.

Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes.
For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea
and jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men’s faces on
her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to
go where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the
Miss White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget
her the evening she dressed up in her father’s suit and hat and the
burned cork moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a
cigarette. There was none to come up to her for fun. But she was
sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever
made, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome.

And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the
pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men’s temperance retreat
conducted by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary,
sermon and benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there
gathered together without distinction of social class (and a most
edifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves,
after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the
immaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her
to intercede for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin
of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty’s ears! Had her father only avoided
the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders
the drink habit cured in Pearson’s Weekly, she might now be rolling in
her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told herself that
as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp
because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window
dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking.
But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had
cast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in
the home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen
her own father, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself
completely for if there was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it
was that the man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way of
kindness, deserves to be branded as the lowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard
her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman
off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like
himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him
any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a
father because he was too old or something or on account of his face
(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the
pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor
father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang Tell me,
Mary, how to woo thee or My love and cottage near Rochelle and they
had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby’s salad dressing for supper
and when he sang The moon hath raised with Mr Dignam that died
suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her
mother’s birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom
and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have
had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now
he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a
warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn’t even go to the
funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him
the letters and samples from his office about Catesby’s cork lino,
artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and
always bright and cheery in the home.

A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the
house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in
gold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was
it rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn’t
like her mother’s taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single
thing they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the
world of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas
at the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of
that place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime
Mr Tunney the grocer’s christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days
where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with a
threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove with
oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a
story behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in a
soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in
chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at them
dreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her own
arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back and
thought about those times because she had found out in Walker’s
pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the
halcyon days what they meant.

The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion till
at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no
getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he
could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was
not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was
sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted
the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries
and to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it
to her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then
threw it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the
slope and stopped right under Gerty’s skirt near the little pool by the
rock. The twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick it
away and let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but she
wished their stupid ball hadn’t come rolling down to her and she gave a
kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.

—If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.

Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her
pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted
her skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball
a jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it
down towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else
to draw attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She
felt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell,
surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged
glances of the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat she
ventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze there in the
twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had
ever seen.

Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted
and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain
of original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray
for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And
careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many
who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all
that bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told
them what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary,
the most pious Virgin’s intercessory power that it was not recorded in
any age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever
abandoned by her.

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of
childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with
baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air.
Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was
Cissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my
word, didn’t the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say
papa.

—Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.

And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for
eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of
health, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out
to be something great, they said.

—Haja ja ja haja.

Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to
sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried
out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half
blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most
obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:

—Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.

And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all
no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the
geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave
him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen
was quickly appeased.

Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out
of that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little
brats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the
paintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured
chalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out,
the evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and
to hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense they
burned in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart
went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning
in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her
through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were,
superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer.
She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face
that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin
Harvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferred
because she wasn’t stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they
two to always dress the same on account of a play but she could not see
whether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly retroussé from where he
was sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story
of a haunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have given
worlds to know what it was. He was looking up so intently, so still,
and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel
buckles of her shoes if she swung them like that thoughtfully with the
toes down. She was glad that something told her to put on the
transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was
far away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he
who mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him
because she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very
heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she
knew on the instant it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against
than sinning, or even, even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked
man, she cared not. Even if he was a protestant or methodist she could
convert him easily if he truly loved her. There were wounds that wanted
healing with heartbalm. She was a womanly woman not like other flighty
girls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists showing off what they
hadn’t got and she just yearned to know all, to forgive all if she
could make him fall in love with her, make him forget the memory of the
past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real man,
crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for
herself alone.

Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. Ora pro nobis. Well
has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy
can never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge
for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her
own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the
stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue
banners of the blessed Virgin’s sodality and Father Conroy was helping
Canon O’Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes
cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet
and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if ever
she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come
to the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time
when she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots
of her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that was
only the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature’s laws, he
said, in this life and that that was no sin because that came from the
nature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady
herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to
Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and
thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design
for him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the
mantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little
house to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the
forty hours’ adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a
present to give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or
some place.

The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky
threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little
monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them
a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of
them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they
were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned.

—Jacky! Tommy!

Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very
last time she’d ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and
she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had
a good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the
thingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn’t get it to grow
long because it wasn’t natural so she could just go and throw her hat
at it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn’t rip
up her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was a
lot of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece
whenever she thought she had a good opportunity to show off and just
because she was a good runner she ran like that so that he could see
all the end of her petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as
possible. It would have served her just right if she had tripped up
over something accidentally on purpose with her high crooked French
heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble. Tableau!
That would have been a very charming exposé for a gentleman like that
to witness.

Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,
they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy
handed the thurible to Canon O’Hanlon and he put in the incense and
censed the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and
she was itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she
didn’t because she thought he might be watching but she never made a
bigger mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without looking
that he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O’Hanlon handed
the thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the
Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing the Tantum ergo and she
just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to
the Tantumer gosa cramen tum. Three and eleven she paid for those
stockings in Sparrow’s of George’s street on the Tuesday, no the Monday
before Easter and there wasn’t a brack on them and that was what he was
looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had
neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his
head to see the difference for himself.

Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with
her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a
streel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought
only a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her
petticoat hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a
moment to settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown
tresses was never seen on a girl’s shoulders—a radiant little vision,
in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travel
many a long mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. She
could almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyes
that set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she
could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster
for her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was
eying her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman’s instinct told her that
she had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet
swept from throat to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a
glorious rose.

Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty,
half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the
baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was
why no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no
concern of hers. And she said to Gerty:

—A penny for your thoughts.

—What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. I
was only wondering was it late.

Because she wished to goodness they’d take the snottynosed twins and
their babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just
gave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy
asked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was
half past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know
because they were told to be in early.

—Wait, said Cissy, I’ll run ask my uncle Peter over there what’s the
time by his conundrum.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his
hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his
watchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was
Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment
he had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and
the next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol
expressed in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure.

Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the
right time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to
it and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry
his watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the
sun was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in
measured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones.
Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle said
his waterworks were out of order.

Then they sang the second verse of the Tantum ergo and Canon O’Hanlon
got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he
told Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire
to the flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and
she could see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the
works and she swung her leg more in and out in time. It was getting
darker but he could see and he was looking all the time that he was
winding the watch or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it
back and put his hands back into his pockets. She felt a kind of a
sensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel of her scalp
and that irritation against her stays that that thing must be coming on
because the last time too was when she clipped her hair on account of
the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in her
every contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was
undisguised admiration in a man’s passionate gaze it was there plain to
be seen on that man’s face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you
know it.

Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty
noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect
because it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place
to push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins’ caps and tidied
their hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O’Hanlon
stood up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed
him the card to read off and he read out Panem de coelo praestitisti
eis and Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time and
asking her but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just
answered with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she
heartbroken about her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply.
A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that spoke volumes of scorn
immeasurable. It hurt—O yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quiet
way of saying things like that she knew would wound like the confounded
little cat she was. Gerty’s lips parted swiftly to frame the word but
she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless,
so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of.
She had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle
like all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and
for an instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears.
Their eyes were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she
sparkled back in sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them
to see.

—O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head
flashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it’s leap year.

Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the
ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young
voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As
for Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck
him aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she cast as
much as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard into a
dozen pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she could give him
one look of measured scorn that would make him shrivel up on the spot.
Miss puny little Edy’s countenance fell to no slight extent and Gerty
could see by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in a
towering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because that shaft
had struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she was
something aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and
never would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it
so they could put that in their pipe and smoke it.

Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked
in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because
the sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy told
him too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and
baby looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and
Cissy poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby,
without as much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all and
sundry on to his brandnew dribbling bib.

—O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.

The slight contretemps claimed her attention but in two twos she set
that little matter to rights.

Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy
asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was
flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed
it off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction
because just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet
seashore because Canon O’Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that
Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the
Blessed Sacrament in his hands.

How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse
of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time
a bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither,
thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of
the lighthouses so picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of
paints because it was easier than to make a man and soon the
lamplighter would be going his rounds past the presbyterian church
grounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walked
and lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turn
his freewheel like she read in that book The Lamplighter by Miss
Cummins, author of Mabel Vaughan and other tales. For Gerty had her
dreams that no-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a
keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the
coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of
her toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was
scrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasure
trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose
scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to
change when her things came home from the wash and there were some
beautiful thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in
Hely’s of Dame Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if
she could only express herself like that poem that appealed to her so
deeply that she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening
round the potherbs. Art thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J
Walsh, Magherafelt, and after there was something about twilight, wilt
thou ever? and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient
loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that the
years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one
shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an
accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it.
But it must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there
would be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would
make the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his
thoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild his
days with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she was
dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife
or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land
of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But
even if—what then? Would it make a very great difference? From
everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively
recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off the
accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and
coarse men with no respect for a girl’s honour, degrading the sex and
being taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be
just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other
in spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was
an old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. She
thought she understood. She would try to understand him because men
were so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white
hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She would
follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he
was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was
the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be
wild, untrammelled, free.

Canon O’Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and
genuflected and the choir sang Laudate Dominum omnes gentes and then
he locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and
Father Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked
wasn’t she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out:

—O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over
the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.

—It’s fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.

And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church,
helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy
holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn’t fall running.

—Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It’s the bazaar fireworks.

But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and
call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she
could see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set
her pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance,
and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face,
passion silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were
left alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he
could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of
inflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working
and a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where the
fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall
back looking up and there was no-one to see only him and her when she
revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply
soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his
heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion of
men like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead
secret and made her swear she’d never about the gentleman lodger that
was staying with them out of the Congested Districts Board that had
pictures cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and
she said he used to do something not very nice that you could imagine
sometimes in the bed. But this was altogether different from a thing
like that because there was all the difference because she could almost
feel him draw her face to his and the first quick hot touch of his
handsome lips. Besides there was absolution so long as you didn’t do
the other thing before being married and there ought to be women
priests that would understand without your telling out and Cissy
Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in her eyes
so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors’
photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming on
the way it did.

And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned
back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent
and they all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it was
and she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something
queer was flying through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. And
she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in
the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went
higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up
after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused
with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see
her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the
skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven,
on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and
then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was
trembling in every limb from being bent so far back that he had a full
view high up above her knee where no-one ever not even on the swing or
wading and she wasn’t ashamed and he wasn’t either to look in that
immodest way like that because he couldn’t resist the sight of the
wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so
immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She
would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms
to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow, the cry of a
young girl’s love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry
that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot
blind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh
of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a
stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all
greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet,
soft!

Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She
glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of
piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl.
He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is
he) stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes.
What a brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called
to him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he
had been! He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in
those eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and
sinned and wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That
was their secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there
was none to know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly
through the evening to and fro and little bats don’t tell.

Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to
show what a great person she was: and then she cried:

—Gerty! Gerty! We’re going. Come on. We can see from farther up.

Gerty had an idea, one of love’s little ruses. She slipped a hand into
her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of
course without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he’s too
far to. She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet
again, there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her
dream of yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Their
souls met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her
heart, full of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet
flowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile,
a smile that verged on tears, and then they parted.

Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy,
to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was
darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and
slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic
of her but with care and very slowly because—because Gerty MacDowell
was...

Tight boots? No. She’s lame! O!

Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That’s why she’s
left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was
wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse
in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn’t know it when she was
on show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn’t mind. Curiosity like
a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is
delicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I
have such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all
right. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla
convent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the
end I suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha,
she. Something in the air. That’s the moon. But then why don’t all
women menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends
on the time they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get out
of step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best of
that. Damned glad I didn’t do it in the bath this morning over her
silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this
morning. That gouger M’Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife
engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for
small mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it
themselves. Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured
out of offices. Reserve better. Don’t want it they throw it at you.
Catch em alive, O. Pity they can’t see themselves. A dream of
wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel
street: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy’s hat and what the girls did
with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake? Lingerie
does it. Felt for the curves inside her déshabillé. Excites them also
when they’re. I’m all clean come and dirty me. And they like dressing
one another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly’s new blouse.
At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I bought her
the violet garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks and
turnedup trousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we
met. His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman
loses a charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy
lost the pin of her. Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion part
of their charm. Just changes when you’re on the track of the secret.
Except the east: Mary, Martha: now as then. No reasonable offer
refused. She wasn’t in a hurry either. Always off to a fellow when they
are. They never forget an appointment. Out on spec probably. They
believe in chance because like themselves. And the others inclined to
give her an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms round each other’s
necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets about
nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with whitewashed faces, cool coifs
and their rosaries going up and down, vindictive too for what they
can’t get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write to me. And I’ll write to
you. Now won’t you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till Mr Right comes along,
then meet once in a blue moon. Tableau! O, look who it is for the
love of God! How are you at all? What have you been doing with
yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes in
each other’s appearance. You’re looking splendid. Sister souls. Showing
their teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn’t lend each
other a pinch of salt.

Ah!

Devils they are when that’s coming on them. Dark devilish appearance.
Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my
foot. O that way! O, that’s exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest
once in a way. Wonder if it’s bad to go with them then. Safe in one
way. Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering
plants I read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she
wears she’s a flirt. All are. Daresay she felt I. When you feel like
that you often meet what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look
at. Always know a fellow courting: collars and cuffs. Well cocks and
lions do the same and stags. Same time might prefer a tie undone or
something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislike
rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me.
Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap with
bearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid
gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn’t
let her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly
men marrying. Beauty and the beast. Besides I can’t be so if Molly.
Took off her hat to show her hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face,
meeting someone might know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers
to smell. Hair strong in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly’s combings when
we were on the rocks in Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave her
money. Why not? All a prejudice. She’s worth ten, fifteen, more, a
pound. What? I think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion.
Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I sent
to Flynn? And the day I went to Drimmie’s without a necktie. Wrangle
with Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding: he’s
another. Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch stopped at half past four.
Dust. Shark liver oil they use to clean. Could do it myself. Save. Was
that just when he, she?

O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.

Ah!

Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that
little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not
pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don’t care.
Complimented perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night
prayers with the kiddies. Well, aren’t they? See her as she is spoil
all. Must have the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music.
The name too. Amours of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud
Branscombe. Curtain up. Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered
with pensive bosom. Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel.
The strength it gives a man. That’s the secret of it. Good job I let
off there behind the wall coming out of Dignam’s. Cider that was.
Otherwise I couldn’t have. Makes you want to sing after. Lacaus esant
taratara. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if you
don’t know how to end the conversation. Ask them a question they ask
you another. Good idea if you’re stuck. Gain time. But then you’re in a
cart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and you see she’s
on for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way I
nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath
street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of
course. My arks she called it. It’s so hard to find one who. Aho! If
you don’t answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they
harden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two shillings.
Parrots. Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she hadn’t
called me sir. O, her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with a
single girl! That’s what they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman.
Or even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get away from other
chap’s wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the Burton today
spitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in my pocketbook.
Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, I don’t think.
Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How they
change the venue when it’s not what they like. Ask you do you like
mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask you what
someone was going to say when he changed his mind and stopped. Yet if I
went the whole hog, say: I want to, something like that. Because I did.
She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want something
awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must have been
thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she came
to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. The
propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by
their eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till
their dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the
Moorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts
were developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was when
we drove home. Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord
mayor had his eye on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic.

There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up
like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be,
waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in
mother’s clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world.
And the dark one with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she
could whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclass
whore in Jammet’s wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind,
please, telling me the right time? I’ll tell you the right time up a
dark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure for
fat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game.
Of course they understand birds, animals, babies. In their line.

Didn’t look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn’t give that
satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls.
Fine eyes she had, clear. It’s the white of the eye brings that out not
so much the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting
beyond a dog’s jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high
school drawing a picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call
that innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her.
Never see them sit on a bench marked Wet Paint. Eyes all over them.
Look under the bed for what’s not there. Longing to get the fright of
their lives. Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man at
the corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like,
twigged at once he had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that?
Typist going up Roger Greene’s stairs two at a time to show her
understandings. Handed down from father to, mother to daughter, I mean.
Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on the
mirror to save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman’s eye
on a mirror. And when I sent her for Molly’s Paisley shawl to
Prescott’s by the way that ad I must, carrying home the change in her
stocking! Clever little minx. I never told her. Neat way she carries
parcels too. Attract men, small thing like that. Holding up her hand,
shaking it, to let the blood flow back when it was red. Who did you
learn that from? Nobody. Something the nurse taught me. O, don’t they
know! Three years old she was in front of Molly’s dressingtable, just
before we left Lombard street west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Who
knows? Ways of the world. Young student. Straight on her pins anyway
not like the other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are.
Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point.
Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in
Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads
and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see
and Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the
rocks. Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion.
Darling, I saw, your. I saw all.

Lord!

Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan’s, Dignam’s. For
this relief much thanks. In Hamlet, that is. Lord! It was all things
combined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt of
my tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He’s right. Might have made a
worse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I
will tell you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It
couldn’t be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be false name however
like my name and the address Dolphin’s barn a blind.

Her maiden name was Jemina Brown
And she lived with her mother in Irishtown.

Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush.
Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if
it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw
anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram’s horn. Sad however
because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping
and papa’s pants will soon fit Willy and fuller’s earth for the baby
when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them
out of harm’s way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam.
Children’s hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even
closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds.
Oughtn’t to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up
with wind. Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is
nurse Callan there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly
was in the Coffee Palace. That young doctor O’Hare I noticed her
brushing his coat. And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too,
marriageable. Worst of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City
Arms. Husband rolling in drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat.
Have that in your nose in the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in
the morning: was I drunk last night? Bad policy however to fault the
husband. Chickens come home to roost. They stick by one another like
glue. Maybe the women’s fault also. That’s where Molly can knock spots
off them. It’s the blood of the south. Moorish. Also the form, the
figure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just compare for instance those
others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me to
introduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of a nondescript,
wouldn’t know what to call her. Always see a fellow’s weak point in his
wife. Still there’s destiny in it, falling in love. Have their own
secrets between them. Chaps that would go to the dogs if some woman
didn’t take them in hand. Then little chits of girls, height of a
shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them he matched
them. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought makes one.
Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May and repent
in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin is
not back. Better detach.

Ow!

Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and the
short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch.
Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic
influence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I
suppose, at once. Cat’s away, the mice will play. I remember looking in
Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism.
Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement.
And time, well that’s the time the movement takes. Then if one thing
stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it’s all
arranged. Magnetic needle tells you what’s going on in the sun, the
stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come.
Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up
and look and suggest and let you see and see more and defy you if
you’re a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look
and if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly.

Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third
person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw
stuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at
the horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. Fine
voice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did. Like
flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the
paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her
slipper on the floor so they wouldn’t hear. But lots of them can’t kick
the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general all
round over me and half down my back.

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That’s her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave
you this to think of me when I’m far away on the pillow. What is it?
Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She’d like scent of that
kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her,
with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the
dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She
was wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good
conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there’s some connection.
For instance if you go into a cellar where it’s dark. Mysterious thing
too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself,
slow but sure. Suppose it’s ever so many millions of tiny grains blown
across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this
morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It’s like a fine
fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you
call it gossamer, and they’re always spinning it out of them, fine as
anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything
she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little
kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff
in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too.
Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There
or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes
and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something.
Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years.
Dogs at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm.
Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that
way. We’re the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have
their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on.
Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the
grass.

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long
John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink
gives that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because
priests that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like
flies round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The
tree of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to.
That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life.
And it’s extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me.

Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat.
Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that’s the soap.

O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never
went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag
this morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could
mention Meagher’s just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph.
Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he’ll have. Call tomorrow. How much do
I owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving
credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run
up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into
somewhere else.

Here’s this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as
far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had
a good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper
walk a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government
sit. Walk after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today.
Still you learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as
women don’t mock what matter? That’s the way to find out. Ask yourself
who is he now. The Mystery Man on the Beach, prize titbit story by Mr
Leopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that
fellow today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his
kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain
they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body
feels the atmosphere. Old Betty’s joints are on the rack. Mother
Shipton’s prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the
twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills
seem coming nigh.

Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or
they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of
the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds
flash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt
you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through
the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against.
Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in
the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest.
Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
violet. A star I see. Venus? Can’t tell yet. Two. When three it’s
night. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom
ship. No. Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of
the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native
land, goodnight.

Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white
fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his
way up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold,
sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the
position. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don’t
know how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green
apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it’s the only time we cross
legs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happy
chairs under them. But it’s the evening influence. They feel all that.
Open like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes,
in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat
Dillon’s garden where I kissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full length
oilpainting of her then. June that was too I wooed. The year returns.
History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I’m with you once again.
Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about her
lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity.
They take advantage.

All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The
rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the
plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change:
that’s all. Lovers: yum yum.

Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of
me, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it
comes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the
same. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing
new under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin’s Barn. Are you not happy in
your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin’s barn charades in Luke Doyle’s
house. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy,
Louy, Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the
old major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I
an only child. So it returns. Think you’re escaping and run into
yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he
and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip:
tear in Henny Doyle’s overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle:
cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She
leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in
Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty
from the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I’m a
tree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you
could be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he
goes. Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very
likely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him
out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray
for us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition.
Same thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there’s the
light in the priest’s house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the
mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom’s. Twentyeight it is. Two
houses they have. Gabriel Conroy’s brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder
why they come out at night like mice. They’re a mixed breed. Birds are
like hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit
still. All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the end of
a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with
tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey
white. Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for example
like the eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants
to stamp his trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morning
on the staircase. Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with
three colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the
City Arms with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty different
colours. Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That’s how that
wise man what’s his name with the burning glass. Then the heather goes
on fire. It can’t be tourists’ matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry
rub together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles in the furze act
as a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have it! My memory’s not
so bad.

Ba. Who knows what they’re always flying for. Insects? That bee last
week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be
the one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what
they say. Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they
have to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms,
telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes of
oceangoing steamers floundering along in the dark, lowing out like
seacows. Faugh a ballagh! Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others in
vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake
when the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years at
the ends of the earth somewhere. No ends really because it’s round.
Wife in every port they say. She has a good job if she minds it till
Johnny comes marching home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail
end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor’s
weighed. Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well.
And the tephilim no what’s this they call it poor papa’s father had on
his door to touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and into
the house of bondage. Something in all those superstitions because when
you go out never know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of
a beam for grim life, lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, and
that’s the last of his nibs till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish
ever get seasick?

Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid,
crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones’ locker, moon looking down so
peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum.

A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of
funds for Mercer’s hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster of
violet but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The
shepherd’s hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst. From house to
house, giving his everwelcome double knock, went the nine o’clock
postman, the glowworm’s lamp at his belt gleaming here and there
through the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees a hoisted
lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy’s terrace. By screens of lighted
windows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing: Evening
Telegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup races! and from
the door of Dignam’s house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the bat
flew here, flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept,
grey. Howth settled for slumber, tired of long days, of yumyum
rhododendrons (he was old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift,
ruffle his fell of ferns. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep
and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the
anchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom.

Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish
Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and
breeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in
the Erin’s King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the
zoo. Filthy trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking
overboard to feed the herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in
their faces. Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing.
Don’t know what death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean.
But being lost they fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I
didn’t want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with
masks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch them. I’ll murder you.
Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can
people aim guns at each other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only
troubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that.
After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What
do they love? Another themselves? But the morning she chased her with
the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking.
Little hand it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when
you touch. Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I
remember. Made me laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one is
more sensitive, I think. Mine too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselves
out if fat is in fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakening
me. Frightened she was when her nature came on her first. Poor child!
Strange moment for the mother too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar.
Looking from Buena Vista. O’Hara’s tower. The seabirds screaming. Old
Barbary ape that gobbled all his family. Sundown, gunfire for the men
to cross the lines. Looking out over the sea she told me. Evening like
this, but clear, no clouds. I always thought I’d marry a lord or a rich
gentleman coming with a private yacht. Buenas noches, señorita. El
hombre ama la muchacha hermosa. Why me? Because you were so foreign
from the others.

Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you
dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for
Leah, Lily of Killarney. No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital
to see. Hope she’s over. Long day I’ve had. Martha, the bath, funeral,
house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus’ song. Then that
bawler in Barney Kiernan’s. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what
I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought
to go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in
company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me.
Look at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he
meant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law he
hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty.
Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of
the wild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early
morning at close range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he
kissed the cow. But Dignam’s put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so
depressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must
call to those Scottish Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for
granted we’re going to pop off first. That widow on Monday was it
outside Cramer’s that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but
progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow’s mite. Well? What do
you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to
see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O’Connor wife and five children
poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronly
woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter face and
a large apron. Ladies’ grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings a
pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say.
Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we
die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played the
trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed.
Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She
had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does?
Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti’s gone.
Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes’s. Work
Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in
them. What’s that? Might be money.

Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He
brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can’t read. Better go.
Better. I’m tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and
pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with
story of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children
always want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the
waters. What’s this? Bit of stick.

O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here
tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers
do. Will I?

Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write
a message for her. Might remain. What?

I.

Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide
comes here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark
mirror, breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and
letters. O, those transparent! Besides they don’t know. What is the
meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not
like.

AM. A.

No room. Let it go.

Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand.
Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here.
Except Guinness’s barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by
design.

He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now
if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn’t. Chance.
We’ll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made
me feel so young.

Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone.
Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I
won’t go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a
moment. Won’t sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat
again. No harm in him. Just a few.

O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me
do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed
met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair
heave under embon señorita young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan
Winkle red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail
end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return
next in her next her next.

A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom
with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just
for a few

Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed where Canon
O’Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were
taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup
and talking about

Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.

Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house to
tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there
because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty
MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was
sitting on the rocks looking was

Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.