Cyclops

James Joyce

 


 

Cyclops

I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only Joe Hynes. —Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush? —Soot's luck, says Joe. Who's the old ballocks you were talking to? —Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I'm on two minds not to give that fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and ladders. —What are you doing round those parts? says Joe. —Devil a much, says I. There's a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the garrison church at the corner of Chicken lane—old Troy was just giving me a wrinkle about him—lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a hop-of-my-thumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury street. —Circumcised? says Joe. —Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny out of him. —That the lay you're on now? says Joe. For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin's parade in the city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter called the vendor, and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, esquire, of 29 Arbour hill in the city of Dublin, Arran quay ward, gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser, videlicet, five pounds avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings and no pence per pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor to the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling for value received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no pence sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall not be pawned or pledged or sold or otherwise alienated by the said purchaser but shall be and remain and be held to be the sole and exclusive property of the said vendor to be disposed of at his good will and pleasure until the said amount shall have been duly paid by the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein set forth as this day hereby agreed between the said vendor, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the other part. —Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe. —Not taking anything between drinks, says I. —What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe. —Who? says I. Sure, he's out in John of God's off his head, poor man. —Drinking his own stuff? says Joe. —Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain. —Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the citizen. —Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe? —Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms. —-What was that, Joe? says I. —Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want to give the citizen the hard word about it. So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he has it but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn't get over that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a licence, says he. In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant land it is in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport the gurnard, the plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock, the grilse, the dab, the brill, the flounder, the pollock, the mixed coarse fish generally and other denizens of the aqueous kingdom too numerous to be enumerated. In the mild breezes of the west and of the east the lofty trees wave in different directions their firstclass foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world with which that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely maidens sit in close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes voyage from afar to woo them, from Eblana to Slievemargy, the peerless princes of unfettered Munster and of Connacht the just and of smooth sleek Leinster and of Cruahan's land and of Armagh the splendid and of the noble district of Boyle, princes, the sons of kings. And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for that purpose, and thither come all herds and fatlings and firstfruits of that land for O'Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain descended from chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets of mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bere and rape and red green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellated apples and chips of strawberries and sieves of gooseberries, pulpy and pelurious, and strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their canes. I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty, you notorious bloody hill and dale robber! And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers and roaring mares and polled calves and longwoods and storesheep and Cuffe's prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the various different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime premiated milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling, cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting, champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from pasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy vales of Thomond, from the M'Gillicuddy's reeks the inaccessible and lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer's firkins and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great hundreds, various in size, the agate with this dun. So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there, sure enough, was the citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would drop in the way of drink. —There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his load of papers, working for the cause. The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps. Be a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that bloody dog. I'm told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off a constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper about a licence. —Stand and deliver, says he. —That's all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here. —Pass, friends, says he. Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he: —What's your opinion of the times? Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to the occasion. —I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down his fork. So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says: —Foreign wars is the cause of it. And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket: —It's the Russians wish to tyrannise. —Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I. I've a thirst on me I wouldn't sell for half a crown. —Give it a name, citizen, says Joe. —Wine of the country, says he. —What's yours? says Joe. —Ditto MacAnaspey, says I. —Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the old heart, citizen? says he. And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck and, by Jesus, he near throttled him. He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of the same beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which jangled at every movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O'Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O'Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castile, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone. So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid O, as true as I'm telling you. A goodlooking sovereign. —And there's more where that came from, says he. —Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I. —Sweat of my brow, says Joe. 'Twas the prudent member gave me the wheeze. —I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and Greek street with his cod's eye counting up all the guts of the fish. Who comes through Michan's land, bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, the son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he of the prudent soul. And he starts reading them out: —Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's on Sea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. How's that, eh? Wright and Flint, Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the late George Alfred Gillett, 179 Clapham road, Stockwell, Playwood and Ridsdale at Saint Jude's, Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest, dean of Worcester. Eh? Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London: Carr, Stoke Newington, of gastritis and heart disease: Cockburn, at the Moat house, Chepstow... —I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience. —Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller, Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street, Liverpool, Isabella Helen. How's that for a national press, eh, my brown son! How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber? —Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they had the start of us. Drink that, citizen. —I will, says he, honourable person. —Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form. Ah! Ow! Don't be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click. And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred scrolls of law and with him his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage, fairest of her race. Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney's snug, squeezed up with the laughing. And who was sitting up there in the corner that I hadn't seen snoring drunk blind to the world only Bob Doran. I didn't know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the door. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman, trotting like a poodle. I thought Alf would split. —Look at him, says he. Breen. He's traipsing all round Dublin with a postcard someone sent him with U. p: up on it to take a li... And he doubled up. —Take a what? says I. —Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds. —O hell! says I. The bloody mongrel began to growl that'd put the fear of God in you seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs. —Who? says Joe. —Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton's and then he went round to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round to the subsheriff's for a lark. O God, I've a pain laughing. U. p: up. The long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody old lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G man. —When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe. —Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan? —Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us a pony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen long John's eye. U. p... And he started laughing. —Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan? —Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf. Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat. Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born, that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals. But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress of India, even she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the wellbeloved, for they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop. —What's that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up and down outside? —What's that? says Joe. —Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about hanging, I'll show you something you never saw. Hangmen's letters. Look at here. So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his pocket. —Are you codding? says I. —Honest injun, says Alf. Read them. So Joe took up the letters. —Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. So I saw there was going to be a bit of a dust Bob's a queer chap when the porter's up in him so says I just to make talk: —How's Willy Murray those times, Alf? —I don't know, says Alf I saw him just now in Capel street with Paddy Dignam. Only I was running after that... —You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who? —With Dignam, says Alf. —Is it Paddy? says Joe. —Yes, says Alf. Why? —Don't you know he's dead? says Joe. —Paddy Dignam dead! says Alf. —Ay, says Joe. —Sure I'm after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as a pikestaff. —Who's dead? says Bob Doran. —You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm. —What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... And Willy Murray with him, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim's... What? Dignam dead? —What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who's talking about...? —Dead! says Alf. He's no more dead than you are. —Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning anyhow. —Paddy? says Alf. —Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him. —Good Christ! says Alf. Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted. Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was intimated that this had given satisfaction. He is gone from mortal haunts: O'Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was his foot on the bracken: Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with your wind: and wail, O ocean, with your whirlwind. —There he is again, says the citizen, staring out. —Who? says I. —Bloom, says he. He's on point duty up and down there for the last ten minutes. And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again. Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was. —Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him. And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest blackguard in Dublin when he's under the influence: —Who said Christ is good? —I beg your parsnips, says Alf. —Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little Willy Dignam? —Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He's over all his troubles. But Bob Doran shouts out of him. —He's a bloody ruffian, I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam. Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn't want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob Doran starts doing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you're there. —The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character. The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat. Fitter for him go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married, Mooney, the bumbailiff's daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke street, that used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on her, exposing her person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour. —The noblest, the truest, says he. And he's gone, poor little Willy, poor little Paddy Dignam. And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that beam of heaven. Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round the door. —Come in, come on, he won't eat you, says the citizen. So Bloom slopes in with his cod's eye on the dog and he asks Terry was Martin Cunningham there. —O, Christ M'Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to this, will you? And he starts reading out one. —Show us, Joe, says I. —Jesus, says I. The citizen made a grab at the letter. —And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen. —And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take them to hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you have? So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and he couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said well he'd just take a cigar. Gob, he's a prudent member and no mistake. —Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe. And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with a black border round it. —They're all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses. And he was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob a skull. In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their deadly coil they grasp: yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so saith the Lord. So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the business and the old dog smelling him all the time I'm told those jewies does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about I don't know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on. —There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf. —What's that? says Joe. —The poor bugger's tool that's being hanged, says Alf. —That so? says Joe. —God's truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like a poker. —Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said. —That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural phenomenon, don't you see, because on account of the... And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon. So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that and the other. Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a new dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all round the place and scratching his scabs. And round he goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get. So of course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him: —Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw here! Give us the paw! Arrah, bloody end to the paw he'd paw and Alf trying to keep him from tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs' tin he told Terry to bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging out of him a yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry bloody mongrel. —The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and glaring at Bloom. —Ay, ay, says Joe. —You don't grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is... —God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey it makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause I thinks of my old mashtub what's waiting for me down Limehouse way. So then the citizen begins talking about the Irish language and the corporation meeting and all to that and the shoneens that can't speak their own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a quid and Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that he cadged off of Joe and talking about the Gaelic league and the antitreating league and drink, the curse of Ireland. Antitreating is about the size of it. Gob, he'd let you pour all manner of drink down his throat till the Lord would call him before you'd ever see the froth of his pint. And one night I went in with a fellow into one of their musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up on a truss of hay she could my Maureen Lay and there was a fellow with a Ballyhooly blue ribbon badge spiffing out of him in Irish and a lot of colleen bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals and oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh entertainment, don't be talking. Ireland sober is Ireland free. And then an old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and all the gougers shuffling their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one or two sky pilots having an eye around that there was no goings on with the females, hitting below the belt. So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty starts mousing around by Joe and me. I'd train him by kindness, so I would, if he was my dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again where it wouldn't blind him. —Afraid he'll bite you? says the citizen, jeering. —No, says I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost. So he calls the old dog over. —What's on you, Garry? says he. So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could hear him lapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have another. Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap's dog and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for man and beast. And says Joe: —Could you make a hole in another pint? —Could a swim duck? says I. —Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won't have anything in the way of liquid refreshment? says he. —Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meet Martin Cunningham, don't you see, about this insurance of poor Dignam's. Martin asked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I mean, didn't serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the time and nominally under the act the mortgagee can't recover on the policy. —Holy Wars, says Joe, laughing, that's a good one if old Shylock is landed. So the wife comes out top dog, what? —Well, that's a point, says Bloom, for the wife's admirers. —Whose admirers? says Joe. —The wife's advisers, I mean, says Bloom. Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the act like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit of the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that Dignam owed Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow contested the mortgagee's right till he near had the head of me addled with his mortgagor under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn't run in himself under the act that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you're there. O, commend me to an israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery. So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he was sorry for her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and to tell her that he said and everyone who knew him said that there was never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy that's dead to tell her. Choking with bloody foolery. And shaking Bloom's hand doing the tragic to tell her that. Shake hands, brother. You're a rogue and I'm another. —Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is founded, as I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to request of you this favour. But, should I have overstepped the limits of reserve let the sincerity of my feelings be the excuse for my boldness. —No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of the cup. —Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart, I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of speech. So Terry brought the three pints. —Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen. —Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen. Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small fortune to keep him in drinks. —Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe. —Friend of yours, says Alf. —Nannan? says Joe. The mimber? —I won't mention any names, says Alf. —I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with William Field, M. P., the cattle traders. —Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of all countries and the idol of his own. So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease and the cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen sending them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a knacker's yard. Walking about with his book and pencil here's my head and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out with her eight inches of fat all over her. Couldn't loosen her farting strings but old cod's eye was waltzing around her showing her how to do it. What's your programme today? Ay. Humane methods. Because the poor animals suffer and experts say and the best known remedy that doesn't cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer gently. Gob, he'd have a soft hand under a hen. Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for us. When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then comes good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her fresh egg. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. —Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons. —Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see him, as it happens. —Well, he's going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight. —That's too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr Field is going. I couldn't phone. No. You're sure? Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.): Arising out of the question of my honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that these animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming as to their pathological condition? Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.): Honourable members are already in possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole house. I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the honourable member's question is in the affirmative. Mr Orelli O'Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.): Have similar orders been issued for the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the Phoenix park? Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative. Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman's famous Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury bench? (O! O!) Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question. Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don't hesitate to shoot. (Ironical opposition cheers.) The speaker: Order! Order! (The house rises. Cheers.) —There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best throw, citizen? —Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better. —Is that really a fact? says Alf. —Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Did you not know that? Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L. L. D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S. Sp.; the rev. T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev. P. J. Cleary, O. S. F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr. Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C.; the rev. T. Maher, S. J.; the very rev. James Murphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery, V. F.; the very rev. William Doherty, D. D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O. M.; the rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J. Flavin, C. C.; the rev. M. A. Hackett, C. C.; the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rt rev. Mgr M'Manus, V. G.; the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. D. Scally, P. P.; the rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy canon Gorman, P. P.; the rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P. Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc. —Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that Keogh-Bennett match? —No, says Joe. —I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf. —Who? Blazes? says Joe. And says Bloom: —What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training the eye. —Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up the odds and he swatting all the time. —We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put English gold in his pocket. —-True for you, says Joe. And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the blood, asking Alf: —Now, don't you think, Bergan? —Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made him puke what he never ate. It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Handicapped as he was by lack of poundage, Dublin's pet lamb made up for it by superlative skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively claret in the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the pet's nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The soldier got to business, leading off with a powerful left jab to which the Irish gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of Bennett's jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he was liberally drenched with water and when the bell went came on gamey and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during which a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from his opponent's mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed a terrific left to Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a knockout clean and clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight. —He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's running a concert tour now up in the north. —He is, says Joe. Isn't he? —Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer tour, you see. Just a holiday. —Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe. —My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a success too. He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent. Hoho begob says I to myself says I. That explains the milk in the cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the tootle on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the bucko that'll organise her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddareesh. Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. The chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms. And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O'Molloy's, a comely hero of white face yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty's counsel learned in the law, and with him the prince and heir of the noble line of Lambert. —Hello, Ned. —Hello, Alf. —Hello, Jack. —Hello, Joe. —God save you, says the citizen. —Save you kindly, says J. J. What'll it be, Ned? —Half one, says Ned. So J. J. ordered the drinks. —Were you round at the court? says Joe. —Yes, says J. J. He'll square that, Ned, says he. —Hope so, says Ned. Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's. Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one would know him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of the pop. What's your name, sir? Dunne, says he. Ay, and done says I. Gob, he'll come home by weeping cross one of those days, I'm thinking. —Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p: up. —Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective. —Ay, says Ned. And he wanted right go wrong to address the court only Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting examined first. —Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I'd give anything to hear him before a judge and jury. —Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson. —Me? says Alf. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character. —Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence against you. —Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law. —Ha ha, Alf, says Joe. —Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife. —Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half and half. —How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he... —Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish nor flesh. —Nor good red herring, says Joe. —That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what that is. Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the old stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody povertystricken Breen out on grass with his beard out tripping him, bringing down the rain. And she with her nose cockahoop after she married him because a cousin of his old fellow's was pewopener to the pope. Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney's moustaches, the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal Zouave to the Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street. And who was he, tell us? A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven shillings a week, and he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to the world. —And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my opinion an action might lie. Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our pints in peace. Gob, we won't be let even do that much itself. —Well, good health, Jack, says Ned. —Good health, Ned, says J. J. —-There he is again, says Joe. —Where? says Alf. And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in as they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a secondhand coffin. —How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe. —Remanded, says J. J. One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers saying he'd give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see any green in the white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? Swindled them all, skivvies and badhachs from the county Meath, ay, and his own kidney too. J. J. was telling us there was an ancient Hebrew Zaretsky or something weeping in the witnessbox with his hat on him, swearing by the holy Moses he was stuck for two quid. —Who tried the case? says Joe. —Recorder, says Ned. —Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes. —Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe about arrears of rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he'll dissolve in tears on the bench. —Ay, says Alf. Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for the corporation there near Butt bridge. And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry: —A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many children? Ten, did you say? —Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid. —And the wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the court immediately, sir. No, sir, I'll make no order for payment. How dare you, sir, come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor hardworking industrious man! I dismiss the case. —Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland filling the country with bugs. So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe, telling him he needn't trouble about that little matter till the first but if he would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high and holy by this and by that he'd do the devil and all. —Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have repetition. That's the whole secret. —Rely on me, says Joe. —Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. We want no more strangers in our house. —O, I'm sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It's just that Keyes, you see. —Consider that done, says Joe. —Very kind of you, says Bloom. —The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in. We brought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon robbers here. And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a spider's web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and when. —A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of all our misfortunes. —Give us a squint at her, says I. And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her bloomers misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling for her tickles and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be late after she doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor. —O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is! —There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off of that one, what? So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on him as long as a late breakfast. —Well, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action? What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide about the Irish language? O'Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after due prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn counsel whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into honour among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael. So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach a nation, and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and botheration and their colonies and their civilisation. —Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with them! The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody thicklugged sons of whores' gets! No music and no art and no literature worthy of the name. Any civilisation they have they stole from us. Tonguetied sons of bastards' ghosts. —The European family, says J. J.... And says John Wyse: —Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo: —What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that had lost a bob and found a tanner. —Gold cup, says he. —Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry. —And Bass's mare? says Terry. So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his luck with his mangy snout up. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard. —Not there, my child, says he. —Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She'd have won the money only for the other dog. And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom sticking in an odd word. —Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others' eyes but they can't see the beam in their own. —As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligoland with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land. Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I was reading a report of lord Castletown's... —Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of Eire, O. —Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan. —And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade with Spain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were pupped, Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway. —And will again, says Joe. —And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says the citizen, clapping his thigh, our harbours that are empty will be full again, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom of Kerry, Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with a fleet of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O'Reillys and the O'Kennedys of Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with the emperor Charles the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when the first Irish battleship is seen breasting the waves with our own flag to the fore, none of your Henry Tudor's harps, no, the oldest flag afloat, the flag of the province of Desmond and Thomond, three crowns on a blue field, the three sons of Milesius. And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like a tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude in Shanagolden where he daren't show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant. —Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have? —An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion. —Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you asleep? —Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir. —But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at bay? So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the parson with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad brought out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of a gun. —A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir John Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning on the breech. And says John Wyse: —'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane and he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad till he yells meila murder. —That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the earth. The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber on the face of God's earth and their land in the hands of a dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. That's the great empire they boast about of drudges and whipped serfs. —On which the sun never rises, says Joe. —And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The unfortunate yahoos believe it. They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid. —But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn't it be the same here if you put force against force? Didn't I tell you? As true as I'm drinking this porter if he was at his last gasp he'd try to downface you that dying was living. —Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was... —We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since the poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at Killala. —Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the wild geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain, and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa. But what did we ever get for it? —And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven't we had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead? —Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now. —Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more pox than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin! —And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic Majesty's racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys rode. The earl of Dublin, no less. —They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little Alf. And says J. J.: —Considerations of space influenced their lordships' decision. —Will you try another, citizen? says Joe. —Yes, sir, says he. I will. —You? says Joe. —Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less. —Repeat that dose, says Joe. Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about. —Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. Perpetuating national hatred among nations. —But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse. —Yes, says Bloom. —What is it? says John Wyse. —A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place. —By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that's so I'm a nation for I'm living in the same place for the past five years. So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck out of it: —Or also living in different places. —That covers my case, says Joe. —What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen. —Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland. The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner. —After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief to swab himself dry. —Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and repeat after me the following words. The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters his evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North American puma (a far nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, Ireland's Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun's hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley's hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal's Cave—all these moving scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time. —Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which? —That's mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman. —And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. Also now. This very moment. This very instant. Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar. —Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle. —Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen. —I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom. —Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men. That's an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he'd adorn a sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse's apron on him. And then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a wet rag. —But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life. —What? says Alf. —Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is there. If he comes just say I'll be back in a second. Just a moment. Who's hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning. —A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love. —Well, says John Wyse. Isn't that what we're told. Love your neighbour. —That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love, moya! He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet. Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody. —Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power, citizen. —Hurrah, there, says Joe. —The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen. And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle. —What's that? says Joe. So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts reading out: —Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn't doubt her. Wonder did he put that bible to the same use as I would. —Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly. —Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse. —No, says the citizen. It's not signed Shanganagh. It's only initialled: P. —And a very good initial too, says Joe. —That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag. —Well, says J. J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man what's this his name is? —Casement, says the citizen. He's an Irishman. —Yes, that's the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out of them. —I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers. —Who? says I. —Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a horse in anger in his life? —That's where he's gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He's the only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse. —He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe. —Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out. —There you are, says Terry. So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk about selling Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show. Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms. Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No security. Gob, he's like Lanty MacHale's goat that'd go a piece of the road with every one. —Well, it's a fact, says John Wyse. And there's the man now that'll tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham. Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the collector general's, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the registration and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the country at the king's expense. Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their palfreys. —Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party. Saucy knave! To us! So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice. Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard. —Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow. —Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds. And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it. —Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare larder. I know not what to offer your lordships. —How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant countenance, So servest thou the king's messengers, master Taptun? An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage. —Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king's messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The king's friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my house I warrant me. —Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us? Mine host bowed again as he made answer: —What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog's bacon, a boar's head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of old Rhenish? —Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios! —Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare larder, quotha! 'Tis a merry rogue. So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom. —Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans. —Isn't that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen about Bloom and the Sinn Fein? —That's so, says Martin. Or so they allege. —Who made those allegations? says Alf. —I, says Joe. I'm the alligator. —And after all, says John Wyse, why can't a jew love his country like the next fellow? —Why not? says J. J., when he's quite sure which country it is. —Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton. —Who is Junius? says J. J. —We don't want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian. —He's a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that in the castle. —Isn't he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power. —Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the father's name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the father did. —That's the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints and sages! —Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that matter so are we. —Yes, says J. J., and every male that's born they think it may be their Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe, till he knows if he's a father or a mother. —Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan. —O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a tin of Neave's food six weeks before the wife was delivered. —Do you call that a man? says the citizen. —I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe. —Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power. —And who does he suspect? says the citizen. Gob, there's many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I'm telling you? It'd be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like of that and throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it would. Then sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind your eye. —Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't wait. —A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he is. Virag from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God. —Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned. —Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S. —You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry. —Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us, says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our shores. —Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my prayer. —Amen, says the citizen. —And I'm sure He will, says Joe. And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed and they all with him prayed: —And so say all of us, says Jack. —Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford. —Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish. I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry. —I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope I'm not... —No, says Martin, we're ready. Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver. Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There's a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to five. —Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, —Beg your pardon, says he. —Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now. —Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's a secret. And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl. —Bye bye all, says Martin. And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car. —-Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey. The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters. And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave the waves. But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him. —Let me alone, says he. And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls out of him: —Three cheers for Israel! Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody nothing. Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it would. —Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister! And says he: —Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God. —He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead. —Whose God? says the citizen. —Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me. Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop. —By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here. —Stop! Stop! says Joe. Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's royal theatre: —Where is he till I murder him? And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing. —Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel. But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other way and off with him. —Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop! Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun was in his eyes or he'd have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street. You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And he let a volley of oaths after him. —Did I kill him, says he, or what? And he shouting to the bloody dog: —After him, Garry! After him, boy! And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise you.