JAMES JOYCE - ULYSSES

(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark. The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and ejects from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his flaring cresset.

Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward, cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther side under the railway bridge Bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen’s hairdresser’s window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson’s image. A concave mirror at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.

At Antonio Rabaiotti’s door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)

BLOOM

Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!

(He disappears into Olhausen’s, the porkbutcher’s, under the downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig’s crubeen, the other a cold sheep’s trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to one side he presses a parcel against his ribs and groans.)

BLOOM

Stitch in my side. Why did I run?

(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset siding. The glow leaps again.)

BLOOM

What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.

(He stands at Cormack’s corner, watching.)

BLOOM

Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course. South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar’s bush. We’re safe. ( he hums cheerfully ) London’s burning, London’s burning! On fire, on fire! ( he catches sight of the navvy lurching through the crowd at the farther side of Talbot street ) I’ll miss him. Run. Quick. Better cross here.

(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)

THE URCHINS

Mind out, mister!

(Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling)

THE BELLS

Haltyaltyaltyall.

BLOOM

( halts erect, stung by a spasm ) Ow!

(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The motorman bangs his footgong.)

THE GONG

Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.

(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman’s whitegloved hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys.)

THE MOTORMAN

Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?

(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.)

BLOOM

No thoroughfare. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow’s exercises again. On the hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. ( he feels his trouser pocket ) Poor mamma’s panacea. Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard’s corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. ( he closes his eyes an instant ) Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow!

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O’Beirne’s wall, a visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.)

BLOOM

Buenas noches, senorita Blanca. Que calle es esta?

THE FIGURE

( impassive, raises a signal arm ) Password. Sraid Mabbot .

BLOOM

Haha. Merci . Esperanto. Slan leath . ( he mutters ) Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater.

(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps left, ragsackman left.)

BLOOM

I beg.

(He leaps right, sackragman right.)

BLOOM

I beg.

(He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on.)

BLOOM

Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who lost my way and contributed to the columns of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside . Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes for. Wash off his sins of the world.

(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.)

BLOOM

O

(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watchfob, pocketbookpocket, pursepoke, sweets of sin, potatosoap.)

BLOOM

Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves’ dodge. Collide. Then snatch your purse.

(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn face.)

RUDOLPH

Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with drunken goy ever. So you catch no money.

BLOOM

( hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat ) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

RUDOLPH

What you making down this place? Have you no soul? ( with feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom ) Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?

BLOOM

( with precaution ) I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that’s left of him.

RUDOLPH

( severely ) One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money. What you call them running chaps?

BLOOM

( in youth’s smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent’s sterling silver Waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one side of him coated with stiffening mud ) Harriers, father. Only that once.

RUDOLPH

Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.

BLOOM

( weakly ) They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I slipped.

RUDOLPH

( with contempt ) Goim nachez! Nice spectacles for your poor mother!

BLOOM

Mamma!

ELLEN BLOOM

( in pantomime dame’s stringed mobcap, widow Twankey’s crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net, appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand, and cries out in shrill alarm ) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! My smelling salts! ( She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out. ) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all?