Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop!
He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he goes.
An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good hidingplace for treasure.
Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was buried here by torchlight, wasn’t he? Making his rounds.
Tail gone now.
One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can’t bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication. We learned that from them. Wouldn’t be surprised. Regular square feed for them. Flies come before he’s well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn’t care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips.
The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again. Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was here was Mrs Sinico’s funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. There is another world after death named hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life.
Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.
Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton, John Henry, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office. Mat Dillon’s long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if women are by.
Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably.
– Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them.
They stopped.
– Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said pointing.
John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving.
– There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.
John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again.
– It’s all right now, Martin Cunningham said.
John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.
– Thank you, he said shortly.
They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger, without his seeing it.
Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him. Get the pull over him that way.
Thank you. How grand we are this morning!
Episode 7, Aeolus
IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS
* Before Nelson’s pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold’s Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway Company’s timekeeper bawled them off:
– Rathgar and Terenure!
– Come on, Sandymount Green!
Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided parallel.
– Start, Palmerston Park!
THE WEARER OF THE CROWN
Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and polished. Parked in North Prince’s street His Majesty’s vermilion mailcars, bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received loudly flung sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.
GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS
Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince’s stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince’s stores.
– There it is, Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.
– Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I’ll take it round to the Telegraph office.
The door of Ruttledge’s office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a roll of papers under his cape, a king’s courier.
Red Murray’s long shears sliced out the advertisement from the newspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste.
– I’ll go through the printingworks, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut square.
– Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen behind his ear, we can do him one.
– Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I’ll rub that in.
We.
WILLIAM BRAYDEN, ESQUIRE, OF OAKLANDS, SANDYMOUNT
Red Murray touched Mr Bloom’s arm with the shears and whispered:
– Brayden.
Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a stately figure entered between the newsboards of the Weekly Freeman and National Press and the Freeman’s Journal and National Press. Dullthudding Guinness’s barrels. It passed statelily up the staircase, steered by an umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back ascended each step: back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, Simon Dedalus says. Welts of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck.
– Don’t you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.
The door of Ruttledge’s office whispered: ee: cree. They always build one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.
Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha. Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.
– Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.
– Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our Saviour.
Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his heart. In Martha.
Co-ome thou lost one,
Co-ome thou dear one!
THE CROZIER AND THE PEN
– His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.
They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.
A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and stepped off posthaste with a word:
– Freeman!
Mr Bloom said slowly:
– Well, he is one of our saviours also.
A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed in through a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? Thumping. Thumping.
He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards Nannetti’s reading closet.
Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump.
WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOST RESPECTED DUBLIN BURGESS
This morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working away, tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in.
HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT