Complete Works of James Joyce (75 page)

The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street.

 
— Look here, Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the
Mail
office. I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings.

 
— Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down the five shillings too.

 
— Without a second word either, Mr Power said.

 
— Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added.

John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes.

 
— I’ll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted, elegantly.

They went down Parliament street.

 
— There’s Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh’s.

 
— Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes.

Outside
la Maison Claire
Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney’s brother-in-law, humpy, tight, making for the liberties.

John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took the elbow of a dapper little man in a shower of hail suit, who walked uncertainly, with hasty steps past Micky Anderson’s watches.

 
— The assistant town clerk’s corns are giving him some trouble, John Wyse Nolan told Mr Power.

They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh’s winerooms. The empty castle car fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham, speaking always, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not glance.

 
— And long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as life.

The tall form of long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood.

 
— Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and greeted.

Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Clay decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all their faces.

 
— Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he said with rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk.

Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly, about their damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted to know, to keep order in the council chamber. And old Barlow the macebearer laid up with asthma, no mace on the table, nothing in order, no quorum even, and Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little Lorcan Sherlock doing
locum tenens
for him. Damned Irish language, language of our forefathers.

Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips.

Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to the assistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his peace.

 
— What Dignam was that? long John Fanning asked.

Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot.

 
— O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness’ sake till I sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind!

Testily he made room for himself beside long John Fanning’s flank and passed in and up the stairs.

 
— Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don’t think you knew him or perhaps you did, though.

With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in.

 
— Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of long John Fanning ascending towards long John Fanning in the mirror.

 
— Rather lowsized. Dignam of Menton’s office that was, Martin Cunningham said.

Long John Fanning could not remember him.

Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air.

 
— What’s that? Martin Cunningham said.

All turned where they stood. John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the cool shadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street, harness and glossy pasterns in sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went past before his cool unfriendly eyes, not quickly. In saddles of the leaders, leaping leaders, rode outriders.

 
— What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the staircase.

 
— The lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland, John Wyse Nolan answered from the stairfoot.

As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his Panama to Haines:

 
— Parnell’s brother. There in the corner.

They chose a small table near the window, opposite a longfaced man whose beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard.

 
— Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat.

 
— Yes, Mulligan said. That’s John Howard, his brother, our city marshal.

John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw went up again to his forehead whereat it rested. An instant after, under its screen, his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe and fell once more upon a working corner.

 
— I’ll take a
mélange,
Haines said to the waitress.

 
— Two
mélanges,
Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones and butter and some cakes as well.

When she had gone he said, laughing:

 
— We call it D.B.C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you missed Dedalus on
Hamlet.

Haines opened his newbought book.

 
— I’m sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all minds that have lost their balance.

The onelegged sailor growled at the area of 14 Nelson street:

 
—
England expects
...

Buck Mulligan’s primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter.

 
— You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance. Wandering Aengus I call him.

 
— I am sure he has an
idée fixe,
Haines said, pinching his chin thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it would be likely to be. Such persons always have.

Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely.

 
— They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will never capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white death and the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet. The joy of creation...

 
— Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled him this morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. It’s rather interesting because professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an interesting point out of that.

Buck Mulligan’s watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to unload her tray.

 
— He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amid the cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny, of retribution. Rather strange he should have just that fixed idea. Does he write anything for your movement?

He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream. Buck Mulligan slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its smoking pith. He bit off a soft piece hungrily.

 
— Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write something in ten years.

 
— Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon. Still, I shouldn’t wonder if he did after all.

He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup.

 
— This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I don’t want to be imposed on.

Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping street past Benson’s ferry, and by the threemasted schooner
Rosevean
from Bridgwater with bricks.

Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell’s yard. Behind him Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, with stickumbrelladustcoat dangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith’s house and, crossing, walked along Merrion square. Distantly behind him a blind stripling tapped his way by the wall of College park.

Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as Mr Lewis Werner’s cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along Merrion square, his stickumbrelladustcoat dangling.

At the corner of Wilde’s house he halted, frowned at Elijah’s name announced on the Metropolitan hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of duke’s lawn. His eyeglass flashed frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth bared he muttered:

 
—
Coactus volui.

He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word.

As he strode past Mr Bloom’s dental windows the sway of his dustcoat brushed rudely from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards, having buffeted a thewless body. The blind stripling turned his sickly face after the striding form.

 
— God’s curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You’re blinder nor I am, you bitch’s bastard!

Opposite Ruggy O’Donohoe’s Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the pound and a half of Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s, porksteaks he had been sent for, went along warm Wicklow street dawdling. It was too blooming dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs MacDowell and the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping sups of the superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney’s. And they eating crumbs of the cottage fruitcake, jawing the whole blooming time and sighing.

After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, courtdress milliner, stopped him. He stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their pelts and putting up their props. From the sidemirrors two mourning Masters Dignam gaped silently. Myler Keogh, Dublin’s pet lamb, will meet sergeantmajor Bennett, the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty sovereigns. Gob, that’d be a good pucking match to see. Myler Keogh, that’s the chap sparring out to him with the green sash. Two bar entrance, soldiers half price. I could easy do a bunk on ma. Master Dignam on his left turned as he turned. That’s me in mourning. When is it? May the twentysecond. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He turned to the right and on his right Master Dignam turned, his cap awry, his collar sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin lifted, he saw the image of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, beside the two puckers. One of them mots that do be in the packets of fags Stoer smokes that his old fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out.

Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going for strength was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow would knock you into the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker for science was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimons knocked the stuffings out of him, dodging and all.

In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff’s mouth and a swell pair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was telling him and grinning all the time.

No Sandymount tram.

Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I’m not going tomorrow either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice I’m in mourning? Uncle Barney said he’d get it into the paper tonight. Then they’ll all see it in the paper and read my name printed and pa’s name.

His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a fly walking over it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they were screwing the screws into the coffin: and the bumps when they were bringing it downstairs.

Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling the men how to get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and heavylooking. How was that? The last night pa was boosed he was standing on the landing there bawling out for his boots to go out to Tunney’s for to boose more and he looked butty and short in his shirt. Never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead. He told me to be a good son to ma. I couldn’t hear the other things he said but I saw his tongue and his teeth trying to say it better. Poor pa. That was Mr Dignam, my father. I hope he’s in purgatory now because he went to confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night.