-- Longworth and M'Curdy Atkinson were there...
I hardly hear the purlieu cry
Or a Tommy talk as I pass one by
Before my thoughts begin to run
On F. M'Curdy Atkinson,
The same that had the wooden leg
And that filibustering fillibeg
That never dared to slake his drouth,
Magee that had the chinless mouth.
Being afraid to marry on earth
They masturbated for all they were worth.
Jest on. Know thyself.
Halted below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt.
-- Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing black to be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are black.
A laugh tripped over his lips.
-- Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jew jesuit! She gets you a job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus. Couldn't you do the Yeats touch?
He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms:
-- The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time. One thinks of Homer.
He stopped at the stairfoot.
-- I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly.
The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men's morrice with caps of indices.
In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet:
Everyman His own Wife
or
A Honeymoon in the Hand
(a national immorality in three orgasms)
by
Ballocky Mulligan
He turned a happy patch's smirk to Stephen, saying:
-- The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen.
He read, marcato:
-- Characters:
TOBY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole)
CRAB (a bushranger)
MEDICAL DICK
and (two birds with one stone)
MEDICAL DAVY
MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier)
FRESH NELLY
and
ROSALIE (the coalquay whore)
He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen: and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men:
-- O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!
-- The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever lifted them.
About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside.
Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today, if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must come to, ineluctably.
My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between.
A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting.
-- Good day again, Buck Mulligan said.
The portico.
Here I watched the birds for augury. &Aelig;ngus of the birds. They go, they come. night I flew. Easily flew. Men wandered. Street of harlots after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see.
-- The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown's awe. Did you see his eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad.
Manner of Oxenford.
Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge.
A dark back went before them. Step of a pard, down, out by the gateway, under portcullis barbs.
They followed.
Offend me still. Speak on.
Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds. Frail from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a flaw of softness softly were blown.
Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline, hierophantic: from wide earth an altar.
Laud we the gods
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrilsFrom our bless'd altars.
Wandering Rocks
THE SUPERIOR, THE VERY REVEREND JOHN CONMEE S. J, RESET HIS smooth watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy's name again? Dignam, yes. Vere dignum et justum est. Brother Swan was the person to see. Mr Cunningham's letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good practical catholic: useful at mission time.
A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for aims towards the very reverend John Conmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his purse held, he knew, one silver crown.
Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long, of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, ending their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey's words: If I had served my God as I have served my king He would not have abandoned me in my old days. He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking leaves and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheehy M. P.
-- Very well, indeed, father. And you father?
Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear that. And Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still sitting, to be sure it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful indeed. Yes, it was very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, yes: a very great success. A wonderful man really.
Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M. P. looking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M. P. Yes, he would certainly call.
-- Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy.
Father Conmee doffed his silk hat, as he took leave, at the jet beads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again in going. He had cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste.
Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father Bernard Vaughan's droll eyes and cockney voice.
-- Pilate! Wy don't you old back that owlin mob?
A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish. Of good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not?
O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial.