. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole
and S. James of Dingle and Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and
S. Celestine and S. Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and
S. Senan and S. Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S.
Fintan and S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives
of Brittany and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of holy
youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John Berchmans and
the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S. Kieran
and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr and S.
Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis
Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of
Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and
S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa
of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with
eleven thousand virgins. And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae,
bearing palms and harps and swords and olive crowns, in robes whereon were
woven the blessed symbols of their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves,
cruses, fetters, axes, trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets,
shears, keys, dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows,
beehives, soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells,
crutches, forceps, stags' horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes
on a dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way
by Nelson's Pillar, Henry Street, Mary Street, Capel Street, Little Britain
Street, chanting the _introit in Epiphania Domini which beginneth Surge,
illuminare and thereafter most sweetly the gradual Omnes which saith de Saba
venient they did divers wonders such as casting out devils, raising the dead
to life, multiplying fishes, healing the halt and the blind, discovering
various articles which had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the
scriptures, blessing and prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of
gold came the reverend Father O'Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And
when the good fathers had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard
Kiernan and Co, limited, 8,9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale
grocers, wine and brandy shippers, licensed for the sale of beer, wine and
spirits for consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and
censed the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises
and the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches
and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with
blessed water and prayed that God might bless that house as he had blessed
the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and make the angels of His light to
inhabit therein. And entering he blessed the viands and the beverages and
the company of all the blessed answered his prayers.
-- Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
-- Que fecit clum et terram.
-- Dominus vobiscum.
-- Et cum spiritu tuo.
And he laid his hands upon the blessed and gave thanks and he prayed
and they all with him prayed:
-- Deus, cuius vet sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde
super creaturas istas: et pasta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et voluntatem
Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem sanctissimi nominis
Tui corporis sanitatem et anima tutelam Te auctore percipiat per
Christum Dominum nostrum.
-- 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 round 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-he 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 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.
And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and
Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf and
Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and the loafers
calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit down on the car
and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over his eye starts
singing If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew and a slut shouts out of
her:
-- 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'Il 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.
A-large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from
the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid
farewell to NagyasÁgos uram LipÓti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's,
printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant
clime of SzÁzharminczbrojÚgulyÁs-DugulÁs (Meadow of Murmuring _Waters). The
ceremony which went off with great Éclat was characterised by the most
affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum, the
work of Irish artists, was presented to the distinguished phenomenologist on
behalf of a large section of the community and was accompanied by the gift
of a silver casket, tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic
ornament, a work which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob
agus Jacob. The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many
of those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of
Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of Come back to Erin, followed
immediately by Rakoczy's March. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted along
the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of Howth, Three
Rock Mountain, Sugar-loaf, Bray Head, the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees,
the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles and the Bograghs, the
Connemara hills, the reeks of M'Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh
and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by
answering cheers from a big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and
Caledonian hills, the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by
a final floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who were
present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by
a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were
dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical power station at the
Pigeon-house. VisszontlÁtlÁsÁra, kedvÉs barÁton! VisszontlÁtÁsra! Gone but
not forgotten.
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. G. 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 one 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.
The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The
observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth
grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar
seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year of
the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that part
of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and parish of Saint
Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole
or perch. All the lordly Tesidences in the vicinity of the palace of justice
were demolished and that noble edifice itself, in which at the time of the
catastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass of
ruins beneath which it is to be feared all the occupants have been buried
alive. From the reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves
were accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic
character. An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much
respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk
umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, coat of arms and house
number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir
Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search
parties in remote parts of the island, respectively, the former on the third
basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of
one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head
of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that they-observed an incandescent
object of enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a
terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed south west by west. Messages of
condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all parts of the
different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously pleased
to decree that a special missa pro defunctis shall be celebrated
simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral church of all
the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See in
suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who have been so
unexpectedly called away from our midst. The work of salvage, removal of
debris human remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son,
159, Great Brunswick Street and Messrs T. C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80,
North Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light
infantry under the general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral the right
honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson K.G., K.P., H.T.,
P.C., K.C.B., M.P., J.P., M.B., D.S.O., S.O.D., M.F.H., M.R.I.A., B.L., Mus.
Doc., P.L.G., F.T.C.D., F.R.U.I., F.R.C.P.I. and F.R.C.S.I.
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
sheepface 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.
When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld
the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the
chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of
the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon
Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: Elijah! Elijah! And he
answered with a main cry: Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben
Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at
an angle of _fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green Street like a
shot off a shovel.
Ulysses 13: Nausicca
THE SUMMER EVENING HAD BEGUN TO FOLD THE WORLD IN ITS mysterious
embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all
too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud
promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on the
weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the quiet
church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the voice of
prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the storm-tossed
heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.
The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening
scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and oft
were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy chat
beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy Caffrey and
Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and Jacky Caffrey, two
little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with caps to match and the
name H.M.S. Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were
twins, scarce four years old and very noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but
for all that darling little fellows with bright merry faces and endearing
ways about them. They were dabbling in the sand with their spades and
buckets, building castles as children do, or playing with their big coloured
ball, happy as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby
baby to and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled
with delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a
tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy
Caffrey bent over him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty dimple
in his chin.
-- Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of
water.
And baby prattled after her:
-- A jink a jink a jawbo. _Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she
was awfully fond of children, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy
Caffrey could never be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy
Caffrey that held his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf of
brown bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But
to be sure baby was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy
bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy Caffrey.
A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with a laugh in
her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe red lips, a girl
lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughed too at the quaint language
of little brother.
But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and
Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to this
golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand which Master
Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go wrong that it was to
be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like the Martello tower had. But
if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was selfwilled too and, true to
the maxim that every little Irishman's house is his castle, he fell upon his
hated rival and to such purpose that the would be assailant came to grief
and (alas to relate!) the coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of
discomfited Master Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends.
-- Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively, at once! And you,
Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I catch
you for that.
His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for
their big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was
after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables were
full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over
life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to be seen
on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening with hot tears
that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and shook her hand at
Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near him she wouldn't be far
from him, her eyes dancing in admonition.
-- Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.
She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:
-- What's your name? Butter and cream?
-- Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your
sweetheart?
-- Nao, tearful Tommy said.
-- Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.
-- Nao, Tommy said.
-- I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from
her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy's sweetheart, Gerty is Tommy's
sweetheart.
-- Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.
Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to Edy
Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentlemen couldn't
see and to mind he didn't wet his new tan shoes.
But who was Gerty?
Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,
gazing far away into the distance, was in very truth as fair a specimen of
winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced
beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was more a
Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even
to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking of late had done
her a world of good much better than the Widow Welch's female pills and she
was much better of those discharges she used to get and that tired feeling.
The waxen pallor of her face was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity
though her rosebud mouth was a genuine Cupid's bow, Greekly perfect. Her
hands were of finely veined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as
lemon juice and queen of ointments could make them though it was not true
that she used to wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either.
Bertha Supple told that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was
black out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their
little tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told her
not let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or she'd never
speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate
refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which was unmistakably
evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but
willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had
she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might
easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen herself
exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors at her feet
vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the
love that might have been, that lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a
look, tense with suppressed meaning, that imparted a strange yearning
tendency to the beautiful eyes a charm few could resist. Why have women such
eyes of witchery? Gerty's were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous
lashes and dark expressive brows. Time gas when those brows were not so
silkilyseductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman
Beautiful page of the Princess novelette, who had first advised her to try
eyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in
leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then there was blushing
scientifically cured and how to be tall increase your height and you have a
beautiful face but your nose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because she had a
button one. But Gerty's crowning glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It
was dark brown with a natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning
on account of the new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a
profusion of luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for
wealth. And just now at Edy's words as a telltale flush, delicate as the
faintest rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet
girlish shyness that of a surety God's fair land of Ireland did not hold her
equal.
For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was
about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue. Inclination
prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent. The pretty lips
pouted a while but then she glanced up and broke out into a joyous little
laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May morning. She knew
right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy say that because of him
cooling in his attentions when it was simply a lovers' quarrel. As per usual
somebody's nose was out of joint about the boy that had the bicycle always
riding up and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in
the evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was
on and he was going to Trinity college to study for a doctor when he left
the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing in the bicycle
races in Trinity college university. Little recked he perhaps for what she
felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, piercing to the core.
Yet he was young and perchance he might learn to love her in time. They were
protestants in his family and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after
Him the blessed Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome
with an exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman,
the shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would know
anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at the
lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those good
cigarettes and besides they were both of a size and that was why Edy
Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because he didn't go and ride
up and down in front of her bit of a garden.
Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of
Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be out.
A neat blouse of electric blue, selftinted by dolly dyes (because it was
expected in the Lady's Pictorial that electric blue would be worn), with a
smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket (in which she
always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her favourite perfume because
the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy threequarter skirt cut to the
stride showed off her slim graceful figure to perfection. She wore a
coquettish little love of a hat of wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed
with an underbrim of eggblue chenille and at the side a butterfly bow to
tone. All Tuesday week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but
at last she found what she wanted at Clery's summer sales, the very it,
slightly shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a
penny. She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it
on then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her!
And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew that that
would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes were the newest
thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she was very petite but
she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, oak
or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle at her higharched
instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect proportions beneath her
skirt and just the proper amount and no more of her shapely limbs encased in
finespun hose with high spliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies
they were Gerty's chief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and
fears of sweet seventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can
find it in his heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets, with awfully
pretty stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted
with different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen and
she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from the wash and
ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because she wouldn't
trust those washerwomen as far as she'd see them scorching the things. She
was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own colour and the
lucky colour too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on her because
the green she wore that day week brought grief because his father brought
him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and because she thought
perhaps he might be out because when she was dressing that morning she
nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside out and that was for luck and
lovers' meetings if you put those things on inside out so long as it wasn't
of a Friday.
And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is
there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds
to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to tears,
she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings. Though not too
much because she knew how to cry nicely before the mirror. You are lovely,
Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls upon a face infinitely sad
and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain. Yes, she had known from the
first that her daydream of a marriage has been arranged and the weddingbells
ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T. C. D. (because the one who married the elder
brother would be Mrs Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude
Wylie was wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue
fox was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in
love, a woman's birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoers' (he
was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an arm round
her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her little one in a
strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the first!) but it was only
the end of her nose and then he hastened from the room with a remark about
refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength of character had never been Reggy
Wylie's strong point and he who would woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a
man among men. But waiting, always waiting to be asked and it was leap year
too and would soon be over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a
rare and wondrous love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong
quiet face who had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked
with grey, and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain
her to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort her
with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she yearns
this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be his only,
his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in health, till death
us two part, from this to this day forward.
And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was
just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his little
wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in the face,
Bertha Supple too, and Edy, the spitfire, because she would be twenty-two in
November. She would care for him with creature comforts too for Gerty was
womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that feeling of hominess. Her
griddlecakes done to a golden-brown hue and queen Ann's pudding of
delightful creaminess had won golden opinions from all because she had a
lucky hand also for lighting a fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour
and always stir in the same direction then cream the milk and sugar and
whisk well the white of eggs though she didn't like the eating part when
there were any people that made her shy and often she wondered why you
couldn't eat something poetical like violets or roses and they would have a
beautifully appointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the
photograph of grandpapa Giltrap's lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked,
it was so human, and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack
in Clery's summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be
tall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a husband)
with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed sweeping moustache
and they would go on the continent for their honeymoon (three wonderful
weeks!) and then, when they settled down in a nice snug and cosy little
homely house, every morning they would both have brekky, simple but
perfectly served, for their own two selves and before he went out to
business he would give his dear little wifey a good hearty hug and gaze for
a moment deep down into her eyes.
Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes, so then
she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run off
and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy said he
wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the ball and
if he took it there'd be wigs on the green but Tommy said it was his ball
and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if you please. The
temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy Caffrey since he was
out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to he off now with him and she told
Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.
-- You're not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It's my ball. But Cissy
Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her finger and she
snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and Tommy after it in
full career, having won the day.
-- Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.
And she tickled tiny tot's two cheeks to make him forget and played
here's the lord mayor, here's his two horses, here's his gingerbread
carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin.
But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way like that
from everyone always petting him.
-- I'd like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won't
say.
-- On the beetoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.
Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy
saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she'd be ashamed of her life
to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was sure the
gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared Ciss.
-- Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of
her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I'd look at him.
Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes.
For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea and
jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men's faces on her
nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to go where
you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the Miss White. That
was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget the evening she dressed
up in her father's suit and hat and the burned cork moustache and walked
down Tritonville road, smoking a cigarette? There was none to come up to her
for fun. But she was sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts
heaven ever made, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be
wholesome.
And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the
pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men's temperance retreat conducted
by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and
benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there gathered together
without distinction of social class (and a most edifying spectacle it was to
see) in that simple fane beside the waves, after the storms of this weary
world, kneeling before the feet of the immaculate, reciting the litany of
Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her to intercede for them, the old familiar
words, holy Mary, holy virgin of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty's ears! Had
her father only avoided the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the
pledge or those powders the drink habit cured in Pearson's Weekly, she might
now be rolling in her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told
herself that as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the
lamp because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window
dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But
that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cast its
shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in the home
circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen her own father,
a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself completely for if there
was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it was the man who lifts his
hand to a woman save in the way of kindness deserves to be branded as the
lowest of the low.
And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, wrapt in thought, scarce saw or heard her
companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman off
Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like himself
passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him anyway
screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a father
because he was too old or something or on account of his face (it was a
palpable case of doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the pimples on it
and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor father! With all
his faults she loved him still when he sang Tell me, Mary, how to woo thee
or My love and cottage near Rochelle and they had stewed cockles and lettuce
with Lazenby's salad dressing for supper and when he sang The moon hath
raised with Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on
him, from a stroke. Her mother's birthday that was and Charley was home on
his holidays and Tom and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and
they were to have had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was
so near. Now he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be
a warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn't even go to the
funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him the
letters and samples from his office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic
standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and always bright and
cheery in the home.
A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the
house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in gold.
And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was it rubbed
on the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn't like her
mother taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single thing they ever
had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the world of her for her
gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas at the main every night and
it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of that place where she never forgot
every fortnight the chlorate of lime Mr Tunney the grocer's christmas
almanac the picture of halcyon days where a young gentleman in the costume
they used to wear then with a threecornered hat was offering a bunch of
flowers to his ladylove with oldtime chivalry through her lattice window.
You could see there was a story behind it. The colours were done something
lovely. She was in a soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the
gentleman was in chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often
looked at them dreamily when there for a certain purpose and felt her own
arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back and
thought about those times because she had found out in Walker's pronouncing
dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the halcyon days what
they meant.
The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion, till
at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no getting
behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he could down
towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was not slow to voice
his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was sitting there by
himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted the ball. Our two
champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries and to avoid trouble
Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it to her please. The
gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then threw it up the strand
towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the slope and stopped right under
Gerty's skirt near the little pool by the rock. The twins clamoured again
for it and Cissy told her to kick it away and let them fight for it so Gerty
drew back her foot but she wished their stupid ball hadn't come rolling down
to her and she gave a kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.
-- If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.
Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her
pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted her
skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a jolly
good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it down towards
the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else to draw attention
on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She felt the warm flush, a
danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell, surging and flaming into her
cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged glances of the most casual but now
under the brim of her new hat she ventured a look at him and the face that
met her gaze there in the twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her
the saddest she had ever seen.
Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted
and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of
original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray for us,
vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And careworn hearts
were there and toilers for their daily bread and many who had erred and
wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all that bright with hope
for the reverend father Hughes had told them what the great saint Bernard
said in his famous prayer of Mary, the most pious Virgin's intercessory
power that it was not recorded in any age that those who implored her
powerful protection were ever abandoned by her.
The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of
childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy played with baby
Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep she
cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy gone and
then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my word, didn't the little
chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say papa.
-- Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.
And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for
eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of health, a
perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out to be
something great, they said.
-- Hajajajahaja.
Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to
sit up properly, and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried
out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half
blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most
obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:
-- Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.
And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all
no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the
geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave him in
his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen was quickly
appeased.
Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out
of that and not get on her nerves no hour to be out and the little brats of
twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the paintings that
man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured chalks and such a pity
too leaving them there to be all blotted out, the evening and the clouds
coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and to hear the music like that and
the perfume of those incense they burned in the church like a kind of waft.
And while she gazed her heart went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking
at and there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into her as though
they would search her through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful
eyes they were, superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were
so queer. She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual
face that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin
Harvey, the matinÉe idol, only for the moustache which she preferred because
she wasn't stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they two to always
dress the same on account of a play but she could not see whether he had an
aquiline nose or a slightly retmussÉ from where he was sitting. He was in
deep mourning, she could see that, and the story of a haunting sorrow was
written on his face. She would have given worlds to know what it was. He was
looking up so intently, so still and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he
could see the bright steel buckles of her shoes if she swung them like that
thoughtfully with the toes down. She was glad that something told her to put
on the transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was
far away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he who
mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him because she
felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very heart of the
girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant
it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against than sinning, or even,
even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked man, she cared not. Even if
he was a protestant or methodist she could convert him easily if he truly
loved her. There were wounds that wanted healing with heartbalm. She was a
womanly woman not like other flighty girls, unfeminine, he had known, those
cyclists showing off what they hadn't got and she just yearned to know all,
to forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her, make him forget
the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real
man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for
herself alone.
Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. Ora pro nobis. Well
has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy can
never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge for the
afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her own heart.
Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the stained glass windows
lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue banners of the blessed
Virgin's sodality and Father Conroy was helping Canon O'Hanlon at the altar,
carrying things in and out with his eyes cast down. He looked almost a saint
and his confession-box was so quiet and clean and dark and his hands were
just like white wax and if ever she became a Dominican nun in their white
habit perhaps he might come to the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic.
He told her that time when she told him about that in confession crimsoning
up to the roots of her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled
because that was only the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature
s laws, he said, in this life and that that was no sin because that came
from the nature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed
Lady herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to
Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and
thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design for
him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the
mantelpiece white and gold with a canary bird that came out of a little
house to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the
forty hours' adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a present to
give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or some place.
The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky
threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little
monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them a
good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of them.
And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they were afraid
the tide might come in on them and be drowned.
-- Jacky! Tommy!
Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very
last time she'd ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and she
ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had a good
enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the thingamerry she
was always rubbing into it she couldn't get it to grow long because it
wasn't natural so she could just go and throw her hat at it. She ran with
long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn't rip up her skirt at the side
that was too tight on her because there was a lot of the tomboy about Cissy
Caffrey and she was a forward piece whenever she thought she had a good
opportunity to show off and just because she was a good runner she ran like
that so that he could see all the end of her petticoat running and her
skinny shanks up as far as possible. It would have served her just right if
she had tripped up over something accidentally on purpose with her high
crooked French heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble.
Tableau! That would have been a very charming exposÉ for a gentleman like
that to witness.
Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,
they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy handed the
thurible to Canon O'Hanlon and he put in the incense and censed the Blessed
Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she was itching to give
them a ringing good clip on the ear but she didn't because she thought he
might be watching but she never made a bigger mistake in all her life
because Gerty could see without looking that he never took his eyes off of
her and then Canon O'Hanlon handed the thurible back to Father Conroy and
knelt down looking up at the Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing
Tantum ego and she just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose
and fell to the Tantumer gosa cramen tum. Three and eleven she paid for
those stockings in Sparrow's of George's street on the Tuesday, no the
Monday before Easter and there wasn't a brack on them and that was what he
was looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had
neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his head
to see the difference for himself.
Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with
her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a streel
tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought only a
fortnight before like a rag on her back and bit of her petticoat hanging
like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a moment to settle her
hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown tresses was never seen on a
girl's shoulders, a radiant little vision, in sooth, almost maddening in its
sweetness. You would have to travel many a long mile before you found a head
of hair the like of that. She could almost see the swift answering flush of
admiration in his eyes that set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her
hat so that she could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled
shoe faster for her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes.
He was eyeing her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman's instinct told her
that she had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet
swept from throat to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a
glorious rose.
Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty,
half smiling, with her specs, like an old maid, pretending to nurse the
baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why
no-one could get on with her, poking her nose into what was no concern of
hers. And she said to Gerty:
-- A penny for your thoughts.
-- What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth.
I was only wondering was it late.
Because she wished to goodness they'd take the snottynosed twins and
their baby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just gave a
gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy asked her the
time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was half past kissing
time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know because they were told to
be in early.
-- Wait, said Cissy, I'll ask my uncle Peter over there what's the time
by his conundrum.
So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his
hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his
watchchain, looking at the church. Passionate nature though he was Gerty
could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment he had been
there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and the next moment it
was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol expressed in every line of
his distinguishedlooking figure.
Cissy said to excuse her would he mind telling her what was the right
time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to it and
looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry his watch
was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the sun was set.
His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in measured accents
there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones. Cissy said thanks and
came back with her tongue out and said uncle said his waterworks were out of
order.
Then they sang the second verse of the Tantum ergo and Canon O'Hanlon
got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he told
Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire to the
flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and she could see
the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the works and she swung her
leg more in and out in time. It was getting darker but he could see and he
was looking all the time that he was winding the watch or whatever he was
doing to it and then he put it back and put his hands back into his pockets.
She felt a Kind of a sensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel
of her scalp and that irritation against her stays that that thing must be
coming on because the last time too was when she clipped her hair on account
of the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in her
every contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was
undisguised admiration in a man's passionate gaze it was there plain to be
seen on that man's face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it.
Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty
noticed that that little hint she gave had the desired effect because it was
a long way along the strand to where there was the place to push up the
pushcar and Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to make
herself attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood up with his cope
poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the card to read off and
he read out Panem de clo prstitisti eis and Edy and Cissy were
talking about the time all the time and asking her but Gerty could pay them
back in their own coin and she just answered with scathing politeness when
Edy asked her was she heartbroken about her best boy throwing her over.
Gerty winced sharply. A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that spoke
volumes of scorn immeasurable. It hurt. O yes, it cut deep because Edy had
her own quiet way of saying things like that she knew would wound like the
confounded little cat she was. Gerty's lips parted swiftly to frame the word
but she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless,
so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of. She
had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all
his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an
instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes
were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled back in
sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them to see.
-- O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head
flashed up, I can throw my cap at who I like because it's leap year.
Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the
ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young voice
that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As for Mr Reggy
with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck him aside as if he
was so much filth and never again would she cast as much as a second thought
on him and tear his silly postcard into a dozen pieces. And it ever after he
dared to presume she could give him one look of measured scorn that would
make him shrivel up on the spot. Miss puny little Edy's countenance fell to
no slight extent and Gerty could see by her looking as black as thunder that
she was simply in a towering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt,
because that shaft had struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew
that she was something aloof, apart in another sphere, that she was not of
them and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it so they could
put that in their pipe and smoke it.
Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked
in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because the
sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior and Cissy told him too
that Billy Winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and baby looked
just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and Cissy poked him
like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby, without as much as by
your leave, sent up his compliments on to his brandnew dribbling bib.
O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.
The slight contretemps claimed her attention but in two twos she set
that little matter to rights.
Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy
asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was
flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed it
off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction because
just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet seashore because
Canon O'Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that Father Conroy put
round him round his shoulders giving the benediction with the blessed
Sacrament in his hands.
How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse
of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time a
bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither, thither, with
a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of the lighthouses so
picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of paints because it was
easier than to make a man and soon the lamplighter would be going his rounds
past the presbyterian church grounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue
where the couples walked and lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy
Wylie used to turn his freewheel like she read in that book The Lamplighter
by Miss Cummins, author of Mabel Vaughan and other tales. For Gerty had her
dreams that no-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a
keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the
coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of her
toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was
scrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasures
trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose
scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to change
when her things came home from the wash and there were some beautiful
thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in Hely's of Dame
Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if she could only
express herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that she had
copied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the potherbs. Art
thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J. Walsh, Magherafelt, and after
there was something about twilight, wilt thou ever? and ofttimes the beauty
of poetry, so sad in its transient loveliness, had misted her eyes with
silent tears that the years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but
for that one shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was
an accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. But
it must end she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there would be
no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would make the great
sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his thoughts. Dearer than the
whole world would she be to him and gild his days with happiness. There was
the allimportant question and she was dying to know was he a married man or
a widower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the nobleman with the
foreign name from the land of song had to have her put into a madhouse,
cruel only to be kind. But even if - what then? Would it make a very great
difference? From everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature
instinctively recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women
off the accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and
coarse men, with no respect for a girl's honour, degrading the sex and being
taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be just good
friends like a big brother and sister without all that other in spite of the
conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was an old flame he was in
mourning for from the days beyond recall. She thought she understood. She
would try to understand him because men were so different. The old love was
waiting, waiting with little white hands stretched out, with blue appealing
eyes. Heart of mine! She would follow her dream of love, the dictates of her
heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for
her for love was the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might
she would be wild, untrammelled, free.
Canon O'Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and
the choir sang Laudate Dominum omnes gentes and then he locked the
tabernacle door because the benediction was over and Father Conroy handed
him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked wasn't she coming but Jacky
Caffrey called out:
-- O, look, Cissy!
And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over
the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.
-- It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.
And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church,
helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy
holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn't fall running.
-- Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It's the bazaar fireworks.
But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and
call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she could see
from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set her pulses
tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance, and a light broke
in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face, passion silent as the grave,
and it had made her his. At last they were left alone without the others to
pry and pass remarks and she knew he could be trusted to the death,
steadfast, a sterling man, a man of inflexible honour to his fingertips. His
hands and face were working and a tremor went over her. She leaned back far
to look up where the fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so
as not to fall back looking up and there was no one to see only him and her
when she revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply
soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his
heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew about the passion of men like
that, hot-blooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead secret and
made her swear she'd never about the gentleman lodger that was staying with
them out of the Congested Districts Board that had pictures cut out of
papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she said he used to do
something not very nice that you could imagine sometimes in the bed. But
this was altogether different from a thing like that because there was all
the difference because she could almost feel him draw her face to his and
the first quick hot touch of his handsome lips. Besides there was absolution
so long as you didn't do the other thing before being married and there
ought to be women priests that would understand without your telling out and
Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in her eyes
so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors'
photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming on the
way it did.
And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned
back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and
they all saw it and shouted to look, look there it was and she leaned back
ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer was flying about
through the air, a soft thing to and fro, dark. And she saw a long Roman
candle going up over the trees up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all
breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean
back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and
her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back
and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that
caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and
eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw
and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling
in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above
her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed
and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he
couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those
skirt-dancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on
looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her
snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow
the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that
cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot
blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and
everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain
gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars
falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!
Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She
glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of
piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl. He was
leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) stands
silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a brute he
had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called to him and, wretch
that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been. He of all men!
But there was an infinite store of mercy in those eyes, for him too a word
of pardon even though he had erred and sinned and wandered. Should a girl
tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their secret, only theirs, alone in
the hiding twilight and there was none to know or tell save the little bat
that flew so softly through the evening to and fro and little bats don't
tell.
Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to
show what a great person she was: and then she cried:
-- Gerty! Gerty! We're going. Come on. We can see from farther up.
Gerty had an idea, one of love's little ruses. She slipped a hand into
her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of course
without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he's too far to. She
rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet again, there,
and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her dream of yester eve.
She drew herself up to her full height. Their souls bet in a last lingering
glance and the eyes that reached her heart, full of a strange shining, hung
enraptured on her sweet flowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a
sweet forgiving smile, a smile that verged on tears, and then they parted.
Slowly without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy,
to Edy, to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was darker
now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and slippy seaweed.
She balked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic of her but with care
and very slowly because Gerty MacDowell was...
Tight boots? No. She's lame! O!
Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That's why she's
left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was wrong
by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a
woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on show.
Hot little devil all The same. Wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a nun or a
negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. Near her
monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such a bad headache
today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All kinds of crazy
longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent that nun told me liked
to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I suppose. Sister? How many
women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she. Something in the air. That's the
moon. But then why don't all women menstruate at the same time with same
moon, I mean? Depends on the time they were born, I suppose. Or all start
scratch then get out of step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I
got the best of that. Damned glad I didn't do it in the bath this morning
over her silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this
morning. That gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife
engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small
mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves.
Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices.
Reserve better. Don't want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O. Pity
they can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah,
yes. Muioscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy's
hat and what the girls did with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it
all a fake? Lingerie does it. Felt for the curves inside her deshabillÉ.
Excites them also when they're. I'm all clean come and dirty me. And they
like dressing one another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly's
new blouse. At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I
bought her the violet garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks and
turnedup trousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we met.
His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman loses a
charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O Mairy lost the pin of
her. Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion part of their charm. Just
changes when you're on the track of the secret. Except the east: Mary,
Martha: now as then. No reasonable offer refused. She wasn't in a hurry
either. Always off to a fellow when they are. They never forget an
appointment. Out on spec probably. They believe in chance because like
themselves. And the others inclined to give her an odd dig. Girl friends at
school, arms round each other's neck or with ten fingers locked, kissing and
whispering secrets about nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with
whitewashed faces, cool coif and their rosaries going up and down,
vindictive too for what they can't get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write
to me. And I'll write to you. Now won't you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till Mr
Right comes along then meet once in a blue moon. Tableau! O, look who it is
for the love of God! How are you at all? What have you been doing with
yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes in each
other's appearance. You're looking splendid. Sister souls showing their
teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn't lend each other a
pinch of salt.
Ah!
Devils they are when that's coming on them. Dark devilish appearance.
Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my foot. O
that way! O, that's exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest once in a
way. Wonder if it's bad to go with them then. Safe in one way. Turns milk,
makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering plants I read in a
garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she wears she's a flirt. All
are. Daresay she felt I. When you feel like that you often meet what you
feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look at. Always know a fellow courting:
collars and cuffs. Well cocks and lions do the same and stags. Same time
might prefer a tie undone or something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No.
Gently does it. Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell.
Saw something in me. Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap
with bearsgrease, plastery hair lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid
gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn't let
her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly men
marrying. Beauty and the beast. Besides I can't be so if Molly. Took off her
hat to show her hair. Wide brim bought to hide her face, meeting someone
might know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair strong
in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly's combings when we were on the rocks in
Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave her money. Why not? All a prejudice.
She's worth ten, fifteen, more a pound. All that for nothing. Bold hand. Mrs
Marion. Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I
sent to Flynn? And the day I went to Drimmie's without a necktie. Wrangle
with Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding. He's another.
Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch stopped at half past four. Dust. Shark
liver oil they use to clean could do it myself. Save. Was that just when he,
she?
O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.
Ah!
Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that
little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy Aftereffect not
pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care.
Complimented perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night prayers
with the kiddies. Well, aren't they. See her as she is spoil all. Must have
the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music. The name too. Amours
of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud Branscombe. Curtain up.
Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive bosom. Little
sweetheart come and kiss me Still I feel. The strength it gives a man.
That's the secret of it. Good job I let off there behind coming out of
Dignam's. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn't have. Makes you want to sing
after. Lacaus esant taratara. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan
however if you don't know how to end the conversation. Ask them a question
they ask you another. Good idea if you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if
you say: good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. O but the
dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she
was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her
say all wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's so hard to find one
who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must be horrible for them
till they harden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two
shillings. Parrots. Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she
hadn't called me sir. Oh, her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with
a single girl! That's what they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman. Or
even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get away from other chap's wife.
Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the Burton today spitting back gumchewed
gristle. French letter still in my pocketbook. Cause of half the trouble.
But might happen sometime, I don't think. Come in. All is prepared. I
dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How they change the venue when it's not
what they like. Ask you do you like mushrooms because she once knew a
gentleman who. Or ask you what someone was going to say when he changed his
mind and stopped. Yet if I went the whole hog, say: I want to, something
like that. Because I did. She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to
want something awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must
have been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she
came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First Kiss does the trick. The
propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by their
eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till their dying
day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the Moorish wall beside
the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts were developed. Fell
asleep then. After Gencree dinner that was when we drove home the featherbed
mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor had his eye off her too.
Val Dillon. Apoplectic.
There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up
like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be,
waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in mother's
clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world. And the dark one
with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she could whistle. Mouth made
for that. Like Molly. Why that high class whore In Jammet's wore her veil
only to her nose. Would you mind, please, telling me the right time? I'll
tell you the right time up a dark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times
every morning, cure for fat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers
see most of the game. Of course they understand birds, animals, babies. In
their line.
Didn't look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn't give that
satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls. Fine
eyes she had, clear. It's the white of the eye brings that out not so much
the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting beyond a dog's
jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high school drawing a
picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call that innocence? Poor
idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her. Never see them sit on a bench
marked Wet Paint. Eyes all over them. Look under the bed for what's not
there. Longing to get the fright of their lives. Sharp as needles they are.
When I said to Molly the man at the corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking,
thought she might like, twigged at once he had a false arm. Had too. Where
do they get that? Typist going up Roger Greene's stairs two at a time to
show her understandings. Handed down from father to mother to daughter, I
mean. Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on the
mirror to save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman's eye on a
mirror. And when I sent her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Presscott's, by the
way that ad I must, carrying home the change in her stocking. Clever little
minx! I never told her. Neat way she carried parcels too. Attract men, small
thing like that. Holding up her hand, shaking it, to let the blood flow back
when it was red. Who did you learn that from? Nobody. Something the nurse
taught me. O, don't they know? Three years old she was in front of Molly's
dressingtable just before we left Lombard street west. Me have a nice face.
Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the world. Young student. Straight on her pins
anyway not like the other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you
are. Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point.
Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in Grafton
street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.
A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads
and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy ran out to see and Edy after
with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the rocks. Will she?
Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion. Darling, I saw your. I
saw all.
Lord!
Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan's, Dignam's. For
this relief much thanks. In Hamlet, that is. Lord! It was all things
combined. Excitement. When she leaned back felt an ache at the butt of my
tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He's right. Might have made a worse fool
of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I will tell you
all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It couldn't be? No, Gerty
they called her. Might be false name however like my and the address
Dolphin's barn a blind.
Her maiden name was Jemina Brown
And she lived with her mother in Irishtown.
Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush.
Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if it
understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw anything
straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however because it lasts
only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping and papa's pants will
soon fit Willy and fullers' earth for the baby when they hold him out to do
ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them out of harm's way. Nature. Washing
child, washing corpse. Dignam. Children's hands always round them. Cocoa-nut
skulls, monkeys, not even closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and
tainted curds. Oughtn't to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill
it up with wind. Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is
nurse Callan there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly was
in the Coffee Palace. That young doctor O'Hare I noticed her brushing his
coat. And, Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too, marriageable. Worst
of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City Arms. Husband rolling in
drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat. Have that in your nose in the
dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in the morning: was I drunk last night?
Bad policy however to fault the husband. Chickens come home to roost. They
stick by one another like glue. Maybe the women's fault also. That's where
Molly can knock spots off them. It is the blood of the south. Moorish. Also
the form, the figure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just compare for instance
those others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me to
introduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of a nondescript, wouldn't
know what to call her. Always see a fellow's weak point in his wife. Still
there's destiny in it, falling in love. Have their own secrets between them.
Chaps that would go to the dogs if some woman didn't take them in hand. Then
little chits of girls, height of a shilling in coppers, with little
hobbies. As God made them He matched them. Sometimes children turn out
well enough. Twice nought makes one. Or old rich chap of seventy and
blushing bride. Marry in May and repent in December. This wet is very
unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin is not back. Better detach.
Ow!
Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and the
short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch.
Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic influence
between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I suppose at
once. Cat's away the mice will play. I remember looking in Pill lane. Also
that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism. Earth for instance
pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement. And time? Well that's
the time the movement takes. Then if one thing stopped the whole ghesabo
would stop bit by bit. Because it's arranged. Magnetic needle tells you
what's going on in the sun, the stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you
hold out the fork. Come. Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel.
Molly, he. Dress up and look and suggest and let you see and see more and
defy you if you're a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look,
look and if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly.
Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third
person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw stuck
out head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at the horse
show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. Fine voice that
fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did, like flowers. It was too.
Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the paint. Make their own use
of everything. Same time doing it scraped her slipper on the floor so they
wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't kick the beam, I think. Keep that
thing up for hours. Kind of a general all round over me and half down my
back.
Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave
you this to think of me when I'm far away on the pillow. What is it?
Heliotrope? No, Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She'd like scent of that kind.
Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her with a
little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the dance night
she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She was wearing her
black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good conductor, is it? Or
bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. For instance if you go into
a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing too. Why did I smell it only now?
Took its time in coming like herself, slow but sure. Suppose it's ever so
many millions of tiny grains blown across. Yes, it is. Because those spice
islands, Cinghalese this morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it
is. It's like a fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what
do you call it gossamer and they're aways spinning it out of them, fine as
anything, rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything she takes
off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little kick, taking
them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff in her shift on
the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Reminds me of
strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There or the armpits or
under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes and corners. Hyacinth
perfume made of oil or ether or something. Muskrat. Bag under their tails
one grain pour off odour for years. Dogs at each other behind. Good evening.
Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that.
Yes now, look at it that way. We're the same. Some women for instance warn
you off when they have their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could
hang your hat on. Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please
keep off the grass.
Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves Long
John had on his desk the other. Breath? What you eat and drink gives that.
No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests that are
supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like flies round treacle.
Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The tree of forbidden priest.
O father, will you? Let me be the first to. That diffuses itself all through
the body, permeates. Source of life and it's extremely curious the smell.
Celery sauce. Let me.
Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat.
Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah, no, that's the soap.
O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never
went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag this
morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could mention
Meagher's just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph. Two and
nine. Bad opinion of me he'll have. Call tomorrow. How much do I owe you?
Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving credit another
time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellow run up a bill on the
slate and then slinking around the back streets into somewhere else.
Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as
far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had a
good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk a
mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk after
him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today. Still you learn
something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as women don't mock what
matter? That's the way to find out. Ask yourself who is he now. The Mystery
Man on the Beach, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom. Payment at the
rate of one guinea per column. And that fellow today at the graveside in the
brown macintosh. Corns on his kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all
the. Whistle brings rain they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the
Ormond damp. The body feels the atmosphere. Old Betty's joints are on the
rack. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the
twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills seem
coming nigh.
Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or
they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of the
dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds flash
better. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt you. Better now of
course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through the small guts for
nothing. Still two types there are you bob against. Scowl or smile. Pardon!
Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in the shade after the sun. Some
light still. Red rays are longest. Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A star I see. Venus? Can't tell yet.
Two, when three it's night. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks
like a phantom ship. No. Wait. Trees are they. An optical illusion. Mirage.
Land of the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My
native land, goodnight.
Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white
fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his way
up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, sore on
the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the position. Like to
be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don't know how nice you looked.
I begin to like them at that age. Green apples. Grab at all that offer.
Suppose it's the only time we cross legs, seated. Also the library today:
those girl graduates. Happy chairs under them. But it's the evening
influence. They feel all that. Open like flowers, know their hours,
sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under
the lamps. Nightstock in Mat Dillon's garden where I kissed her shoulder.
Wish I had a full length oil-painting of her then. June that was too I
wooed. The year returns. History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I'm with
you once again. Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad
about her lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much
pity. They take advantage.
All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The
rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums and I the plumstones.
Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change: that's all.
Lovers: yum yum.
Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of
me, little wretch. She kissed me. My youth. Never again. Only once it comes.
Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the same. Like
kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing new under the
sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin's barn. Are you not happy in your? Naughty
darling. At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke Doyle's house. Mat Dillon and
his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, Hetty. Molly too.
Eightyseven that was.
Year before we. And the old major partial to his drop of spirits.
Curious she an only child, I an only child. So it returns. Think you're
escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.
And just when he and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we
played. Rip: tear in Henny Doyle's overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering.
Winkle: cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She
leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in
Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty from
the dew.
Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I'm a
tree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could
be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. Funny
little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very likely. Hanging
by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him out, I suppose. Mass
seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray for us. And pray for us.
And pray for us. Good idea the repetition. Same thing with ads. Buy from us.
And buy from us. Yes, there's the light in the priest's house. Their frugal
meal. Remember about the mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom's.
Twentyeight it is. Two houses they have. Gabriel Conroy's brother is curate.
Ba. Again. Wonder why they come out at night like mice. They're a mixed
breed. Birds are like hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise?
Better sit still. All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the
end of a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with
tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey white.
Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for example like the
eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants to stamp his
trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morning on the staircase.
Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with three colours. Not true.
That half tabbywhite tortoise-shell in the City Anns with the letter em on
her forehead. Body fifty different colours. Howth a while ago amethyst.
Glass flashing. That's how that wise man what's his name with the burning
glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can't be tourists' matches. What?
Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles
in the furze act as a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have it! My
memory's not so bad.
Ba. Who knows what they're always flying for. Insects? That bee last
week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be the
one bit me, come back to see. Birds too never find out what they say. Like
our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve? they have to fly over the
ocean and back. Lot must be killed in storms, telegraph wires. Dreadful life
sailors have too. Big brutes of ocean-going steamers floundering along in
the dark, lowing out like seacows. Faugh a ballagh. Out of that, bloody
curse to you. Others in vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about
like snuff at a wake when the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes
away for years at the ends of the earth somewhere. No ends really because
it's round. Wife in every port they say. She has a good job if she minds it
till Johnny comes marching home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail
end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor's weighed.
Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well? And the
tephilim no what's this they call it poor papa's father had on his door to
touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of
bondage. Something in all those superstitions because when you go out never
know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of a beam for grim life,
life-belt round round him, gulping salt water, and that's the last of his
nibs till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish ever get seasick?
Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid,
crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker. Moon looking down. Not my
fault, old cockalorum.
A lost long candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of
funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and sheda cluster of violet
but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The shepherd's hour:
the hour of holding: hour of tryst. From house to house, giving his
everwelcome double knock, went the nine o'clock postman, the glowworm's lamp
at his belt gleaming here and there through the laurel hedges. And among the
five young trees a hoisted lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy's terrace. By
screens of lighted windows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying,
wailing: Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup race!
and from the door of Dignam's house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the
bat flew here, flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept,
grey. Howth settled for slumber tired of long days, of yumyum rhododendrons
(he was old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his fell of
ferns. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing,
slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the anchored lightship twinkled,
winked at Mr Bloom.
Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish
Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and breeches
buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in the Erin's
King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. Filthy trip.
Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking overboard to feed the
herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in their faces. Milly, no sign
of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing. Don't know what death is at that
age. And then their stomachs clean. But being lost they fear. When we hid
behind the tree at Crumlin. I didn't want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the
wood. Frightening them with masks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch
them. I'll murder you. Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle.
Whole earnest. How can people aim guns at each other? Sometimes they go off.
Poor kids. Only troubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her
for that. After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has.
What do they love? Another themselves? But the morning she chased her with
the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking. Little
hand it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when you touch.
Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I remember. Made me
laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one is more sensitive, I
think. Mine too. Nearer the heart. Padding themselves out if fat is in
fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakening me. Frightened she
was when her nature came on her first. Poor child! Strange moment for the
mother too. Brings back her girlhoo