Section 64 of 74 - Table of Contents
These opening bars he sang and translated EXTEMPORE. Bloom, nodding, said
he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which he
did.
A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons,
which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily,
if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production such
as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, command its
own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for its fortunate
possessor in the near future an ENTREE into fashionable houses in the
best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large way of
business and titled people where with his university degree of B. A. (a
huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more influence the
good impression he would infallibly score a distinct success, being
blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the purpose and
other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended to so as to the
better worm his way into their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in--
society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like
that could militate against you. It was in fact only a matter of months
and he could easily foresee him participating in their musical and
artistic CONVERSAZIONES during the festivities of the Christmas season,
for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and
being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, cases of which, as he
happened to know, were on record--in fact, without giving the show away,
he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could easily have. Added to
which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be
sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition fees. Not, he
parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily
embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy space of
time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or nay and
both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his dignity in
the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be handed a
cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. Besides, though
taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original music like that,
different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue as
it would be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical world after the usual
hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a confiding public by Ivan
St Austell and Hilton St Just and their GENUS OMNE. Yes, beyond a shadow
of a doubt he could with all the cards in his hand and he had a capital
opening to make a name for himself and win a high place in the city's
esteem where he could command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a
grand concert for the patrons of the King street house, given a backerup,
if one were forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak, a big IF,
however, with some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable
procrastination which often tripped -up a too much feted prince of good
fellows. And it need not detract from the other by one iota as, being his
own master, he would have heaps of time to practise literature in his
spare moments when desirous of so doing without its clashing with his
vocal career or containing anything derogatory whatsoever as it was a
matter for himself alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and that
was the very reason why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose
for smelling a rat of any sort, hung on to him at all.
The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he
purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on
the FOOLS STEP IN WHERE ANGELS principle, advising him to sever his
connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was prone
to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious pretext when
not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it which in
Bloom's humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side of a person's
character, no pun intended.
The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted and,
rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on
the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking
globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full
crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had
ended, patient in his scythed car.
Side by side Bloom, profiting by the CONTRETEMPS, with Stephen passed
through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping over
a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower, Stephen
singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad.
UND ALLE SCHIFFE BRUCKEN.
The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely
watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black, one
full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, TO BE MARRIED BY FATHER
MAHER. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again continuing
their TETE-A-TETE (which, of course, he was utterly out of) about sirens
enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number of other topics of the
same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind while the man in
the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the sleeper car who in
any case couldn't possibly hear because they were too far simply sat in
his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street AND LOOKED AFTER THEIR
LOWBACKED CAR.
* * * * * * *
What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning?
Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they
followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and
Mountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left,
Gardiner's place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of
Temple street: then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing
right, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching,
disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus before
George's church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less than
the arc which it subtends.
Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary?
Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman,
prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and
glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed
corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church,
ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, the
study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the
presabbath, Stephen's collapse.
Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respective
like and unlike reactions to experience?
Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference to
plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner
of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both
indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of
heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox
religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted the
alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexual
magnetism.
Were their views on some points divergent?
Stephen dissented openly from Bloom's views on the importance of dietary
and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen's views on
the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature. Bloom
assented covertly to Stephen's rectification of the anachronism involved
in assigning the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to
christianity from druidism by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus,
son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celestine I in the year 432 in the reign of
Leary to the year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt (died
266 A.D.), suffocated by imperfect deglutition of aliment at Sletty and
interred at Rossnaree. The collapse which Bloom ascribed to gastric
inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of
adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and
the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen
attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both
from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first
no bigger than a woman's hand.
Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative?
The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining
paraheliotropic trees.
Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in
the past?
In 1884 with Owen Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public
thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard's corner and Leonard's
corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield avenue.
In 1885 with Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall
between Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony of
Uppercross. In 1886 occasionally with casual acquaintances and
prospective purchasers on doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class
railway carriages of suburban lines. In 1888 frequently with major Brian
Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy, together and separately on
the lounge in Matthew Dillon's house in Roundtown. Once in 1892 and once
in 1893 with Julius (Juda) Mastiansky, on both occasions in the parlour
of his (Bloom's) house in Lombard street, west.
What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885,
1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make before their arrival at their
destination?
He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual
development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction
of the converse domain of interindividual relations.
As in what ways?
From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received:
existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence
to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived.
What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?
At the housesteps of the 4th Of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number
7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket
of his trousers to obtain his latchkey.
Was it there?
It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on
the day but one preceding.
Why was he doubly irritated?
Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded
himself twice not to forget.
What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly (respectively)
and inadvertently, keyless couple?
To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock.
Bloom's decision?
A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the area
railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at the lower
union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its length of
five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches of the
area pavement and allowed his body to move freely in space by separating
himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for the impact of
the fall.
Did he fall?
By his body's known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in avoirdupois
measure, as certified by the graduated machine for periodical
selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman, pharmaceutical chemist
of 19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast of the Ascension, to
wit, the twelfth day of May of the bissextile year one thousand nine
hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era five thousand six
hundred and sixtyfour, mohammadan era one thousand three hundred and
twentytwo), golden number 5, epact 13, solar cycle 9, dominical letters C
B, Roman indiction 2, Julian period 6617, MCMIV.
Did he rise uninjured by concussion?
Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by
the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force at
its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied at its
fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the subadjacent
scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free inflammable coal
gas by turningon the ventcock, lit a high flame which, by regulating, he
reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a portable candle.
What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive?
Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent
kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 CP, a man lighting a
candle of 1 CP, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man
leaving the kitchen holding a candle.
Did the man reappear elsewhere?
After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible
through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the
halldoor. The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space
of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle.
Did Stephen obey his sign?
Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and followed
softly along the hallway the man's back and listed feet and lighted
candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down a
turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom's
house.
What did Bloom do?
He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its
flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for Stephen
with its back to the area window, the other for himself when necessary,
knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid resintipped
sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons of best Abram
coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs Flower and
M'Donald of 14 D'Olier street, kindled it at three projecting points of
paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing the potential
energy contained in the fuel by allowing its carbon and hydrogen elements
to enter into free union with the oxygen of the air.
Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think?
Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two,
had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the
college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the county
of Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room of his
first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street: of his
godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss Julia
Morkan at 15 Usher's Island: of his aunt Sara, wife of Richie (Richard)
Goulding, in the kitchen of their lodgings at 62 Clanbrassil street: of
his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of number twelve
North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of Saint Francis Xavier
1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the physics' theatre of
university College, 16 Stephen's Green, north: of his sister Dilly
(Delia) in his father's house in Cabra.
What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from the
fire towards the opposite wall?
Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope,
stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the
chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs folded
unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of ladies'
grey hose with Lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual position
clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer extremities and the
third at their point of junction.
What did Bloom see on the range?
On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left
(larger) hob a black iron kettle.
What did Bloom do at the range?
He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron kettle
to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to let it
flow.
Did it flow?
Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of
2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of
filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial plant
cost of 5 pounds per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, Glen of
the Downs and Callowhill to the 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan, a
distance of 22 statute miles, and thence, through a system of relieving
tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at Eustace bridge,
upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth and daily supply
of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below the sill of the
overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and waterworks
engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of the waterworks
committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for purposes other
than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of recourse being
had to the impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals as in 1893)
particularly as the South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding their ration
of 15 gallons per day per pauper supplied through a 6 inch meter, had
been convicted of a wastage of 20,000 gallons per night by a reading of
their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of the corporation, Mr
Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the detriment of another
section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers, solvent, sound.
What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier,
returning to the range, admire?
Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in
seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's
projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific
exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface
particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence
of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic
quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides:
its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar
icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance:
its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its
indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region
below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability
of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve and
hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of tons of the
most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and islands, its
persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas and
downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and
volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns:
its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones:
its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and
confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic
currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in
seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies,
freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers,
cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its
vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and
latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and
exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate,
saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its
composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part
of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead
Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate
dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst
and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and
paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow,
hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and
bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and
archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and
arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility
in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power
stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals,
rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality
derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to
level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe),
numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity
as constituting 90 percent of the human body: the noxiousness of its
effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater,
stagnant pools in the waning moon.
Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he
return to the stillflowing tap?
To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of Barrington's
lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered, (bought thirteen hours
previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh cold
neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in a long
redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller.
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