ULYSSES

Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard the cries of the boys’ lines at their play, young cries in the quiet evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild.

Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An ivory bookmark told him the page.

Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come.

Father Conmee read in secret Pater and Ave and crossed his breast. Deus in adiutorium.

He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he came to Res in Beati immaculati:

– Principium verborum tuorum veritas: in eternum omnia indicia iustitiae tuae.

A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.

Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his breviary. Sin:

– Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis formidavit cor meum.

* * *

Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out.

Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.

Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.

Constable 57 C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day.

– That’s a fine day, Mr Kelleher.

– Ay, Corny Kelleher said.

– It’s very close, the constable said.

Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a coin.

– What’s the best news? he asked.

– I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with bated breath.

* * *

A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell’s corner, skirting Rabaiotti’s icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards Larry O’Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:

– For England ….

He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted and growled:

– home and beauty.

J. J. O’Molloy’s white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the warehouse with a visitor.

A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four strides.

He halted and growled angrily:

– For England …..

Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths.

He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head towards a window and bayed deeply:

– home and beauty.

The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased. The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card Unfurnished Apartments slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A woman’s hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the path.

One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the minstrel’s cap, saying:

– There, sir.

* * *

Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen.

– Did you put in the books? Boody asked.

Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.

– They wouldn’t give anything on them, she said.

Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles tickled by stubble.

– Where did you try? Boody asked.

– M‘Guinness’s.

Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.

– Bad cess to her big face! she cried.

Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.

– What’s in the pot? she asked.

– Shirts, Maggy said.

Boody cried angrily:

– Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?

Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:

– And what’s in this?

A heavy fume gushed in answer.

– Peasoup, Maggy said.

– Where did you get it? Katey asked.

– Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.

The lacquey rang his bell.

– Barang!

Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:

– Give us it here.

Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her mouth random crumbs:

– A good job we have that much. Where’s Dilly?

– Gone to meet father, Maggy said.

Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:

– Our father who art not in heaven.

Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey’s bowl, exclaimed:

– Boody! For shame!