Love’s Old Sweet Song(words by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by J. L. Molloy, sung by Madam Antoinette Sterling) open at the last page with the final indications ad libitum, forte, pedal, animato, sustained, pedal, ritirando, close.
With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects?
With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focussing his gaze on a large dull passive and slender bright active: with solicitation, bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement, remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan’s scheme of colour containing the gradation of green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility the consequent and concomitant tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual discolouration.
His next proceeding?
From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus (illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined it superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the latter reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin of the candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to facilitate total combustion.
What followed this operation?
That truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense.
What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the mantelpiece?
A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46 a.m. on the , matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper.
What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and Bloom?
In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before the mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compassionated gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle.
What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his attention?
The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man.
Why solitary (ipsorelative)?
Brothers and sisters had he none.
Yet that man’s father was his grandfather’s son.
Why mutable (aliorelative)?
From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix. From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal procreator.
What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror?
The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating titles on the two bookshelves opposite.
Catalogue these books.
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Thom’s Dublin Post Office Directory, .
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Denis Florence M’Carthy’s Poetical Works (copper beechleaf bookmark at p. 5).
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Shakespeare’s Works (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled).
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The Useful Ready Reckoner (brown cloth).
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The Secret History of the Court of Charles II (red cloth, tooled binding).
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The Child’s Guide (blue cloth).
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When We Were Boys by William O’Brien M. P. (green cloth, slightly faded, envelope bookmark at p. 217).
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Thoughts from Spinoza (maroon leather).
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The Story of the Heavens by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth).
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Ellis’s Three Trips to Madagascar (brown cloth, title obliterated).
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The Stark-Munro Letters by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel Street, lent (Whitsun Eve) , due , 13 days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing white letternumber ticket).
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Voyages in China by « Viator » (recovered with brown paper, red ink title).
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Philosophy of the Talmud (sewn pamphlet).
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Lockart’s Life of Napoleon (cover wanting, marginal annotations, minimising victories, aggrandising defeats of the protagonist).
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Soll und Haben by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters, cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24).
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Hozier’s History of the Russo-Turkish War (brown cloth, 2 volumes, with gummed label, Garrison Library Governor’s Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of cover).
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Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland by William Allingham (second edition, green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner’s name on recto of flyleaf erased).
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A Handbook of Astronomy (cover, brown leather, detached, 5 plates, antique letterpress long primer, author’s footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica).
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The Hidden Life of Christ (black boards).
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In the Track of the Sun (yellow cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent title intestation).
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Physical Strength and How to Obtain It by Eugen Sandow (red cloth).
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Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry written in French by F. Ignat. Pardies and rendered into English by John Harris D. D. London, printed for R. Knaplock at the Bishop’s Head MDCCXI, with dedicatory epistle to his worthy friend Charles Cox, esquire, Member of Parliament for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher, dated this and requesting the person who should find it, if the book should be lost or go astray, to restore it to Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Enniscorthy, county Wicklow, the finest place in the world.
What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of the inverted volumes?
The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its place: the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females: the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella inclined in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret document behind, beneath or between the pages of a book.
Which volume was the largest in bulk?
Hozier’s History of the Russo-Turkish War.
What among other data did the second volume
