Married to Bloom, to greaseaseabloom.
―O saints above! Miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I wished I hadn’t laughed so much. I feel all wet.
―O, Miss Douce! Miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing!
And flushed yet more (you horrid!), more goldenly.
By Cantwell’s offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi’s virgins, bright of their oils. Nannetti’s father hawked those things about, wheedling at doors as I. Religion pays. Must see him about Keyes’s par. Eat first. I want. Not yet. At four, she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands turning. On. Where eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five guineas with those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets of sin.
Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled.
Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his rocky thumbnails. Chips. He strolled.
―O welcome back, Miss Douce.
He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays?
―Tiptop.
He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor.
―Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the strand all day.
Bronze whiteness.
―That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed her hand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males.
Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away.
―O go away, she said. You’re very simple, I don’t think.
He was.
―Well now, I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle they christened me simple Simon.
―You must have been a doaty, Miss Douce made answer. And what did the doctor order today?
―Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I’ll trouble you for some fresh water and a half glass of whisky.
Jingle.
―With the greatest alacrity, Miss Douce agreed.
With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane’s she turned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from her crystal keg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought pouch and pipe. Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky fifenotes.
―By Jove, he mused. I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must be a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at last, they say. Yes, yes.
Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid’s, into the bowl. Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute.
None not said nothing. Yes.
Gaily Miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling:
―O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!
―Was Mr Lidwell in today?
In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex bridge. Yes, Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write. Buy paper. Daly’s. Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue Bloom is on the rye.
―He was in at lunchtime, Miss Douce said.
Lenehan came forward.
―Was Mr Boylan looking for me?
He asked. She answered:
―Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs?
She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her gaze upon a page.
―No. He was not.
Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard not seen, read on. Lenehan round the sandwichbell wound his round body round.
―Peep! Who’s in the corner?
No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her stops. To read only the black ones: round o and crooked ess.
Jingle jaunty jingle.
Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no notice while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly:
―Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put your bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone?
He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside.
He sighed, aside:
―Ah me! O my!
He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod.
―Greetings from the famous son of a famous father.
―Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked.
Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who?
―Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard.
Dry.
Mr Dedalus, famous father, laid by his dry filled pipe.
―I see, he said. I didn’t recognise him for the moment. I hear he is keeping very select company. Have you seen him lately?
He had.
―I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. In Mooney’s en ville and in Mooney’s sur mer. He had received the rhino for the labour of his muse.
He smiled at bronze’s teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes.
―The élite of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, Hugh MacHugh, Dublin’s most brilliant scribe and editor and that minstrel boy of the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the O’Madden Burke.
After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and
―That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see.
He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his glass.
He looked towards the saloon door.
―I see you have moved the piano.
―The tuner was in today, Miss Douce replied, tuning it for the smoking concert and I never heard such an exquisite player.
―Is that a fact?
―Didn’t he, Miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind too, poor fellow. Not twenty I’m sure he was.
―Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said.
He drank and strayed away.
―So sad to look at his face, Miss Douce condoled.
God’s curse on bitch’s bastard.
Tink to her pity cried a diner’s bell. To the door of the diningroom came bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of Ormond. Lager for diner. Lager without alacrity she served.
With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for jingle jaunty blazes boy.
Upholding the lid he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the oblique triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her hand), soft pedalling a triple of keys to sees the thicknesses of felt advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in action.
Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in Wisdom Hely’s wise Bloom in Daly’s Henry Flower bought. Are you not happy in your home? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means something, language of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is. Respectable girl meet
