That was not much to represent nine months’ work, but he had also had his board and lodging meanwhile. For him it was in any case a considerable sum, and it had been besides a lever for many future plans, most of which rested on clear improbabilities, for many dreams of a new life, for happiness and prosperity and general respect. This had been especially the case during those last weeks when, in consideration of his rapidly approaching freedom, he had been spared the humiliation of being shaved, for he had felt his manly self-esteem sprout afresh and grow in rivalry with the bristles on his upper lip and chin. But now, when he was actually free, when he felt the light, cool breeze of the summer morning fan about his temples and heard it rustling in the big trees, all of these plans were pushed somewhat into the background as if of themselves, of course only until a later time, only for a few hours or perhaps a day, and a single great emotion of happiness rose up in him and swept him along as though in a vertigo. Furthermore he was very hungry, because he had hardly touched his Långholm fare on that last morning, and he thought with yearning and satisfaction of a little restaurant on Brenchurch Street which he knew from of old, and of a great beefsteak with onions and one or maybe two bottles of beer—only think of it, beer!
On the Långholm Bridge stood a guard off duty, fishing for roach with small bits of saffron bread. Bloom stood with his arms on the railing and watched: it amused him to pretend that he was not in a hurry. Down there in the deep green of the quiet water, in the shadow under the bridge, big red-eyed roach swam back and forth around the bait, pointing at it a while, turning around in hesitation and coming back again; now and then came a rudd or two with red fins and yellow back, beautiful fish, but tasting a little of clay, and once in a while came a glint from the broad silver side of a bream. On both sides of the narrow Långholm Bay large bending willows dipped their gray-green leaves into the water, and the reeds waved gently in the morning wind. In the background far away, the churches and towers of Stockholm stood in the blue sun-haze as if cut with a fine needle.
“Yes,” remarked Bloom to the guard, “now one can begin to live again.”
“Yes, good luck to you, Bloom!” answered the guard without taking his eyes from the float, which just then took a dip under the water. “That was a bite, but the fish only took the bread and left the hook to the landlord.”
A steam sloop came sputtering up under the bridge on its way to the city and lay to at the nearest landing. For a moment Bloom was tempted to go with it, but came back directly to his first idea: the restaurant on Brenchurch Street, beefsteak, onions and beer, so he said goodbye to the guard and went ahead on the Långholm Road. He felt himself from of old most at home in the section of South Stockholm between Skinnarviksberg, Lilyholm Bridge and Långholm.
When Bloom emerged, full-fed and contented, from his restaurant, his first impulse was to buy a new black felt hat, for the old one inclined too much to yellow-brown, and he had heard sometime or other that the hat makes the gentleman. After that he went to the nearest barber shop on Horn Street and had them remove the stubble from his chin, together with part of that on his cheeks; retaining, however—besides his mustaches, of course—a couple of small mutton-chop whiskers next the ears. After that he went slantwise across the street to a general outfitter’s, whence he came out attired in a clean white collar, a blue-edged dickey, and a brilliant light-blue necktie. A few steps further up the street he stopped before a photographer’s showcase and looked at himself in the glass. He was greatly moved at the transformation he had undergone. A ribbon-like strip of paper was picturesquely wound among portraits of serving-maids, dressmakers, Salvation Army soldiers, recruits, and a parson with a parson’s collar; and when he read on this that he could have half-a-dozen card-sized pictures made for two and a half crowns, he felt an irresistible temptation to go up and be photographed. It was partly that the day was significant for him, so that the likeness he had taken now would be a memento for the rest of his life; partly, too, that he had a dark foreboding, which he tried to put by, that it might be long before he would again be in a condition equally worthy to be immortalized in a picture. Furthermore, he had had himself photographed at various times previously, and he remembered with satisfaction the agreeable feeling he had experienced in seeing his ego in an, as it were, glorified aspect, without spots on his coat or damaging inequalities in his complexion, handsomely shaved and with a dignified and engaging expression. He went up to the photographer, combed his hair solicitously before a mirror, and sat down motionless before the camera with his hands on his knees.
“Will it be good?” he asked, when the sitting was over.
“The gentleman will look like a bank director,” answered the photographer after he had glanced at the plate.
When he stood on the street again, he became conscious of his good intentions calling more strongly and clearly than
