Ulysses by James Joyce (free children's online books .TXT) š
- Author: James Joyce
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Good Lord, that poor childās dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. Itās after they feel it. Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.
As he set foot on OāConnell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things.
Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben Jās son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and eightpence too much. Hhhhm. Itās the droll way he comes out with the things. Knows how to tell a story too.
They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.
He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the day I threw that stale cake out of the Erinās King picked it up in the wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.
The hungry famished gull
Flaps oāer the waters dull.
That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts. Solemn.
Hamlet, I am thy fatherās spirit
Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.
āTwo apples a penny! Two for a penny!
His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand. Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up with a rag or a handkerchief.
Wait. Those poor birds.
He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.
Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.
They wheeled flapping weakly. Iām not going to throw any more. Penny quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are not salty? How is that?
His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.
Kinoās
11/ā
Trousers
Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you own water really? Itās always flowing in a stream, never the same, which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didnāt cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button. Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose burning him.
If he...?
O!
Eh?
No... No.
No, no. I donāt believe it. He wouldnāt surely?
No, no.
Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time. Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ballās. Parallax. I never exactly understood. Thereās a priest. Could ask him. Par itās Greek: parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her about the transmigration. O rocks!
Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. Sheās right after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound. Sheās not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking. Still, I donāt know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone voice. He has legs like barrels and youād think he was singing into a barrel. Now, isnāt that wit. They used to call him big Ben. Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away number one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.
A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. Wisdom Helyās. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are not Boyl: no, MāGladeās men. Doesnāt bring in any business either. I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the eye at once. Everyone dying to know what sheās writing. Get twenty of them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldnāt have it of course because he didnāt think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtreeās potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. You canāt lick āem. What? Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Canāt stop, Robinson, I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Helyās Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I am. Devil of a job it was collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla convent. That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her small head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes. Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the outside world. Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way she. If she had married she would have changed. I suppose they really were short of money. Fried everything in the best butter all the same. No lard for them. My heartās broke eating dripping. They like buttering themselves in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat Claffey, the pawnbrokerās daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire.
He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thomās. Got the job in Wisdom Helyās year we married. Six years. Ten years ago: ninetyfour he died yes thatās right the big fire at Arnottās. Val Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert OāReilly emptying the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the inner alderman. Couldnāt hear what the band played. For what we have already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored with selfcovered buttons. She didnāt like it because I sprained my ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old Goodwinās tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Fliesā picnic too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we had that day. People looking after her.
Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper. Dockrellās, one and ninepence a dozen. Millyās tubbing night. American soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papaās daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste.
He walked along the curbstone.
Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was always squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citronās saint Kevinās parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen ...? Of course itās years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he couldnāt remember the dayfatherās name that he sees every day.
Bartell dāArcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her that song Winds that blow from the south.
Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on about those lottery tickets after Goodwinās concert in the supperroom or oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky it didnāt. Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage. May be for months and may be for never. Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauce she liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the bedroom from the hearth unclamping the busk of her stays: white.
Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her. Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. That was the night...
āO, Mr Bloom, how do you do?
āO, how do you do, Mrs Breen?
āNo use complaining. How is Molly those times? Havenāt seen her for ages.
āIn the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know.
āGo away! Isnāt that grand for her?
āYes. In a photographerās there. Getting on like a house on fire. How are all your charges?
āAll on the bakerās list, Mrs Breen said.
How many has she? No other in sight.
āYouāre in black, I see. You have no...
āNo, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.
Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Whoās dead, when and what did he die of? Turn up like a bad penny.
āO, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasnāt any near relation.
May as well get her sympathy.
āDignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly, poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.
Your funeralās tomorrow
While youāre coming through the rye.
Diddlediddle dumdum
Diddlediddle...
āSad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breenās womaneyes said melancholily.
Now thatās quite enough about that. Just: quietly:
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