by James Joyce
—Go on, Simon.
—Ah, sure my dancing days are done, Ben …Well …
Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting, touched the obedient keys.
—No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original. One flat.
The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused.
Up stage strode Father Cowley.
—Here, Simon. I’ll accompany you, he said. Get up.
By Graham Lemon’s pineapple rock, by Elvery’s elephant jingle jogged. Steak, kidney, liver, mashed at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom and Goulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank Power and cider.
Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said: Sonnambula. He heard Joe Maas sing that one night. Ah, that M’Guckin! Yes. In his way. Choirboy style. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like. Never forget it. Never.
Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain. Backache he. Bright’s bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile. Sings too: Down among the dead men. Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign in dribs and drabs. And when he’s wanted not a farthing. Screwed refusing to pay his fare. Curious types.
Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived, never. In the gods of the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note.
Speech paused on Richie’s lips.
Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all. Believes his own lies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good memory.
—Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom.
—All is lost now.
Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee murmured all. A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth he’s proud of, fluted with plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two notes in one there. Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my motives he twined and turned them. All most too new call is lost in all. Echo. How sweet the answer. How is that done? All lost now. Mournful he whistled. Fall, surrender, lost.
Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase. Order. Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence in the moon. Still hold her back. Brave, don’t know their danger. Call name. Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That’s why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost.
—A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well.
Never in all his life had Richie Goulding.
He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise child that knows her father, Dedalus said. Me?
Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking Richie once. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his eye. Now begging letters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I did sir. Wouldn’t trouble only I was expecting some money. Apologise.
Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably. Stopped again.
Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it.
—With it, Simon.
—It, Simon.
—Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kind solicitations.
—It, Simon.
—I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall endeavour to sing to you of a heart bowed down.
By the sandwichbell in screening shadow, Lydia her bronze and rose, a lady’s grace, gave and withheld: as in cool glaucous eau de Nil Mina to tankards two her pinnacles of gold.
The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord longdrawn, expectant drew a voice away.
—When first I saw that form endearing.
Richie turned.
—Si Dedalus’ voice, he said.
Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to Pat, bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the bar. The door of the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited, waiting to hear, for he was hard of hear by the door.
—Sorrow from me seemed to depart.
Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves in murmur, like no voice of strings of reeds or whatdoyoucallthem dulcimers, touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their each his remembered lives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each seemed to from both depart when first they heard. When first they saw, lost Richie, Poldy, mercy of beauty, heard from a person wouldn’t expect it in the least, her first merciful lovesoft oftloved word.
Love that is singing: love’s old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the elastic band of his packet. Love’s old sweet sonnez la gold. Bloom wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast.
—Full of hope and all delighted …
Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his feet when will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He can’t sing for tall hats. You head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him. What perfume does your wife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last look at mirror always before she answers the door. The hall. There? How do you? I do well. There? What? Or? Phila of cachous, kissing comfits, in her satchel. Yes? Hands felt for the opulent.
Alas! The voice rose, sighing, changed: loud, full, shining, proud.
—But alas, ‘twas idle dreaming …
Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out his wife: now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he doesn’t break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing too. Drink. Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy.
Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling. Full it throbbed. That’s the chat. Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect.
Words? Music? No: it’s what’s behind.
Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded.
Bloom. Flood of warm jimjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music out, in desire, dark to lick flow, invading. Tipping her tepping her tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o’er sluices pouring gushes. Flood, gush, flow, joygush, tupthrop. Now! Language of love.
—… ray of hope …
Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse unsqueaked a ray of hope.
Martha it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel’s song. Lovely name you have. Can’t write. Accept my little pres. Play on her heartstrings pursestrings too. She’s a. I called you naughty boy. Still the name: Martha. How strange! Today.
The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to Richie Poldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting, to wait. How first he saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part, how look, form, word charmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom’s heart.
Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in Drago’s always looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still hear it better here than in die bar though farther.
—Each graceful look …
First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon’s in Terenure. Yellow, black lace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her. Fate. Round and round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down she sat. All ousted looked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees.
—Charmed my eye …
Singing. Waiting she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume of what perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat warbling. First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanish
y eyes. Under a peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in shadow Dolores shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring.
—Martha ! Ah, Martha !
Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In cry of lionel loneliness that she should know, must Martha feel. For only her he waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where. Somewhere.
—Co-me, thou lost one !
Come thou dear one I
Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return.
—Come!
It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don’t spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the ethereal bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessness-ness …
—To me!
Siopold!
Consumed.
Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to her, you too, me, us.
—Bravo! Clapclap. Goodman, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore! Clapclipclap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap, said, cried, clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell, Pat, Mina, two gentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent with tank and bronze Miss Douce and gold Miss Mina.
Blazes Boylan’s smart tan shoes creaked on the bar-floor, said before. Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson, reverend father Theobald Matthew, jaunted as said before just now. Atrot, in heat, heatseated. Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la. Slower the mare went up the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatience Boylan, joggled the mare.
An afterclang of Cowley’s chords closed, died on the air made richer.
And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank, Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving, coral lips, at first, at second. She did not mind.
—Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you’d sing, Simon, like a garden thrush.
Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy served. Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in; Lydia, admired, admired. But Bloom sang dumb.
Admiring.
Richie, admiring, descanted on that man’s glorious voice. He remembered one night long ago. Never forget that night. Si sang’Twas rank and fame: in Ned Lambert’s ’twas. Good God he never heard in all his life a note like that he never did then false one we had better part so clear so God he never heard since love lives not a clinking voice ask Lambert he can tell you too.
Goulding, a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the night, Si in Ned Lambert’s, Dedalus’ house, sang ’Twas rank and fame.
He, Mr Bloom, listened while he, Richie Goulding, told him, Mr Bloom of the night he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing ‘Twas rank and fame in his, Ned Lambert’s house.
Brothers-in-law: relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. The nights Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky cords. Wonderful, more than all the others.
That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It’s in the silence you feel you hear. Vibrations. Now silent air.
Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the slender catgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzzed, it twanged. While Goulding talked of Barraclough’s voice production, while Tom Kernan, harking back in a retrospective sort of arrangement, talked to listening Father Cowley who played a voluntary, who nodded as he played. While big Ben Dollard talked with Simon Dedalus lighting, who nodded as he smoked, who smoked.
Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on. Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat’s tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus paradisum. Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. They sing. Forgotten. I too. And one day she with. Leave her: get tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big Spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevy hair un comb: ’d.
Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in your? Twang. It snapped.
Jingle into Dorset street.
Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased.
—Don’t make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted.
George Lidwell told her really and truly: but she did not believe.
First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And second tankard told her so. That that was so.
Miss Douce, Miss Lydia, did not believe: Miss Kennedy, Mina, did not believe: George Lidwell, no: Miss Dou did not: the first, the first: gent with the tank: believe, no, no: did not, Miss Kenn: Lidlydiawell: the tank.
Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted.
Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A pad to blot. He heard, deaf Pat.
—Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut fine. It certainly is. Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who is this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper, envelope: unconcerned. It’s so characteristic.
—Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said.
—It is. Bloom said.
Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two divided by half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus two plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always find out this equal to that, symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn’t see my mourning. Callous: all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you think you’re listening to the ethereal. But suppose you said it like: Martha, seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall quite flat. It’s on account of the sounds it is.
Instance he’s playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like till you hear the words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then hear chords a bit off: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks over barrels, through wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood you’re in. Still always nice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls learning. Two together next-door neighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos for that. Blumenlied I bought for her. The name. Playing it slow, a girl, night I came home, the girl. Door of the stables near Cecilia street. Milly no taste. Queer because we both I mean.
Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went.
It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a boy in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. Queenstown harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the moonlight with those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such music, Ben. Heard as a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole.
Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying.
Down the edge of his Freeman baton ranged Bloom’s your other eye, scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. Heigho! Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking …
Hope he’s not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his Freeman. Can’t see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear sir. Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I put? Some pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline imposs. To write today.
Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting fingers on flat pad Pat brought.
On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accept my poor little pres enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here
. Penny the gulls. Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne’s. Is eight about. Say half a crown. My poor little pres: p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you despise? Jingle, have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught? You naughty too? O, Mairy lost the pin of her. Bye for today. Yes, yes, will tell you. Want to. To keep it up. Call me that other. Other world she wrote. My patience are exhaust. To keep it up. You must believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True.
Folly am I writing? Husbands don’t. That’s marriage does, their wives. Because I’m away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she found out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If they don’t see. Woman. Sauce for the gander.
A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing a straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great Brunswick street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and jingled. By Dlugacz’ porkshop bright tubes of Agendath trotted a gallantbuttocked mare.
—Answering an ad? keen Richie’s eyes asked Bloom
—Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect.
Bloom mur: best references. But Henry wrote: it will excite me. You know now. In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he playing now? Improvising intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will you pun? You punish me? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I want to. Know. O. Course if I didn’t I wouldn’t ask. La la la ree. Trails off there sad in minor. Why minor sad? Sign H. They like sad tail at end. P. P. S. La la la ree. I feel so sad today. La ree. So lonely. Dee.
He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper. Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote:
Miss Martha Clifford
c/o P. O.
Dolphin’s barn lane
Dublin.
Blot over the other so he can’t read. Right. Idea prize titbit. Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea per col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. p.: up.