Wandering Rocks part 3
James Joyce -- Ulysses -- Published 1922
Ulysses 10: Wandering Rocks Part 4
-- The youngster will be all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they passed out of the
Castleyard gate.
The policeman touched his forehead.
-- God bless you, Martin Cunningham said, cheerily.
He signed to the waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on towards Lord Edward
street.
Bronze by gold, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head, appeared above the crossblind
of the Ormond hotel.
Yes, Martin Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I wrote to Father Conmee and laid the
whole case before him.
-- You could try our friend, Mr Power suggested backward.
-- Boyd? Martin Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not.
John Wyse Nolan, lagging behind, reading the list, came after them quickly down Cork
hill.
On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed Alderman Cowley
and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending.
The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street.
-- Look here Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the Mail office.
I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings.
-- Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down the five
shillings too.
-- Without a second word either, Mr Power said.
-- Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added.
John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes.
-- I'll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted elegantly.
They went down Parliament street.
-- There's Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh's.
-- Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes.
Outside la Maison Claire Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney's brother-in-law,
humpy, tight, making for the liberties.
John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took the elbow of a
dapper little man in a shower of hail suit who walked uncertainly with hasty steps past
Micky Anderson's watches.
-- The assistant town clerk's corns are giving him some trouble, John Wyse Nolan told
Mr Power.
They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh's winerooms. The empty castle car
fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham, speaking always, showed often the
list at which Jimmy Henry did not glance.
-- And Long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as life.
The tall form of Long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood.
-- Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and greeted.
Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Clay decisively and
his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all their faces.
-- Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he said, with rich
acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk.
Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly, about their
damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted to know, to keep order in the
council chamber. And old Barlow the macebearer laid up with asthma, no mace on the table,
nothing in order, no quorum even and Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little
Lorcan Sherlock doing locum tenens for him. Damned Irish language, of our
forefathers.
Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips.
Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to the assistant town
clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his peace.
-- What Dignam was that? Long John Fanning asked.
Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot.
-- O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness' sake till I sit down
somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind!
Testily he made room for himself beside Long John Fanning's flank and passed in and up
the stairs.
-- Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don't think you knew him or
perhaps you did, though.
With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in.
-- Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of Long John Fanning
ascending towards Long John Fanning in the mirror.
-- Rather lowsized, Dignam of Menton's office that was, Martin Cunningham said.
Long John Fanning could not remember him.
Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air.
-- What's that? Martin Cunningham said.
All turned where they stood; John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the cool shadow of
the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street, harness and glossy pasterns in
sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went past before his cool unfriendly eyes, not quickly. In
saddles of the leaders, leaping leaders, rode outriders.
-- What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the staircase.
-- The lord lieutenant general and general governor of Ireland, John Wyse Nolan
answered from the stairfoot.
As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his panama to
Haines.
-- Parnell's brother. There in the corner.
They chose a small table near the window opposite a long-faced man whose beard and gaze
hung intently down on a chessboard.
-- Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat.
-- Yes, Mulligan said. That's John Howard, his brother, our city marshal.
John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw went up again
to his forehead whereat it rested.
An instant after, under its screen, his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe
and fell once more upon a working corner.
-- I'll take a mélange, Haines said to the waitress.
-- Two mélanges, Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones and butter and
some cakes as well.
When she had gone he said, laughing:
-- We call it D. B. C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you missed Dedalus on Hamlet.
Haines opened his newbought book.
-- I'm sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all minds that have
lost their balance.
The onelegged sailor growled at the area of 14 Nelson street:
-- England expects...
Buck Mulligan's primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter.
-- You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance. Wandering
&Aelig;ngus I call him.
-- I am sure he has an idée fixe, Haines said, pinching his chin thoughtfully
with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it would be likely to be. Such
persons always have.
Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely.
-- They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will never capture the
Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white death and the ruddy birth. That
is his tragedy. He can never be a poet. The joy of creation.
-- Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled him this morning
on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. It's rather interesting because
Professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an interesting point out of that.
Buck Mulligan's watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to unload her tray.
-- He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amid the cheerful
cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny, of retribution. Rather strange
he should have just that fixed idea. Does he write anything for your movement?
He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream. Buck Mulligan
slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its smoking pith. He bit off a soft
piece hungrily.
-- Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write something in ten
years.
-- Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon. Still, I
shouldn't wonder if he did after all.
He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup.
-- This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I don't want to be
imposed on.
Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of ships and
trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping street past Benson's ferry, and
by the three-masted schooner Rosevean from Bridgwater with bricks.
Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell's yard. Behind him Cashel
Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell with stickumbrelladustcoat dangling, shunned
the lamp before Mr Law Smith's house and, crossing, walked along Merrion square. Distantly
behind him a blind stripling tapped his way by the wall of College Park.
Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as Mr Lewis Werner's
cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along Merrion square, his
stickumbrelladustcoat dangling.
At the corner of Wilde's he halted, frowned at Elijah's name announced on the
Metropolitan Hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of duke's lawn. His eyeglass flashed
frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth bared he muttered:
-- Coactus volui.
He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word.
As he strode past Mr Bloom's dental windows the sway of his dustcoat brushed rudely
from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards, having buffeted a thewless body.
The blind stripling turned his sickly face after the striding form.
-- God's curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You're blinder nor I am, you
bitch's bastard!
Opposite Ruggy O'Donohoe's Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the pound and half of
Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, porksteaks he had been sent for, went along warm Wicklow
street dawdling. It was too blooming dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs
Quigley and Mrs MacDowell and the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping
sups of the superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney's. And they eating
crumbs of the cottage fruit cake jawing the whole blooming time and sighing.
After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, court dress milliner, stopped him. He
stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their pelts and putting up their props.
From the sidemirrors two mourning Masters Dignam gaped silently. Myler Keogh, Dublin's pet
lamb, will meet sergeant-major Bennett, the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty
sovereigns, God, that'd be a good pucking match to see. Myler Keogh, that's the chap
sparring out to him with the green sash. Two bar entrance, soldiers half price. I could
easy do a bunk on ma. Master Dignam on his left turned as he turned. That's me in
mourning. When is it? May the twenty-second. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He
turned to the right and on his right Master Dignam turned, his cap awry, his collar
sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin lifted, he saw the image of Marie Kendall,
charming soubrette, beside the two puckers. One of them mots that do be in the packets of
fags Stoer smokes that his old fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out.
Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going for strength
was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow would knock you into the middle of
next week, man. But the best pucker for science was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimons knocked
the stuffings out of him, dodging and all.
In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff's mouth and a swell pair of
kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was telling him and grinning all the time.
No Sandymount tram.
Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his other hand. His
collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The blooming stud was too small for the
buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I'm not
going tomorrow either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice I'm
in mourning? Uncle Barney said he'd get it into the paper tonight. Then they'll all see it
in the paper and read my name printed and pa's name.
His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a fly walking over
it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they were screwing the screws into the coffin:
and the bumps when they were bringing it downstairs.
Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling the men how to
get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and heavylooking. How was that? The
last night pa was boosed he was standing on the landing there bawling out for his boots to
go out to Tunney's for to boose more and he looked butty and short in his shirt. Never see
him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead. He told me to be a good son to
ma. I couldn't hear the other things he said but I saw his tongue and his teeth trying to
say it better. Poor pa. That was Mr Dignam, my father. I hope he is in purgatory now
because he went to confession to father Conroy on Saturday night.
William Humble, earl of Dudley, and Lady Dudley, accompanied by lieutenantcolonel
Hesseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal lodge. In the following carriage
were the honourable Mrs Paget, Miss de Courcy and the honourable Gerald Ward, A. D. C. in
attendance.
The cavalcade passed out by the lower gate of Phoenix Park saluted by obsequious
policemen and proceeded past Kingsbridge along the northern quays. The viceroy was most
cordially greeted on his way through the metropolis. At Bloody bridge Mr Thomas Kernan
beyond the river greeted him vainly from afar. Between Queen's and Whitworth bridges Lord
Dudley's viceregal carriages passed and were unsaluted by Mr Dudley White, B. L., M. A.,
who stood on Arran Quay outside Mrs M. E. White's, the pawnbroker's, at the corner of
Arran street west stroking his nose with his forefinger, undecided whether he should
arrive at Phibsborough more quickly by a triple change of tram or by hailing a car or on
foot through Smithfield, Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus. In the porch of Four
Courts Richie Goulding with the costsbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward saw him with
surprise. Past Richmond bridge at the doorstep of the office of Reuben J. Dodd, solicitor,
agent for the Patriotic Insurance Company, an elderly female about to enter changed her
plan and retracing her steps by King's windows smiled credulously on the representative of
His Majesty. From its sluice in Wood quay wall under Tom Devan's office Poddle river hung
out in fealty a tongue of liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond Hotel, gold by
bronze, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head watched and admired. On Ormond quay Mr
Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the greenhouse for the subsheriff's office, stood
still in midstreet and brought his hat low. His Excellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus'
greeting. From Cahill's corner the reverend Hugh C. Love, M. A., made obeisance
unperceived, mindful of lords deputies whose hands benignant had held of yore rich
advowsons. On Grattan bridge Lenehan and M'Coy, taking leave of each other, watched the
carriages go by. Passing by Roger Greene's office and Dollard's big red printing house
Gerty MacDowell, carrying the Catesby's cork lino letters for her father who was laid up,
knew by the style it was the lord and lady lieutenant but she couldn't see what Her
Excellency had on because the tram and Spring's big yellow furniture van had to stop in
front of her on account of its being the lord lieutenant. Beyond Lundy Foot's from the
shaded door of Kavanagh's winerooms John Wyse Nolan smiled with unseen coldness towards
the lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland. The Right Honourable William
Humble, earl of Dudley, G. C. V. O., passed Micky Anderson's all times ticking watches and
Henry and James's wax smartsuited freshcheeked models, the gentleman Henry, dernier
cri James. Over against Dame gate Tom Rochford and Nosey Flynn watched the approach
of the cavalcade. Tom Rochford, seeing the eyes of lady Dudley on him, took his thumbs
quickly out of the pockets of his claret waistcoat and doffed his cap to her. A charming soubrette,
great Marie Kendall, with dauby cheeks and lifted skirt, smiled daubily from her poster
upon William Humble, earl of Dudley, and upon lieutenantcolonel H. G. Hesseltine and also
upon the honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C. Buck Mulligan
gaily, and Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipage over the shoulders of
eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the chessboard whereon John Howard Parnell
looked intently. In Fownes's street, Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from
Chardenal's first French primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the
glare John Henry Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, stared from winebig
oyster eyes, holding a fat gold hunter watch not looked at in his fat left hand not
feeling it. Where the foreleg of King Billy's horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her
hastening husband back from under the hoofs of the outriders. She shouted in his ear the
tidings. Understanding, he shifted his tomes to his left breast and saluted the second
carriage. The honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C., agreeably surprised, made haste to reply.
At Ponsonby's corner a jaded white flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white flagons
halted behind him, E. L. Y.'S., while outriders pranced past and carriages. Opposite
Pigott's music warerooms Mr Denis J. Maginni professor of dancing &c, gaily
apparelled, gravely walked, outpassed by a viceroy and unobserved. By the provost's wall
came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes and socks with skyblue clocks to the
refrain of My girl's a Yorkshire girl.
Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders' skyblue frontlets and high action a skyblue
tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a suit of indigo serge. His hands in
his jacket pockets forgot to salute but he offered to the three ladies the bold admiration
of his eyes and the red flower between his lips. As they drove along Nassau street His
Excellency drew the attention of his bowing consort to the programme of music which was
being discoursed in College park. Unseen brazen highland laddies blared and drumthumped
after the cortége:
But though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
Baraabum.
Yet I've a sort of a
Yorkshire relish for
My little Yorkshire rose.
Baraabum.
Thither of the wall the quartermile flat handicappers, M. C. Green, H. Thrift, T. M.
Patey, C. Scaife, J. B. Jeffs, G. N. Morphy, F. Stevenson, C. Adderly, and W. C. Huggard
started in pursuit. Striding past Finn's hotel, Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall
Farrell stared through a fierce eyeglass across the carriages at the head of Mr E. M.
Solomons in the window of the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate. Deep in Leinster street, by
Trinity's postern, a loyal king's man, Horn-blower, touched his tallyho cap. As the glossy
horses pranced by Merrion square Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, waiting, saw salutes
being given to the gent with the topper and raised also his new black cap with fingers
greased by porksteak paper. His collar too sprang up. The viceroy, on his way to
inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of funds for Mercer's hospital, drove with his
following towards Lower Mount street. He passed a blind stripling Opposite Broadbent's. In
Lower Mount street a pedestrian in a brown macintosh, eating dry bread, passed swiftly and
unscathed across the viceroy's path. At the Royal Canal bridge, from his hoarding, Mr
Eugene Stratton, his blub lips agrin, bade all comers welcome to Pembroke township. At
Haddington road corner two sanded women halted themselves, an umbrella and a bag in which
eleven cockles rolled to view with wonder the lord mayor and lady mayoress without his
golden chain. On Northumberland and Landsdowne roads His Excellency acknowledged
punctually salutes from rare male walkers, the salute of two small schoolboys at the
garden gate of the house said to have been admired by the late queen when visiting the
Irish capital with her husband, the prince consort, in 1849, and the salute of Almidano
Artifoni's sturdy trousers swallowed by a closing door.
Sirens