married. Six years. Ten years ago : ninetyfour he died, yes that’s right, the big fire at Arnott’s. Val Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O’Reilly emptying the port into his soup before the flag fell, Bobbob lapping it for the inner alderman. Couldn’t 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 selcovered buttons. She didn’t like it because I sprained my ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old Goodwin’s tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies’ picnic too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, shoulder and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbit pie we had that day. People looking after her.
Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper, Dockrell’s, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly’s tubbing night. American soap I bought : elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa’s daguerrotype 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 Citron’s saint Kevin’s parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen…? of course it’s years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he couldn’t remember the dayfather’s name that he sees every day.
Bartell d’Arcy 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 Goodwin’s concert in the supper room 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 didn’t. 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 herself out. Sitting there after till near two, taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. That was the night…
– O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?
– Oh, how do you do, Mrs Breen?
– No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven’t seen her for ages.
– In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily, Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know.
– Go away! Isn’t that grand for her?
– Yes, in a photographer’s there. Getting on like a house on fire. How are all your charges?
– All on the baker’s list, Mrs Breen said.
How many has she? No other in sight.
– You’re in black I see. You have no…
– No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.
Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who’s dead, when and what did he die of? Turn up like a bad penny.
– O dear me, Mrs Breen said, I hope it wasn’t any near relation.
May as well get her sympathy.
– Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly, poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.
Your funeral’s tomorrow
While you’re coming through the rye.
Diddlediddle dumdum
Diddlediddle…
– Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen’s womaneyes said melancholily.
Now that’s quite enough about that. Just quietly : husband.
– And your lord and master?
Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn’t lost them anyhow.
– O, don’t be talking, she said. He’s a caution to rattlesnakes. He’s in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me heartscalded. Wait till I show you.
Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out from Harrison’s. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom’s gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or they’d taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork chained to the table.
Opening her handbag, chipped leather hatpin : ought to have a guard on those things. Stick it in a chap’s eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. Husband barging. Where’s the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Ave you feeding your little brother’s family? Soiled handkerchief : medicinebottle. Pastile that was fell. What is she?…
– There must be a new moon out, she said. He’s always bad then. Do you know what he did last night?
Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him wide in alarm, yet smiling.
– What? Mr Bloom asked.
Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.
– Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.
Indiges.
– Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.
– The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.
She took a folded postcard from her handbag.
– Read that, she said. He got it this morning.
– What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.?
– U.P. : up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It’s a great shame for them whoever he is.
– Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.
She took back the card, sighing.
– And now he’s going round to Mr Menton’s office. He’s going to take an action for ten thousand pounds, he says.
She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.
Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen its best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque, three old grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than Molly.
See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.
He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent. Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I’m hungry too. Flakes of pastry on the gusset of her dress : daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell that was. In Luke Doyle’s long’ ago, Dolphin’s Barn, the charades. U.P. : up.
Change the subject.
– Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy, Mr Bloom asked.
– Mina Purefoy? she said.
Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers’ club. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.
– Yes.
– I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She’s in the lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She’s three days bad now.
– O,