Ulysses Part 153

What h.o.m.othetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the mantelpiece?

A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46 a.m. on the 21 March 1896, matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper.

What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and Bloom?

In the mirror of the giltbordered piergla.s.s the undecorated back of the dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before the mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear melancholy wise bright motionless compa.s.sionate gaze regarded Bloom while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compa.s.sionated gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle.

What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his attention?

The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man.

Why solitary (ipsorelative)?

_Brothers and sisters had he none. Yet that man's father was his grandfather's son._

Why mutable (aliorelative)?

From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix.

From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal procreator.

What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror?

The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating t.i.tles on the two bookshelves opposite.

Catalogue these books.

_Thom's Dublin Post Office Directory, 1886_. Denis Florence M'Carthy's _Poetical Works_ (copper beechleaf bookmark at p. 5). Shakespeare's _Works_ (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled).

_The Useful Ready Reckoner_ (brown cloth).

_The Secret History of the Court of Charles II_ (red cloth, tooled binding). _The Child's Guide_ (blue cloth).

_The Beauties of Killarney_ (wrappers).

_When We Were Boys_ by William O'Brien M. P. (green cloth, slightly faded, envelope bookmark at p. 217).

_Thoughts from Spinoza_ (maroon leather).

_The Story of the Heavens_ by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth). Ellis's _Three Trips to Madagascar_ (brown cloth, t.i.tle obliterated).

_The Stark-Munro Letters_ by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel street, lent 21 May (Whitsun Eve) 1904, due 4 June 1904, 13 days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing white letternumber ticket).

_Voyages in China_ by "Viator" (recovered with brown paper, red ink t.i.tle).

_Philosophy of the Talmud_ (sewn pamphlet). Lockhart's _Life of Napoleon_ (cover wanting, marginal annotations, minimising victories, aggrandising defeats of the protagonist).

_Soll und Haben_ by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters, cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24). Hozier's _History of the Russo-Turkish War_ (brown cloth, a volumes, with gummed label, Garrison Library, Governor's Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of cover).

_Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland_ by William Allingham (second edition, green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner's name on recto of flyleaf erased).

_A Handbook of Astronomy_ (cover, brown leather, detached, S plates, antique letterpress long primer, author's footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica).

_The Hidden Life of Christ_ (black boards).

_In the Track of the Sun_ (yellow cloth, t.i.tlepage missing, recurrent t.i.tle intestation).

_Physical Strength and How to Obtain It_ by Eugen Sandow (red cloth).

_Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry_ written in French by F.

Ignat. Pardies and rendered into English by John Harris D. D. London, printed for R. Knaplock at the Bifhop's Head, MDCCXI, with dedicatory epiftle to his worthy friend Charles c.o.x, efquire, Member of Parliament for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher, dated this 10th day of May 1822 and requefting the perfon who should find it, if the book should be loft or go aftray, to reftore it to Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Ennifcorthy, county Wicklow, the fineft place in the world.

What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of the inverted volumes?

The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its place: the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females: the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella inclined in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret doc.u.ment behind, beneath or between the pages of a book.

Which volume was the largest in bulk?

Hozier's _History of the Russo-Turkish war._

What among other data did the second volume of the work in question contain?

The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered).

Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question?

Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an interval of amnesia, when, seated at the central table, about to consult the work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of the military engagement, Plevna.

What caused him consolation in his sitting posture?

The candour, nudity, pose, tranquility, youth, grace, s.e.x, counsel of a statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus purchased by auction from P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor's Walk.

What caused him irritation in his sitting posture? Inhibitory pressure of collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 b.u.t.tons), two articles of clothing superfluous in the costume of mature males and inelastic to alterations of ma.s.s by expansion.

How was the irritation allayed?

He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He unb.u.t.toned successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers, s.h.i.+rt and vest along the medial line of irregular incrispated black hairs extending in triangular convergence from the pelvic basin over the circ.u.mference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle along the medial line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral vertebrae, thence produced both ways at right angles and terminating in circles described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the summits of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively each of six minus one braced trouser b.u.t.tons, arranged in pairs, of which one incomplete.