Ulysses Part 56

He Who Himself begot middler the Holy Ghost and Himself sent Himself, Agenbuyer, between Himself and others, Who, put upon by His fiends, stripped and whipped, was nailed like bat to barndoor, starved on crosstree, Who let Him bury, stood up, harrowed h.e.l.l, fared into heaven and there these nineteen hundred years sitteth on the right hand of His Own Self but yet shall come in the latter day to doom the quick and dead when all the quick shall be dead already.

Glo--o--ri--a in ex--cel--sis De--o.

He lifts his hands. Veils fall. O, flowers! Bells with bells with bells aquiring.

--Yes, indeed, the quaker librarian said. A most instructive discussion.

Mr Mulligan, I'll be bound, has his theory too of the play and of Shakespeare. All sides of life should be represented.

He smiled on all sides equally.

Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled:

--Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name.

A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features.

--To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like Synge.

Mr Best turned to him.

--Haines missed you, he said. Did you meet him? He'll see you after at the D. B. C. He's gone to Gill's to buy Hyde's _Lovesongs of Connacht_.

--I came through the museum, Buck Mulligan said. Was he here?

--The bard's fellowcountrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather tired perhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress played Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin. Vining held that the prince was a woman. Has no-one made him out to be an Irishman? Judge Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues. He swears (His Highness not His Lords.h.i.+p) by saint Patrick.

--The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde's, Mr Best said, lifting his brilliant notebook. That _Portrait of Mr W. H._ where he proves that the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all hues.

--For Willie Hughes, is it not? the quaker librarian asked.

Or Hughie Wills? Mr William Himself. W. H.: who am I?

--I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr Best said, amending his gloss easily. Of course it's all paradox, don't you know, Hughes and hews and hues, the colour, but it's so typical the way he works it out. It's the very essence of Wilde, don't you know. The light touch.

His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe.

Tame essence of Wilde.

You're darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan Deasy's ducats.

How much did I spend? O, a few s.h.i.+llings.

For a plump of pressmen. Humour wet and dry.

Wit. You would give your five wits for youth's proud livery he pranks in. Lineaments of gratified desire.

There be many mo. Take her for me. In pairing time. Jove, a cool ruttime send them. Yea, turtledove her.

Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in's kiss.

--Do you think it is only a paradox? the quaker librarian was asking.

The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious.

They talked seriously of mocker's seriousness.

Buck Mulligan's again heavy face eyed Stephen awhile. Then, his head wagging, he came near, drew a folded telegram from his pocket. His mobile lips read, smiling with new delight.

--Telegram! he said. Wonderful inspiration! Telegram! A papal bull!

He sat on a corner of the unlit desk, reading aloud joyfully:

--_The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtors.h.i.+p for a thing done._ Signed: Dedalus. Where did you launch it from? The kips? No. College Green. Have you drunk the four quid? The aunt is going to call on your unsubstantial father. Telegram!

Malachi Mulligan, The s.h.i.+p, lower Abbey street. O, you peerless mummer!

O, you priestified Kinchite!

Joyfully he thrust message and envelope into a pocket but keened in a querulous brogue:

--It's what I'm telling you, mister honey, it's queer and sick we were, Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. 'Twas murmur we did for a gallus potion would rouse a friar, I'm thinking, and he limp with leching. And we one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery's sitting civil waiting for pints apiece.

He wailed:

--And we to be there, mavrone, and you to be unbeknownst sending us your conglomerations the way we to have our tongues out a yard long like the drouthy clerics do be fainting for a pussful.

Stephen laughed.

Quickly, warningfully Buck Mulligan bent down.

--The tramper Synge is looking for you, he said, to murder you. He heard you p.i.s.sed on his halldoor in Glasthule. He's out in pampooties to murder you.

--Me! Stephen exclaimed. That was your contribution to literature.

Buck Mulligan gleefully bent back, laughing to the dark eavesdropping ceiling.

--Murder you! he laughed.

Harsh gargoyle face that warred against me over our mess of hash of lights in rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. In words of words for words, palabras. Oisin with Patrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods, brandis.h.i.+ng a winebottle. _C'est vendredi saint!_ Murthering Irish. His image, wandering, he met. I mine. I met a fool i'the forest.

--Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar.

--... in which everyone can find his own. So Mr Justice Madden in his _Diary of Master William Silence_ has found the hunting terms... Yes?

What is it?

--There's a gentleman here, sir, the attendant said, coming forward and offering a card. From the _Freeman._ He wants to see the files of the _Kilkenny People_ for last year.

--Certainly, certainly, certainly. Is the gentleman?...

He took the eager card, glanced, not saw, laid down unglanced, looked, asked, creaked, asked:

--Is he?... O, there!