Ulysses Part 61

The constant readers' room. In the readers' book Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet mad? The quaker's pate G.o.dlily with a priesteen in booktalk.

--O please do, sir... I shall be most pleased...

Amused Buck Mulligan mused in pleasant murmur with himself, selfnodding:

--A pleased bottom.

The turnstile.

Is that?... Blueribboned hat... Idly writing... What? Looked?...

The curving bal.u.s.trade: smoothsliding Mincius.

Puck Mulligan, panamahelmeted, went step by step, iambing, trolling:

_John Eglinton, my jo, John, Why won't you wed a wife?_

He spluttered to the air:

--O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton. We went over to their playbox, Haines and I, the plumbers' hall. Our players are creating a new art for Europe like the Greeks or M. Maeterlinck. Abbey Theatre! I smell the pubic sweat of monks.

He spat blank.

Forgot: any more than he forgot the whipping lousy Lucy gave him. And left the _femme de trente ans._ And why no other children born? And his first child a girl?

Afterwit. Go back.

The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling, minion of pleasure, Phedo's toyable fair hair.

Eh... I just eh... wanted... I forgot... he...

--Longworth and M'Curdy Atkinson were there...

Puck Mulligan footed featly, trilling:

_I hardly hear the purlieu cry Or a tommy talk as I pa.s.s one by Before my thoughts begin to run On F. M'Curdy Atkinson, The same that had the wooden leg And that filibustering filibeg That never dared to slake his drouth, Magee that had the chinless mouth.

Being afraid to marry on earth They m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed for all they were worth._

Jest on. Know thyself.

Halted, below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt.

--Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing black to be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are black.

A laugh tripped over his lips.

--Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jewjesuit! She gets you a job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus.

Couldn't you do the Yeats touch?

He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms:

--The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time.

One thinks of Homer.

He stopped at the stairfoot.

--I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly.

The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men's morrice with caps of indices.

In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet: _Everyman His own Wife or A Honeymoon in the Hand (a national immorality in three o.r.g.a.s.ms) by Ballocky Mulligan._

He turned a happy patch's smirk to Stephen, saying:

--The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen.

He read, _marcato:_

--Characters:

TODY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole) CRAB (a bushranger) MEDICAL d.i.c.k ) and ) (two birds with one stone) MEDICAL DAVY ) MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier) FRESH NELLY and ROSALIE (the coalquay wh.o.r.e).

He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen: and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men:

--O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, multicoloured, mult.i.tudinous vomit!

--The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever lifted them.

About to pa.s.s through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside.

Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today, if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in s.p.a.ce which I in time must come to, ineluctably.

My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between.

A man pa.s.sed out between them, bowing, greeting.

--Good day again, Buck Mulligan said.

The portico.

Here I watched the birds for augury. Aengus of the birds. They go, they come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see.

--The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown's awe. Did you see his eye? He looked upon you to l.u.s.t after you. I fear thee, ancient mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad.

Manner of Oxenford.

Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge.