Ulysses Part 63

Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head.

At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the bellstrap to stay the car for her. She pa.s.sed out with her basket and a marketnet: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and basket down: and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly pa.s.sed the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had always to be told twice _bless you, my child,_ that they have been absolved, _pray for me._ But they had so many worries in life, so many cares, poor creatures.

From the h.o.a.rdings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick n.i.g.g.e.rlips at Father Conmee.

Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men and of his sermon on saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African mission and of the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last hour came like a thief in the night. That book by the Belgian jesuit, _Le Nombre des elus,_ seemed to Father Conmee a reasonable plea. Those were millions of human souls created by G.o.d in His Own likeness to whom the faith had not (D.V.) been brought. But they were G.o.d's souls, created by G.o.d. It seemed to Father Conmee a pity that they should all be lost, a waste, if one might say.

At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the conductor and saluted in his turn.

The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name.

The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide, immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining.

Then came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day.

Those were old worldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times in the barony.

Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book _Old Times in the Barony_ and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and of Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere.

A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the sh.o.r.e of lough Ennel, Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening, not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the jealous lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed adultery fully, _eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris,_ with her husband's brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned as women did. Only G.o.d knew and she and he, her husband's brother.

Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for man's race on earth, and of the ways of G.o.d which were not our ways.

Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at smiling n.o.ble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit cl.u.s.ters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, n.o.ble to n.o.ble, were impalmed by Don John Conmee.

It was a charming day.

The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages, curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of small white clouds going slowly down the wind. _Moutonner,_ the French said. A just and homely word.

Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard the cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in the quiet evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild.

Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An ivory bookmark told him the page.

Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come.

Father Conmee read in secret _Pater_ and _Ave_ and crossed his breast.

_Deus in adiutorium._

He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he came to _Res_ in _Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas: in eternum omnia indicia iust.i.tiae tuae._

A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.

Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his breviary. _Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis formidavit cor meum._

Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and bra.s.s furnis.h.i.+ngs. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out.

Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.

Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.

Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pa.s.s the time of day.

--That's a fine day, Mr Kelleher.

--Ay, Corny Kelleher said.

--It's very close, the constable said.

Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a coin.

--What's the best news? he asked.

--I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with bated breath.

A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner, skirting Rabaiotti's icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards Larry O'Rourke, in s.h.i.+rtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:

--_For England_...

He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted and growled:

--_home and beauty._

J. J. O'Molloy's white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the warehouse with a visitor.

A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four strides.

He halted and growled angrily:

--_For England_...

Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, gaping at his stump with their yellows...o...b..red mouths.

He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head towards a window and bayed deeply:

--_home and beauty._

The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased.

The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card _Unfurnished Apartments_ slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut s.h.i.+ftstraps. A woman's hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the path.

One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the minstrel's cap, saying:

--There, sir.

Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen.

--Did you put in the books? Boody asked.