Ulysses page-by-page: Page 59 (4.219-259) "No, not... her elbow."

Friday, May 30, 2014

Page 59 (4.219-259) "No, not... her elbow."

editions: [1922] [html] [arch]
notes: [Th] [G&S] [Dent] [wbks] [rw] [images] [hyper] [map]
Delaney: [173] [174] [175] Useen: [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [*]
Delaney: [172]

No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's, clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world.
Desolation.

Delaney: [173]

Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.

StreetView now

LB and SD suffer parallel hauntings; LB responds by doing mental exercises about real estate

Sandow

in 1901, #80 was occupied by a large family of Woodhouses

Delaney: [174]

Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley Road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl with gold hair on the wind.
Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs Marion.

cf p8 "Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry, heard warm running sunlight" p4 "Tripping and sunny like the buck himself."
cf Homer of Hermes "Straightway he bound beneath his feet his lovely golden sandals, that wax not old, that bare him alike over the wet sea and over the limitless land, swift as the breath of the wind."

saying "Mrs Marion Bloom" instead of Mrs Leopold Bloom would have been bad manners

Joyce compared Molly's appearance to Eleanora Duse

— Poldy!
Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm yellow twilight towards her tousled head.
— Who are the letters for?
He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.
— A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And a letter for you.

source

(is Milly aware of tension between them?)

Delaney: [175]

He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her knees.
— Do you want the blind up?
Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow.
— That do? he asked, turning.
She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.