Ulysses page-by-page: Page 74 (5.213-245) "He came nearer... is the real"

editions: [1922] [html] [arch]
notes: [Th] [G&S] [Dent] [wbks] [rw] [images] [hyper] [map]
Delaney: [208] [209] [210] tclg: [112]Useen: [] [*]
Delaney: [207]

<
He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their neigh can be very irritating.

oats are soothing like lotus [herbal]
(juggins ♬song)
"gilded... Gelded" (cf SD's ch1 Oxford fantasy) also Eldorado
guttapercha = natural rubber (usually pronounced like birch-a)
Bloom habitually makes an effort to look at both sides of any question

He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.

her = Molly??? does he imagine she jumped out of bed, got dressed, and crossed town somehow?

Delaney: [208]

He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies: all weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio e non. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying syllables as they pass.

cabman's shelter

another cabman's shelter will be the setting of episode 16 Eumeus.

(Where does LB get cigarettes if he doesn't smoke himself?)
tobacco = lotus/narcotic

He hummed:

Là ci darem la mano
La la lala la la.

Bloom misquotes Zerlina's "Vorrei e non vorrei" ("I would like to and I wouldn't like to") in Don Giovanni: I,iii as "Voglio e non vorrei" ("I want to and wouldn't like to")."Là ci darem la mano" = 'There we shall join hands'. Bloom's "La la lala la la" matches the musical rhythm of the following line: 'Là mi dirai di sì' (There you shall say yes to me).

He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner.

StreetView now
1909 map
(Is this like 'Step on a crack/ Break your mother's back'?)

Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb.

"cunnythumb" is a derogatory description of his(?) skills
marbles rules

Delaney: [209]

A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's. And Mr? He opened the letter within the newspaper.

(Bloom's stealth in opening the concealed letter echoes Mohammed's)
dame's school = nursery school (JAJ attended one briefly before Clongowes)
mignonette (a fragrant plant w/yellow flowers)

A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not annoyed then? What does she say?

Delaney: [210]

Dear Henry,

I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the real

other word? voyeur/masochist/exhibitionist/cuckold???

mysteries: Mr Ellis, why didn't HF like her letter? what's this about stamps? what other word? what kind of flower?

[DD 00:16-03:16]