"Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks: new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's seaside girls."
"A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.
— Who was the letter from? he asked.
Bold hand. Marion.
— O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme.
— What are you singing?
— Là ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love's Old Sweet Song."
"There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big swells and he sings Boylan's (I was on the pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about those seaside girls. Tell him silly Milly sends my best respects. I must now close with fondest love"
"All dimpled cheeks and curls,
Your head it simply swirls.
Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers' pockets, jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says. Pier with lamps, summer evening, band.
Those girls, those girls,
Those lovely seaside girls."
"That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow."
"— My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the Ulster hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.
— That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it up?
Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark lady and fair man. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope.
Love's
Old
Sweet
Song
Comes lo-ve's old...
— It's a kind of a tour, don't you see? Mr Bloom said thoughtfully. Sweeeet song. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part profits."
"He's coming in the afternoon. Her songs.
Plasto's. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Who was he?
—How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in salute.
— He doesn't see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do?
— Who? Mr Dedalus asked.
— Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff.
Just that moment I was thinking.
Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: passed.
Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees? Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am just looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body getting a bit softy. I would notice that: from remembering. What causes that? I suppose the skin can't contract quickly enough when the flesh falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders. Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between the cheeks behind.
He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant glance over their faces.
Mr Power asked:
— How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?
— O, very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It's a good idea, you see...
— Are you going yourself?
— Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.
— Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now. Have you good artists?
— Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we'll have all topnobbers. J.C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in fact.
— And madame, Mr Power said smiling. Last but not least.
Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and clasped them."
"They are not Boyl: no: M'Glade's men."
"Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly there is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon. She was humming: the young May moon she's beaming, love. He other side of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. Touch. Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes.
Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must."
"— Wife well?
— Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?
— Yes, sir.
Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.
— Doing any singing those times?
Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match. Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. Does no harm. Free ad.
— She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard perhaps.
— No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up?
The curate served.
— How much is that?
— Seven d, sir... Thank you, sir.
Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. Mr MacTrigger. Easier than the dreamy creamy stuff. His five hundred wives. Had the time of their lives.
— Mustard, sir?
— Thank you.
He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. Their lives. I have it. It grew bigger and bigger and bigger.
— Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see. Part shares and part profits.
— Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed up in it?
A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart. He raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.
His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly, longingly.
Wine.
He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, set his wineglass delicately down.
— Yes, he said. He's the organiser in point of fact.
No fear: no brains.
Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal.
— He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that boxing match Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello barracks. By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he was telling me...
Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up.
— For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a hairy chap."
"The blonde girl in Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and a small jar.
— Put these in first, will you? he said.
— Yes, sir, the blond girl said, and the fruit on top.
— That'll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.
She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe shamefaced peaches.
Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red tomatoes, sniffing smells.
H.E.L.Y'S. filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, plodding towards their goal.
He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from his fob and held it at its chain's length.
— Can you send them by tram? Now?A darkbacked figure under Merchants' arch scanned books on the hawker's cart.
— Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?—
O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes.
The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.
—Will you write the address, sir?
Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.
—Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid.
— Yes, sir. I will, sir.
Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers' pocket.
— What's the damage? he asked.
The blond girl's slim fingers reckoned the fruits.
Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took a red carnation from the tall stemglass.
— This for me? he asked gallantly.
The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie a bit crooked, blushing.
— Yes, sir, she said.
Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.
Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the red flower between his smiling teeth.
— May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny's corner and the slab where Wolfe Tone's statue was not, eeled themselves turning H.E.L.Y'S and plodded back as they had come."
"Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She's not nicelooking, is she? The way she's holding up her bit of a skirt. Wonder will that fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle's. They kick out grand. Shannon and all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her. Hope to goodness he won't keep me here till seven.
The telephone rang rudely by her ear.
— Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five. Only those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can go after six if you're not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and six. I'll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six.
She scribbled three figures on an envelope.
— Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from Sport was in looking for you. Mr Lenehan, yes. He said he'll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five.
— I'll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One good turn deserves another.
— Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I'm Boylan with impatience.— Goodnight, M'Coy said abruptly, when you two begin..."
"Outside la Maison Claire Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney's brother-in-law, humpy, tight, making for the liberties."
"In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff's mouth and a swell pair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was telling him and grinning all the time."
"By the provost's wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of My girl's a Yorkshire girl. Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders' skyblue frontlets and high action a skyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a suit of indigo serge. His hands in his jacket pockets forgot to salute but he offered to the three ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and the red flower between his lips."
"Lenehan came forward.
— Was Mr Boylan looking for me?
He asked. She answered:
— Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs?
She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her gaze upon a page:
— No. He was not."
"With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for jingle jaunty blazes boy."
"Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode. Yes, gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and knew and hailed him:
— See the conquering hero comes.
Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered hero. See me he might. The seat he sat on: warm. Black wary hecat walked towards Richie Goulding's legal bag, lifted aloft, saluting.
— And I from thee...
— I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan.
He touched to fair Miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled on him. But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer hair, a bosom and a rose.
Smart Boylan bespoke potions.
— What's your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a sloegin for me. Wire in yet?
Not yet. At four he. All said four.
Cowley's red lugs and Adam's apple in the door of the sheriff's office. Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting. Wait.
Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What, Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there. See, not be seen. I think I'll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom followed bag. Dinner fit for a prince.
Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her bust, that all but burst, so high.
— O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O!
But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph.
— Why don't you grow? asked Blazes Boylan.
Shebronze, dealing from her jar thick syrupy liquor for his lips, looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him?), and syrupped with her voice:
— Fine goods in small parcels.
That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe.
— Here's fortune, Blazes said.
He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang.
— Hold on, said Lenehan, till I...
— Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale.
— Sceptre will win in a canter, he said.
— I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own, you know. Fancy of a friend of mine.
Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at Miss Douce's lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled. Idolores. The eastern seas.
Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave), bearing away teatray. Clock clacked.
Miss Douce took Boylan's coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It clanged. Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till and hummed and handed coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For me.
— What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four?
O'clock.
Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged Blazes Boylan's elbowsleeve.
— Let's hear the time, he said.
The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited.
Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure's skyblue bow and eyes.
— Go on, pressed Lenehan. There's no-one. He never heard.
— ...to Flora's lips did hie.
High, a high note, pealed in the treble, clear.
Bronzedouce, communing with her rose that sank and rose, sought Blazes Boylan's flower and eyes.
— Please, please.
He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal.
— I could not leave thee...
— Afterwits, Miss Douce promised coyly.
— No, now, urged Lenehan. Sonnez la cloche! O do! There's no-one.
She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling faces watched her bend.
Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord, and lost and found it, faltering.
— Go on! Do! Sonnez!
Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted them still, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes.
— Sonnez!
Smack. She let free sudden in rebound her nipped elastic garter smackwarm against her smackable woman's warmhosed thigh.
— La cloche! cried gleeful Lenehan. Trained by owner. No sawdust there.
She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren't men?), but, lightward gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan.
— You're the essence of vulgarity, she in gliding said.
Boylan, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drankoff his chalice tiny, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. He spellbound eyes went after, after her gliding head as it went down the bar by mirrors, gilded arch for ginger ale, hock and claret glasses shimmering, a spiky shell, where it concerted, mirrored, bronze with sunnier bronze.
Yes, bronze from anearby.
— ...sweetheart, goodbye!
— I'm off, said Boylan with impatience.
He slid his chalice brisk away, grasped his change.
— Wait a shake, begged Lenehan, drinking quickly. I wanted to tell you. Tom Rochford...
— Come on to blazes, said Blazes Boylan, going.
Lenehan gulped to go.
— Got the horn or what? he said. Wait. I'm coming.
He followed the hasty creaking shoes but stood by nimbly by the threshold, saluting forms, a bulky with a slender."
"By Bachelor's walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun, in heat, mare's glossy rump atrot, with flick of whip, on bounding tyres: sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you the? Horn. Have you the? Haw haw horn."
"Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before. Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson, reverend father Theobald Mathew, jaunted as said before just now. Atrot, in heat, heatseated. Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la. Slower the mare went up the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatience Boylan, joggled the mare."
"By Larry O'Rourke's, by Larry, bold Larry O', Boylan swayed and Boylan turned."
"Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boylan socks skyblue clocks came light to earth."
"— Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that Keogh-Bennett match?
— No, says Joe.
— I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.
— Who? Blazes? says Joe.
And says Bloom:
— What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training of the eye.
— Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up the odds and he swatting all the time.
— We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put English gold in his pocket.
— True for you, says Joe.
And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the blood, asking Alf:
— Now don't you think, Bergan?
— Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, he gave him one last puck in the wind. Queensberry rules and all, made him puke what he never ate.
It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Handicapped as he was by lack of poundage, Dublin's pet lamb made up for it by superlative skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively claret in the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the pet's nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The soldier got to business leading off with a powerful left jab to which the Irish gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of Bennett's jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he was liberally drenched with water and, when the bell went, came on gamey and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during which a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from his opponent's mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed a terrific left to Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a knockout clean and clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight.
— He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's running a concert tour now up in the north.
— He is, says Joe. Isn't he?
— Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer tour, you see. Just a holiday.
— Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe.
— My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a success too. He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent.
Hoho begob, says I to myself, says I. That explains the milk in the cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the tootle on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the bucko that'll organise her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddereesh."
"Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. The chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms."
"— Still running, says he. We're all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid on my tip Sceptre for himself and a lady friend."
"(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)
THE BOOTS
(Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.) Haw haw have you the horn?
(Bronze by gold they whisper.)
ZOE
(To Florry.) Whisper. (She whispers again.)
(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan, in yachtsman's cap and white shoes, officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan s shoulder.)
LENEHAN
Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few quims?
BOYLAN
(Seated, smiles.) Plucking a turkey.
LENEHAN
A good night's work.
BOYLAN
(Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.) Blazes Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger.) Smell that.
LENEHAN
(Smells gleefully.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
ZOE AND FLORRY
(Laugh together.) Ha ha ha ha.
BOYLAN
(Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear.) Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet?
BLOOM
(In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig.) I'm afraid not, sir. The last articles...
BOYLAN
(Tosses him sixpence.) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash. (He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) Show me in. I have a little private business with your wife, you understand?
BLOOM
Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.
MARION
He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing out of the water.) Raoul darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.
BOYLAN
(A merry twinkle in his eye.) Topping!
BELLA
What? What is it?
(Zoe whispers to her.)
MARION
Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt.
BOYLAN
(Clasps himself.) Here, I can't hold this little lot much longer. (He strides off on stiff cavalry legs.)
BELLA
(Laughing.) Ho ho ho ho.
BOYLAN
(To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
BLOOM
Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds out an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...?
KITTY
(From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What...
(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)
MINA KENNEDY
(Her eyes upturned.) O, it must be like the scent of geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck together! Covered with kisses!
LYDIA DOUCE
(Her mouth opening.) Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round the room doing it! Ride a cock horse. You could hear them in Paris and New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.
KITTY
(Laughing.) Hee hee hee.
BOYLAN'S VOICE
(Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.) Ah! Godblazeqrukbrukarchkhrasht!
MARION'S VOICE
(Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat.) O! Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck?
BLOOM
(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself.) Show! Hide! Show! Plough her! More! Shoot!"
"— Thanks, Corley answered. You're a gentleman. I'll pay you back one time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good word for us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only the girl in the office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you've to book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don't give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as a crossing sweeper."
"— He's down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman."
"What preceding series?
Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack at the General Post Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so on to no last term."
"Describe them.
One: a squat stuffed easychair, with stout arms extended and back slanted to the rere, which, repelled in recoil, had then upturned an irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its amply upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing discolouration. The other: a slender splayfoot chair of glossy cane curves, placed directly opposite the former, its frame from top to seat and from seat to base being varnished dark brown, its seat being a bright circle of white plaited rush.
What significances attached to these two chairs?
Significances of similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of circumstantial evidence, of testimonial supermanence."
"because he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there steals another I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back singing the young May Moon shes beaming love because he has an idea about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case God knows hes a change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat"
"yes when I lit the lamp because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is not so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my hours dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen he was in great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole sheep after whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us or like a Stallion driving it up into you because thats all they want out of you with that determined vicious look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull out and do it on me considering how big it is so much the better in case any of it wasnt washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me"
"I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan set him off well he can think what he likes now if thatll do him any good"
"theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the DBC with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both ordered 2 teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it was what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches he made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting all myself always with some brandnew fad every other week such a long one I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind that I never got after some robber of a woman and he wanted me to put it in the Irish times lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame street finder return to Mrs Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going out through the turning door he was looking when I looked back and I went there for tea 2 days after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that excite him because I was crossing them when we were in the other room first he meant the shoes that are too tight to walk in"
"if its a thing he really likes me O thanks be to the great God I got somebody to give me what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me youve no chances at all in this place like you used long ago I wish somebody would write me a loveletter his wasnt much and I told him he could write what he liked yours ever Hugh Boylan in old Madrid stuff silly women believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered be some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life always something to think about every moment and see it all round you like a new world I could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me short just a few words"
"suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan"
"see if they can excite a swell with money that can pick and choose whoever he wants like Boylan to do it 4 or 5 times locked in each others arms"
"or a picnic suppose we all gave 5/ each and or let him pay it and invite some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drove out to the furry glen or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses toenails first like he does with the letters no not with Boylan there"
"only hed do a thing like that all the same on account of me and Boylan thats why he did it Im certain the way he plots and plans everything out"
"hes such a born liar too no hed never have the courage with a married woman thats why he wants me and Boylan"
"they were all in great style at the grand funeral in the paper Boylan brought in"
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