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to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped
gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All
right till I come back anyhow.
He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose
cellarflap of number seventyfive. The sun was nearing the
steeple of George’s church. Be a warm day I fancy.
Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black
conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn’t
go in that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank
quietly often as he walked in happy warmth. Boland’s
breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers
yesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you
feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off
at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day’s
march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older
technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a
city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old Tweedy’s big
moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander
through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark
caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated
crosslegged, smoking a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the
streets. Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet. Dander
along all day. Might meet a robber or two. Well, meet
him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the
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mosques among the pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A
shiver of the trees, signal, the evening wind. I pass on.
Fading gold sky. A mother watches me from her doorway.
She calls her children home in their dark language. High
wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet,
colour of Molly’s new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl
playing one of those instruments what do you call them:
dulcimers. I pass.
Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read:
in the track of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He
smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur Griffith said about
the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerule sun
rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the
bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey
touch that: homerule sun rising up in the north-west.
He approached Larry O’Rourke’s. From the cellar
grating floated up the flabby gush of porter. Through the
open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger,
teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the end
of the city traffic. For instance M’Auley’s down there: n.
g. as position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the
North Circular from the cattlemarket to the quays value
would go up like a shot.
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Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use
canvassing him for an ad. Still he knows his own business
best. There he is, sure enough, my bold Larry, leaning
against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching the
aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon
Dedalus takes him off to a tee with his eyes screwed up.
Do you know what I’m going to tell you? What’s that, Mr
O’Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they’d
only be an eight o’clock breakfast for the Japanese.
Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad
thing about poor Dignam, Mr O’Rourke.
Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting
through the doorway:
—Good day, Mr O’Rourke.
—Good day to you.
—Lovely weather, sir.
—’Tis all that.
Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded
curates from the county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old
man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold, they blossom out
as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then thin of the
competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross
Dublin without passing a pub. Save it they can’t. Off the
drunks perhaps. Put down three and carry five. What is
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that, a bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On the
wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the
town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we’ll split
the job, see?
How much would that tot to off the porter in the
month? Say ten barrels of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off.
O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint Joseph’s National
school. Brats’ clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps
memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue
rustyouvee doubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk.
Inishark. Inishboffin. At their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve
Bloom.
He halted before Dlugacz’s window, staring at the
hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white. Fifteen
multiplied by. The figures whitened in his mind,
unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links,
packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in
tranquilly the lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs’
blood.
A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned
dish: the last. He stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter.
Would she buy it too, calling the items from a slip in her
hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And a pound and a half of
Denny’s sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips.
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