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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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