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Ulysses 

133 

of

 1305 

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. He hummed: 

La ci darem la mano 

La la lala la la. 

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. Near the 

timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the 

taw with a cunnythumb. 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. 

A flower. I think it’s a. A yellow flower with flattened 

petals. Not annoyed then? What does she say? 

Dear Henry 

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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 meaning of that word? Are you not happy in 

your home you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could 

do something for you. Please tell me what you think of 

poor me. I often think of the beautiful name you have. 

Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often 

you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn 

to a man as you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a 

long letter and tell me more. Remember if you do not I 

will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, 

you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to 

meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my 

patience are exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye 

now, naughty darling, I have such a bad headache. today. 

and write by return to your longing 

Martha 

P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife 

use. I want to know. 

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He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its 

almost no smell and placed it in his heart pocket. Language 

of flowers. They like it because no-one can hear. Or a 

poison bouquet to strike him down. Then walking slowly 

forward he read the letter again, murmuring here and 

there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower 

punish your cactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenot 

how I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone 

meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’s perfume. Having 

read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in 

his sidepocket. 

Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. 

Wonder did she wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a 

girl of good family like me, respectable character. Could 

meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank you: not having 

any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. 

Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. 

Narcotic. Go further next time. Naughty boy: punish: 

afraid of words, of course. Brutal, why not? Try it 

anyhow. A bit at a time. 

Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin 

out of it. Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out 

of her clothes somewhere: pinned together. Queer the 

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number of pins they always have. No roses without 

thorns. 

Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts 

that night in the Coombe, linked together in the rain. 

O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers. 

She didn’t know what to do 

To keep it up 

To keep it up. 

It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses 

probably. Or sitting all day typing. Eyefocus bad for 

stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife use. Now 

could you make out a thing like that? 

To keep it up. 

Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget 

now old master or faked for money. He is sitting in their 

house, talking. Mysterious. Also the two sluts in the 

Coombe would listen. 

To keep it up. 

Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering 

about. Just loll there: quiet dusk: let everything rip. 

Forget. Tell about places you have been, strange customs. 

The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper: 

fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold like 

the hole in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet 

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next time I go to the trottingmatches. She listens with big 

dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and more: all. Then a sigh: 

silence. Long long long rest. 

Going under the railway arch he took out the 

envelope, tore it swiftly in shreds and scattered them 

towards the road. The shreds fluttered away, sank in the 

dank air: a white flutter, then all sank. 

Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a 

hundred pounds in the same way. Simple bit of paper. 

Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque for a 

million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to 

be made out of porter. Still the other brother lord 

Ardilaun has to change his shirt four times a day, they say. 

Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a 

moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence 

a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of 

porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, 

exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter. 

What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million 

barrels all the same. 

An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, 

coach after coach. Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter 

slopped and churned inside. The bungholes sprang open 

and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together, 

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