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Ulysses 

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Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. 

Cricket weather. Sit around under sunshades. Over after 

over. Out. They can’t play it here. Duck for six wickets. 

Still Captain Culler broke a window in the Kildare street 

club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in 

their line. And the skulls we were acracking when 

M’Carthy took the floor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Always 

passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life we 

trace is dearer than them all. 

Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, 

the gentle tepid stream. This is my body. 

He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in 

a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly 

laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and 

sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, 

bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush 

floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father 

of thousands, a languid floating flower. 

 

* * * * *  

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head 

into the creaking carriage and, entering deftly, seated 

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himself. Mr Power stepped in after him, curving his height 

with care. 

—Come on, Simon. 

—After you, Mr Bloom said. 

Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying: 

Yes, yes. 

—Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. 

Come along, Bloom. 

Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He 

pulled the door to after him and slammed it twice till it 

shut tight. He passed an arm through the armstrap and 

looked seriously from the open carriagewindow at the 

lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old 

woman peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. 

Thanking her stars she was passed over. Extraordinary the 

interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give 

them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. 

Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for 

fear he’d wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly 

and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your 

side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you 

dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and 

the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same 

after. Unclean job. 

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All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths 

probably. I am sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in 

my hip pocket. Better shift it out of that. Wait for an 

opportunity. 

All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, 

turning: then nearer: then horses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their 

carriage began to move, creaking and swaying. Other 

hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of 

the avenue passed and number nine with its craped 

knocker, door ajar. At walking pace. 

They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had 

turned and were passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville 

road. Quicker. The wheels rattled rolling over the cobbled 

causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the 

doorframes. 

—What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through 

both windows. 

—Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. 

Brunswick street. 

Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out. 

—That’s a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it 

has not died out. 

All watched awhile through their windows caps and 

hats lifted by passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from 

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the tramtrack to the smoother road past Watery lane. Mr 

Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a 

wide hat. 

—There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said. 

—Who is that? 

—Your son and heir. 

—Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across. 

The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of 

rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched 

round the corner and, swerving back to the tramtrack, 

rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell 

back, saying: 

—Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates! 

—No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone. 

—Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus 

said, the Goulding faction, the drunken little costdrawer 

and Crissie, papa’s little lump of dung, the wise child that 

knows her own father. 

Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace 

Bros: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge. 

Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis 

and Ward he calls the firm. His jokes are getting a bit 

damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in Stamer street with 

Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady’s two 

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hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. 

Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. 

Wife ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it with pills. All 

breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent profit. 

—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. 

That Mulligan is a contaminated bloody doubledyed 

ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all over Dublin. 

But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’ll 

make it my business to write a letter one of those days to 

his mother or his aunt or whatever she is that will open 

her eye as wide as a gate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe 

you me. 

He cried above the clatter of the wheels: 

—I won’t have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A 

counterjumper’s son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter 

Paul M’Swiney’s. Not likely. 

He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry 

moustache to Mr Power’s mild face and Martin 

Cunningham’s eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy 

selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to 

hand on. If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear 

his voice in the house. Walking beside Molly in an Eton 

suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it would be. 

From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning in 

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