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fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from 

the children’s shirts. 

In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted 

body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of 

wax and rosewood, her breath, bent over him with mute 

secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes. 

Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and 

bend my soul. On me alone. The ghostcandle to light her 

agony. Ghostly light on the tortured face. Her hoarse loud 

breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. 

Her eyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te 

confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus 

excipiat. 

Ghoul! Chewer of corpses! 

No, mother! Let me be and let me live. 

—Kinch ahoy! 

Buck Mulligan’s voice sang from within the tower. It 

came nearer up the staircase, calling again. Stephen, still 

trembling at his soul’s cry, heard warm running sunlight 

and in the air behind him friendly words. 

—Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is 

ready. Haines is apologising for waking us last night. It’s all 

right. 

—I’m coming, Stephen said, turning. 

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—Do, for Jesus’ sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake 

and for all our sakes. 

His head disappeared and reappeared. 

—I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it’s very 

clever. Touch him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean. 

—I get paid this morning, Stephen said. 

—The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? 

Four quid? Lend us one. 

—If you want it, Stephen said. 

—Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with 

delight. We’ll have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy 

druids. Four omnipotent sovereigns. 

He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone 

stairs, singing out of tune with a Cockney accent: 

O, won’t we have a merry time, 

Drinking whisky, beer and wine! 

On coronation, 

Coronation day! 

O, won’t we have a merry time 

On coronation day! 

Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel 

shavingbowl shone, forgotten, on the parapet. Why should 

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I bring it down? Or leave it there all day, forgotten 

friendship? 

He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling 

its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in 

which the brush was stuck. So I carried the boat of incense 

then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet the same. A 

servant too. A server of a servant. 

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck 

Mulligan’s gowned form moved briskly to and fro about 

the hearth, hiding and revealing its yellow glow. Two 

shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor from the 

high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of 

coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning. 

—We’ll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open 

that door, will you? 

Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall 

figure rose from the hammock where it had been sitting, 

went to the doorway and pulled open the inner doors. 

—Have you the key? a voice asked. 

—Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I’m 

choked! 

He howled, without looking up from the fire: 

—Kinch! 

—It’s in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward. 

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The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the 

heavy door had been set ajar, welcome light and bright air 

entered. Haines stood at the doorway, looking out. 

Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and sat down 

to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside 

him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to 

the table, set them down heavily and sighed with relief. 

—I’m melting, he said, as the candle remarked when ... 

But, hush! Not a word more on that subject! Kinch, wake 

up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines, come in. The grub is 

ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. Where’s the 

sugar? O, jay, there’s no milk. 

Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the 

buttercooler from the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a 

sudden pet. 

—What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come 

after eight. 

—We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There’s 

a lemon in the locker. 

—O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan 

said. I want Sandycove milk. 

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly: 

—That woman is coming up with the milk. 

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—The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, 

jumping up from his chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea 

there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I can’t go fumbling at 

the damned eggs. 

He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it 

out on three plates, saying: 

—In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. 

Haines sat down to pour out the tea. 

—I’m giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, 

Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don’t you? 

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said 

in an old woman’s wheedling voice: 

—When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan 

said. And when I makes water I makes water. 

—By Jove, it is tea, Haines said. 

Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling: 

—So I do, Mrs Cahill, says she. Begob, ma’am, says Mrs 

Cahill, God send you don’t make them in the one pot. 

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice 

of bread, impaled on his knife. 

—That’s folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, 

Haines. Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the 

folk and the fishgods of Dundrum. Printed by the weird 

sisters in the year of the big wind. 

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