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Ulysses 

36 

of

 1305 

England that we have treated you rather unfairly. It seems 

history is to blame. 

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen’s 

memory the triumph of their brazen bells: et unam sanctam 

catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam: the slow growth and 

change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a 

chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass for 

pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in 

affirmation: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of 

the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. 

A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and 

the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and 

Arius, warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of 

the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ’s 

terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius 

who held that the Father was Himself His own Son. 

Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since in mockery 

to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all 

them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a 

worsting from those embattled angels of the church, 

Michael’s host, who defend her ever in the hour of 

conflict with their lances and their shields. 

Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. Zut! Nom de Dieu! 

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Ulysses 

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 1305 

—Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’s voice said, and I 

feel as one. I don’t want to see my country fall into the 

hands of German jews either. That’s our national problem, 

I’m afraid, just now. 

Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: 

businessman, boatman. 

—She’s making for Bullock harbour. 

The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay 

with some disdain. 

—There’s five fathoms out there, he said. It’ll be swept 

up that way when the tide comes in about one. It’s nine 

days today. 

The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the 

blank bay waiting for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll 

over to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite. Here I am. 

They followed the winding path down to the creek. 

Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his 

unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A young man 

clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly 

frogwise his green legs in the deep jelly of the water. 

—Is the brother with you, Malachi? 

—Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons. 

—Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found 

a sweet young thing down there. Photo girl he calls her. 

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Ulysses 

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 1305 

—Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure. 

Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly 

man shot up near the spur of rock a blowing red face. He 

scrambled up by the stones, water glistening on his pate 

and on its garland of grey hair, water rilling over his chest 

and paunch and spilling jets out of his black sagging 

loincloth. 

Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, 

glancing at Haines and Stephen, crossed himself piously 

with his thumbnail at brow and lips and breastbone. 

—Seymour’s back in town, the young man said, 

grasping again his spur of rock. Chucked medicine and 

going in for the army. 

—Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said. 

—Going over next week to stew. You know that red 

Carlisle girl, Lily? 

—Yes. 

—Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father 

is rotto with money. 

—Is she up the pole? 

—Better ask Seymour that. 

—Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said. 

He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and 

stood up, saying tritely: 

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Ulysses 

39 

of

 1305 

—Redheaded women buck like goats. 

He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his 

flapping shirt. 

—My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I’m the 

Uebermensch. Toothless Kinch and I, the supermen. 

He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to 

where his clothes lay. 

—Are you going in here, Malachi? 

—Yes. Make room in the bed. 

The young man shoved himself backward through the 

water and reached the middle of the creek in two long 

clean strokes. Haines sat down on a stone, smoking. 

—Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked. 

—Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast. 

Stephen turned away. 

—I’m going, Mulligan, he said. 

—Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep 

my chemise flat. 

Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it 

across his heaped clothes. 

—And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there. 

Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, 

undressing. Buck Mulligan erect, with joined hands before 

him, said solemnly: 

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Ulysses 

40 

of

 1305 

—He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. 

Thus spake Zarathustra. 

His plump body plunged. 

—We’ll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen 

walked up the path and smiling at wild Irish. 

Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon. 

—The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve. 

—Good, Stephen said. 

He walked along the upwardcurving path. 

Liliata rutilantium. 

Turma circumdet. 

Iubilantium te virginum. 

The priest’s grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed 

discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I 

cannot go. 

A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from 

the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called 

again. A sleek brown head, a seal’s, far out on the water, 

round. 

Usurper. 

 

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