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Two topboots jog dangling on to Dublin. Lal the ral the
ra. Lal the ral the raddy.
—That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a
favour, Mr Dedalus, with some of your literary friends. I
have a letter here for the press. Sit down a moment. I have
just to copy the end.
He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his
chair twice and read off some words from the sheet on the
drum of his typewriter.
—Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, the
dictates of common sense. Just a moment.
He peered from under his shaggy brows at the
manuscript by his elbow and, muttering, began to prod
the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly, sometimes
blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error.
Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely
presence. Framed around the walls images of vanished
horses stood in homage, their meek heads poised in air:
lord Hastings’ Repulse, the duke of Westminster’s
Shotover, the duke of Beaufort’s Ceylon, prix de Paris,
1866. Elfin riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw
their speeds, backing king’s colours, and shouted with the
shouts of vanished crowds.
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—Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt
ventilation of this allimportant question ...
Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his
winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of
bookies on their pitches and reek of the canteen, over the
motley slush. Fair Rebel! Fair Rebel! Even money the
favourite: ten to one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers
we hurried by after the hoofs, the vying caps and jackets
and past the meatfaced woman, a butcher’s dame, nuzzling
thirstily her clove of orange.
Shouts rang shrill from the boys’ playfield and a
whirring whistle.
Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling
bodies in a medley, the joust of life. You mean that
knockkneed mother’s darling who seems to be slightly
crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock.
Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of
the slain, a shout of spearspikes baited with men’s bloodied
guts.
—Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising.
He came to the table, pinning together his sheets.
Stephen stood up.
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—I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said.
It’s about the foot and mouth disease. Just look through it.
There can be no two opinions on the matter.
May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of
laissez faire which so often in our history. Our cattle trade.
The way of all our old industries. Liverpool ring which
jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme. European
conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of
the channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the
department of agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion.
Cassandra. By a woman who was no better than she
should be. To come to the point at issue.
—I don’t mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as
Stephen read on.
Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch’s preparation.
Serum and virus. Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest.
Emperor’s horses at Murzsteg, lower Austria. Veterinary
surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous offer a
fair trial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant
question. In every sense of the word take the bull by the
horns. Thanking you for the hospitality of your columns.
—I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said.
You will see at the next outbreak they will put an
embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be cured. It is cured.
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My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is regularly
treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They
offer to come over here. I am trying to work up influence
with the department. Now I’m going to try publicity. I
am surrounded by difficulties, by ... intrigues by ...
backstairs influence by ...
He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his
voice spoke.
—Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in
the hands of the jews. In all the highest places: her finance,
her press. And they are the signs of a nation’s decay.
Wherever they gather they eat up the nation’s vital
strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as we
are standing here the jew merchants are already at their
work of destruction. Old England is dying.
He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as
they passed a broad sunbeam. He faced about and back
again.
—Dying, he said again, if not dead by now.
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave old England’s windingsheet.
His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the
sunbeam in which he halted.
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—A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap
and sells dear, jew or gentile, is he not?
—They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely.
And you can see the darkness in their eyes. And that is
why they are wanderers on the earth to this day.
On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the
goldskinned men quoting prices on their gemmed fingers.
Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud, uncouth about the
temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk hats.
Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their
full slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and
unoffending, but knew the rancours massed about them
and knew their zeal was vain. Vain patience to heap and
hoard. Time surely would scatter all. A hoard heaped by
the roadside: plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew
their years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours
of their flesh.
—Who has not? Stephen said.
—What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked.
He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His
underjaw fell sideways open uncertainly. Is this old
wisdom? He waits to hear from me.
—History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I
am trying to awake.
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