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she wanted back, waiting. It never comes. One must go 

first: alone, under the ground: and lie no more in her 

warm bed. 

—How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, 

clasping hands. Haven’t seen you for a month of Sundays. 

—Never better. How are all in Cork’s own town? 

—I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter 

Monday, Ned Lambert said. Same old six and eightpence. 

Stopped with Dick Tivy. 

—And how is Dick, the solid man? 

—Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert 

answered. 

—By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued 

wonder. Dick Tivy bald? 

—Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, 

Ned Lambert said, pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just 

to keep them going till the insurance is cleared up. 

—Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the 

eldest boy in front? 

—Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife’s brother. John 

Henry Menton is behind. He put down his name for a 

quid. 

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—I’ll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor 

Paddy he ought to mind that job. John Henry is not the 

worst in the world. 

—How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, 

what? 

—Many a good man’s fault, Mr Dedalus said with a 

sigh. 

They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr 

Bloom stood behind the boy with the wreath looking 

down at his sleekcombed hair and at the slender furrowed 

neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there 

when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last 

moment and recognise for the last time. All he might have 

done. I owe three shillings to O’Grady. Would he 

understand? The mutes bore the coffin into the chapel. 

Which end is his head? 

After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in 

the screened light. The coffin lay on its bier before the 

chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners. Always in 

front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore 

corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners knelt 

here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind 

near the font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully 

his unfolded newspaper from his pocket and knelt his right 

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knee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left 

knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously. 

A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it 

came out through a door. The whitesmocked priest came 

after him, tidying his stole with one hand, balancing with 

the other a little book against his toad’s belly. Who’ll read 

the book? I, said the rook. 

They halted by the bier and the priest began to read 

out of his book with a fluent croak. 

Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. 

Domine-namine. Bully about the muzzle he looks. Bosses 

the show. Muscular christian. Woe betide anyone that 

looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst 

sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With 

a belly on him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing 

expressions that man finds. Hhhn: burst sideways. 

—Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. 

Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in 

Latin. Requiem mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged 

notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly place this. 

Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the 

gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes 

of a toad too. What swells him up that way? Molly gets 

swelled after cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full 

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up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of bad gas round the 

place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. 

Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the 

vaults of saint Werburgh’s lovely old organ hundred and 

fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to 

let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One 

whiff of that and you’re a goner. 

My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That’s better. 

The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out 

of the boy’s bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he 

walked to the other end and shook it again. Then he came 

back and put it back in the bucket. As you were before 

you rested. It’s all written down: he has to do it. 

—Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. 

The server piped the answers in the treble. I often 

thought it would be better to have boy servants. Up to 

fifteen or so. After that, of course ... 

Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. 

He must be fed up with that job, shaking that thing over 

all the corpses they trot up. What harm if he could see 

what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day a fresh 

batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women 

dead in childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded 

businessmen, consumptive girls with little sparrows’ 

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breasts. All the year round he prayed the same thing over 

them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On 

Dignam now. 

—In paradisum. 

Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that 

over everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say 

something. 

The priest closed his book and went off, followed by 

the server. Corny Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the 

gravediggers came in, hoisted the coffin again, carried it 

out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher gave one 

wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All 

followed them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. 

Mr Bloom came last folding his paper again into his 

pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground till the coffincart 

wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the 

gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots 

followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. 

The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn’t 

lilt here. 

—The O’Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him. 

Mr Power’s soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty 

cone. 

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