Ulysses
100
of
1305
Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish.
New blood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms.
Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. She does whack it,
by George. The way her crooked skirt swings at each
whack.
The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had
snipped off with blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat
there: like a stallfed heifer.
He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the
model farm at Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can
become ideal winter sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I
thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round it, blurred cattle
cropping. He held the page from him: interesting: read it
nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page
rustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the
cattlemarket, the beasts lowing in their pens, branded
sheep, flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed
boots trudging through the litter, slapping a palm on a
ripemeated hindquarter, there’s a prime one, unpeeled
switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently,
bending his senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest.
The crooked skirt swinging, whack by whack by whack.
The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile,
wrapped up her prime sausages and made a red grimace.
Ulysses
101
of
1305
—Now, my miss, he said.
She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick
wrist out.
—Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence
change. For you, please?
Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk
behind her if she went slowly, behind her moving hams.
Pleasant to see first thing in the morning. Hurry up, damn
it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood outside the
shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He
sighed down his nose: they never understand.
Sodachapped hands. Crusted toenails too. Brown scapulars
in tatters, defending her both ways. The sting of disregard
glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For another: a
constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles lane. They like
them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman,
I’m lost in the wood.
—Threepence, please.
His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it
into a sidepocket. Then it fetched up three coins from his
trousers’ pocket and laid them on the rubber prickles.
They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc by disc,
into the till.
—Thank you, sir. Another time.
Ulysses
102
of
1305
A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He
withdrew his gaze after an instant. No: better not: another
time.
—Good morning, he said, moving away.
—Good morning, sir.
No sign. Gone. What matter?
He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely.
Agendath Netaim: planters’ company. To purchase waste
sandy tracts from Turkish government and plant with
eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and
construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields
north of Jaffa. You pay eighty marks and they plant a
dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or
citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial irrigation.
Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your name
entered for life as owner in the book of the union. Can
pay ten down and the balance in yearly instalments.
Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15.
Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it.
He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat.
Silverpowdered olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning,
ripening. Olives are packed in jars, eh? I have a few left
from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste
of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates.
Ulysses
103
of
1305
Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin’s
parade. And Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant
evenings we had then. Molly in Citron’s basketchair. Nice
to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the
nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet,
wild perfume. Always the same, year after year. They
fetched high prices too, Moisel told me. Arbutus place:
Pleasants street: pleasant old times. Must be without a
flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain, Gibraltar,
Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the
quayside at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies
handling them barefoot in soiled dungarees. There’s
whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do you? Doesn’t see.
Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back is like
that Norwegian captain’s. Wonder if I’ll meet him today.
Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in
heaven.
A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey.
Far.
No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic
lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the
earth. No wind could lift those waves, grey metal,
poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining
down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |