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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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