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MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ATE WITH RELISH THE INNER ORGANS OF BEASTS and fowls. He liked thick

giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs,

fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate

a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast

things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen but out of doors gentle

summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish. .

The coals were reddening. .

Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: left. She didn't like her plate full.

left. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the

fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry.

The cat walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high. .

-- Mkgnao! .

-- O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire. .

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing.

Just how she stalks over my writing-table. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr. .

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly, the lithe black form. Clean to see: the gloss of

her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing eyes. He

bent down to her, his hands on his knees. .

-- Milk for the pussens, he said. .

-- Mrkgnao! the cat cried. .

They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. She

understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Wonder what I look like to her. Height of a

tower? No, she can jump me. .

-- Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the chookchooks. I never

saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens. .

Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. .

-- Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly. .

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively and long, showing

him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits narrowing with greed till her eyes

were green stones. Then he went to the dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just

filled for him, poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor. .

-- Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap. .

He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped three times and

licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they can't mouse after. Why? They shine

in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps. .

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with this drouth. Want

pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried

with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is

boiling. She lapped slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough?

To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round him. No. .

On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by the bedroom

door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter she likes in the morning.

Still perhaps: once in a way. .

He said softly in the bare hall: .

-- I am going round the corner. Be back in a minute. .

And when he had heard his voice say it he added: .

-- You don't want anything for breakfast? .

A sleepy soft grunt answered: .

-- Mn. .

No. She did not want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, as she turned

over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must get those settled really.

Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her

a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. I

rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. Still he had brains enough to make that

corner in stamps. Now that was farseeing. .

His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat, and his lost

property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback pictures. Daresay lots of

officers are in the swim too. Course they do. The sweated legend in the crown of his hat

told him mutely: Plasto's high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband.

White slip of paper. Quite safe. .

On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. In the trousers

I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No use disturbing her. She turned

over sleepily that time. He pulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the

footleaf dropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All left till I come

back anyhow. .

He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number seventyfive. The

sun was nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a warm day I fancy. Specially in these

black clothes feel it more. Black conducts, reflects (refracts is it?), the heat. But I

couldn't go in that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he

walked in happy warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers

yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the

east: early morning: set off at dawn, travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's

march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand,

strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old Tweedy's big

moustaches leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces

going by. Dark caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged

smoking a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented with fennel,

sherbet. Wander along all day. Might meet a robber or two. Well, meet him. Getting on to

sundown. The shadows of the mosques along the pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A

shiver of the trees, signal, the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother

watches from her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark language. High wall:

beyond strings twanged. Night sky moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters. Strings.

Listen. A girl playing one of these instruments what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass. .

Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track of the sun.

Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur Griffith said about

the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the

laneway behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that:

homerule sun rising up in the northwest. .

He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating floated up the flabby gush of

porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger, teadust,

biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the end of the city traffic. For instance M'Auley's

down there: n. g. as position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular

from the cattle market to the quays value would go up like a shot. .

Bald head over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an ad. Still he

knows his own business best. There he Is, sure enough, my bold Larry, leaning against the

sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching the aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket.

Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I'm going

to tell you? What's that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they'd only be an

eight o'clock breakfast for the Japanese. .

Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor Dignam, Mr

O'Rourke. .

Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the doorway: .

-- Good day, Mr O'Rourke. .

-- Good day to you. .

-- Lovely weather, sir. .

-- 'Tis all that. .

Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the county Leitrim,

rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold, they blossom out as Adam

Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think of the competition. General thirst. Good puzzle

would be cross Dublin without passing a pub. Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps.

Put down three and carry five. What is that? A bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On the

wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town travellers. Square it with

the boss and we'll split the job, see? .

How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels of stuff. Say

he got ten per cent off. O more. Ten. Fifteen. He passed Saint Joseph's, National school.

Brats' clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen

opeecue rustyouvee double you. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At

their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom. .

He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages, polonies, black

and white. Fifty multiplied by. The figures whitened in his mind unsolved: displeased, he

let them fade. The shiny links packed with forcemeat fed his gaze and he breathed in

tranquilly the lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pig's blood. .

A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He stood by the

nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the items from a slip in her

hand. Chapped: washing soda. And a pound and a half of Denny's sausages. His eyes rested

on her vigorous hips. Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldfish. 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 up a page 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 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. .

-- 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

left. 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 cuddled 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. .

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: planter's

company. To purchase vast 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 eight 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. Silvered powdered 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. Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still alive 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 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 wholly 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 would lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous

foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom,

Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore

the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's clutching a noggin bottle by

the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity,

multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more.

Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world. .

Desolation. .

Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned into Eccles

Street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his blood: age

crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up

wrong side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down.

Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only

twenty-eight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills.

Plasters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling

butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes. .

Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley Road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along

the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl with gold hair on the wind. .

Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stopped and gathered them. Mrs Marion

Bloom. His quick heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs Marion. .

-- Poldy! .

Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm yellow twilight

towards her tousled head. .

-- Who are the letters for? .

He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly. .

-- A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And a letter for

you. .

He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her knees. .

-- Do you want the blind up? .

Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her glance at the

letter and tuck it under her pillow. .

-- That do? he asked, turning. .

She was reading the card, propped on her elbow. .

-- She got the things, she said. .

He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back slowly with a snug

sigh. .

-- Hurry up with that tea, she said. I'm parched. .

-- The kettle is boiling, he said. .

But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled linen: and

lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed. .

As he went down the kitchen stairs she called: .

-- Poldy! .

-- What? .

-- Scald the teapot. .

On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded and rinsed out the

teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the kettle then to let water flow in.

Having set it to draw, he took off the kettle and crushed the pan flat on the live coals

and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed

hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they won't eat pork.

Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her and dropped the kidney amid the

sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through his fingers, ringwise, from the

chipped eggcup. .

Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks: new tam: Mr

Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's seaside girls. .

The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby, smiling. Silly

Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No wait: four. I gave her the amberoid

necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He

smiled, pouring. .

O Milly Bloom, you are my darling.

You are my looking glass from night to morning.

I'd rather have you without a farthing

Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden.

Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous old chap.

Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the little mirror in his silk

hat. The night Milly brought it into the parlour. O, look what I found in professor

Goodwin's hat! All we laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.

He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the teapot on the tray.

Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon,

her cream. Yes. He carried it upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle. .

Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on the chair by

the bedhead. .

-- What a time you were, she said. .

She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the pillow. He

looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft bubs, sloping within her

nightdress like a shegoat's udder. The warmth of her couched body rose on the air,

mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured. .

A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act of going he

stayed to straighten the bedspread. .

-- Who was the letter from? he asked. .

Bold hand. Marion. .

-- O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme. .

-- What are you singing? .

-- La ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love's Old Sweet Song. .

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves next day. Like

foul flowerwater. .

-- Would you like the window open a little? .

She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking: .

-- What time is the funeral? .

-- Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper. .

Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled drawers from the

bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a stocking: rumpled, shiny sole. .

-- No: that book. .

Other stocking. Her petticoat. .

-- It must have fell down, she said. .

He felt here and there. Voglio e non vorvez. Wonder if she pronounces that left:

voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and lifted the valance. The book,

fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the orange-keyed chamberpot. .

-- Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to ask you. .

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having wiped her

fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with the hairpin till she

reached the word. .

-- Met him what? he asked. .

-- Here, she said. What does that mean? .

He leaned downwards and read near her polished thumbnail. .

-- Metempsychosis? .

-- Yes. Who's he when he's at home? .

-- Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek: from the Greek. That means the

transmigration of souls. .

-- O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words. .

He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eye. The same young eyes. The first night

after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over the smudged pages. Ruby: the Pride of

the Ring. Hello. Illustration. Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the

on the floor naked. Sheet kindly lent. The monster Maffei desisted and flung his victim

from him with an oath. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. Trapeze at Hengler's. Had to

look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we'll break our sides. Families of

them. Bone them young so they metempsychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a

man's soul after he dies. Dignam's soul... .

-- Did you finish it? he asked. .

-- Yes, she said. There's nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the first fellow

all the time? .

-- Never read it. Do you want another? .

-- Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has. .

She poured more tea into her cup, watching its flow sideways. .

Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they'll write to Kearney, my

guarantor. Reincarnation: that's the word. .

-- Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body after death, that

we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we all lived before on the earth

thousands of years ago or some other planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they

remember their past lives. .

The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better remind her of the

word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An example. .

The Bath of the Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number of Photo Bits:

Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you put milk in. Not unlike her with her

hair down: slimmer. Three and six I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over

the bed. Naked nymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then. .

He turned the pages back. .

-- Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They used to believe

you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance. What they called nymphs, for

example. .

Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her, inhaling through

her arched nostrils. .

-- There's a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire? .

-- The kidney! he cried suddenly. .

He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes against the

broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping hastily down the stairs with a

flurried stork's legs. Pungent smoke shot up in an angry Jet from a side of the pan. By

prodding a prong of the fork under the kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its

back. Only a little burned. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the scanty

brown gravy trickle over it. .

Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. He shore away the

burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a forkful into his mouth, chewing with

discernment the toothsome pliant meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away

dies of bread, sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that about some

young student and a picnic? He creased out the letter at his side, reading it slowly as he

chewed, sopping another die of bread in the gravy and raising it to his mouth. .

Dearest Papli,

Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me splendid. Everyone says

I'm quite the belle in my new tam. I got mummy's lovely box of creams and am writing. They

are lovely. I am getting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of me

and Mrs will send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair day and all the beef to

the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on Monday with a few friends to make a scrap

picnic. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the

piano downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday. There is a

young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big

swells he sings Boylan's (I was on the pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about those

seaside girls. Tell him silly Milly sends my best respects. Must now close with fondest

love. .

Your fond daughter, MILLY. .

P.S. Excuse bad writing, am in a hurry. Byby.

M. .

Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first birthday away from

home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she was born, running to knock up Mrs

Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly old woman. Lots of babies she must have helped into the

world. She knew from the first poor little Rudy wouldn't live. Well, God is good, sir. She

knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived.

His vacant face stared pitying at the postscript. Excuse bad writing. Hurry. Piano

downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the XL Caf

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