[ p. 125 ]

As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up
from the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea
air sours it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through
Hancock to see the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of
porter, wonderful. Rats get in too. Drink themselves bloated as
big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter. Drink till
they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking that! Rats:
vats. Well of course if we knew all the things.

Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt
quay walls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down?
Reuben J's son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that
sewage. One and eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It's the droll way he
comes out with the things. Knows how to tell a story too.

They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.

He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo
feet per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the
wake of swells, floated under by the bridge piers. Not such damn
fools. Also the day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin's King
picked it up in the wake fifty yards astern. Live by their
wits. They wheeled, flapping.

        The hungry famished gull 
	Flaps o'er the waters dull.

That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare
has no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The
thoughts. Solemn.

        Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit 
	Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.

-- Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!

His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her
stand. Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels:
polishes them up with a rag or a handkerchief.

Wait. Those poor birds.

He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury
cakes for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its
fragments down into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped
silently two, then all, from their heights, pouncing on
prey. Gone. Every morsel.

Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from
his hands.


[ p. 131 ]

He passed the Irish Times. There might be other answers lying
there. Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At
their lunch now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O,
leave them there to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of
them. Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I
called you naughty darling because I do not like that other
world. Please tell me what is the meaning. Please tell me what perfume
does your wife. Tell me who made the world. The way they spring those
questions on you. And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts
have had the good fortune to meet with the approval of the eminent
poet A.E. (Mr Geo Russell). No time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea
with a book of poetry.


[ p. 135-136 ]

They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and
bicycle. Young woman.

And there he is too. Now that's really a coincidence: second
time. Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of
the eminent poet Mr Geo Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with
him. A.E: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur
Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of
the world with a Scotch accent. Tentacles: octopus. Something occult:
symbolism. Holding forth. She's taking it all in. Not saying a
word. To aid gentleman in literary work.

His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a
listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only
weggebobbles and fruit. Don't eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of
that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it's
healthier. Wind and watery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all
day. Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing
they gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea
you are eating rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep
you sitting by the tap all night.

Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless,
Those literary ethereal people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy,
symbolistic. Esthetes they are. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that
kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the
poetical. For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into
their shirts you couldn't squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don't
know what poetry is even. Must be in a certain mood.

    The dreamy cloudy gull 
    Waves o'er the waters dull.


[ p. 137 ]

With a keep quiet relief, his eyes took note: this is street here
middle of the day Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. On his annual bend,
M'Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or cherchez la
femme. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the
rest of the year sober as a judge.


[ p. 138 ]

A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain
yielded. Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh
obscurely, he mutely craved to adore.


[ p. 145 ]

Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to do
there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and
walked, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men
lovers, a youth enjoyed her, to the yard.