Complete Works of James Joyce (71 page)

A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.

Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his breviary.
Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis formidavit cor meum.

Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out.

Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.

Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.

Constable
57C
, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day.

 
— That’s a fine day, Mr Kelleher.

 
— Ay, Corny Kelleher said.

 
— It’s very close, the constable said.

Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a coin.

 
— What’s the best news? he asked.

 
— I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with bated breath.

A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell’s corner, skirting Rabaiotti’s icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards Larry O’Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:

 
—
For England
...

He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted and growled:

 
—
home and beauty.

J. J. O’Molloy’s white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the warehouse with a visitor.

A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four strides.

He halted and growled angrily:

 
—
For England
...

Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths.

He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head towards a window and bayed deeply:

 
—
home and beauty.

The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased. The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card
Unfurnished Apartments
slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A woman’s hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the path.

One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the minstrel’s cap, saying:

 
— There, sir.

Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen.

 
— Did you put in the books? Boody asked.

Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.

 
— They wouldn’t give anything on them, she said.

Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles tickled by stubble.

 
— Where did you try? Boody asked.

 
— M’Guinness’s.

Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.

 
— Bad cess to her big face! she cried.

Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.

 
— What’s in the pot? she asked.

 
— Shirts, Maggy said.

Boody cried angrily:

 
— Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?

Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:

 
— And what’s in this?

A heavy fume gushed in answer.

 
— Peasoup, Maggy said.

 
— Where did you get it? Katey asked.

 
— Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.

The lacquey rang his bell.

 
— Barang!

Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:

 
— Give us it here.

Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her mouth random crumbs:

 
— A good job we have that much. Where’s Dilly?

 
— Gone to meet father, Maggy said.

Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:

 
— Our father who art not in heaven.

Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey’s bowl, exclaimed:

 
— Boody! For shame!

A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, between the Customhouse old dock and George’s quay.

The blond girl in Thornton’s bedded the wicker basket with rustling fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and a small jar.

 
— Put these in first, will you? he said.

 
— Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.

 
— That’ll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.

She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe shamefaced peaches.

Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red tomatoes, sniffing smells.

H. E. L. Y.’S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, plodding towards their goal.

He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from his fob and held it at its chain’s length.

 
— Can you send them by tram? Now?

A darkbacked figure under Merchants’ arch scanned books on the hawker’s cart.

 
— Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?

 
— O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes.

The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.

 
— Will you write the address, sir?

Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.

 
— Send it at once, will you? he said. It’s for an invalid.

 
— Yes, sir. I will, sir.

Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers’ pocket.

 
— What’s the damage? he asked.

The blond girl’s slim fingers reckoned the fruits.

Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took a red carnation from the tall stemglass.

 
— This for me? he asked gallantly.

The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie a bit crooked, blushing.

 
— Yes, sir, she said.

Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.

Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the red flower between his smiling teeth.

 
— May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.

 
—
Ma!
Almidano Artifoni said.

He gazed over Stephen’s shoulder at Goldsmith’s knobby poll.

Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore, gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men’s arms frankly round their stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed.

 
—
Anch’io ho avuto di queste idee, ALMIDANO ARTIFONI SAID, quand’ ero giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo è una bestia. É peccato. Perchè la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via.
Invece, Lei si sacrifica.

 
—
Sacrifizio incruento,
Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly.

 
—
Speriamo,
the round mustachioed face said pleasantly.
Ma, dia retta a me.
Ci rifletta
.

By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band.

 
—
Ci rifletterò,
Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg.

 
—
Ma, sul serio, eh?
Almidano Artifoni said.

His heavy hand took Stephen’s firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram.

 
—
Eccolo,
Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste.
Venga a trovarmi e ci pensi.
Addio, caro.

 
—
Arrivederla, maestro,
Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand was freed.
E grazie.

 
—
Di che?
Almidano Artifoni said.
Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose!

Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal, trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted, signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling implements of music through Trinity gates.

Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of
The Woman in White
far back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her typewriter.

Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion? Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye.

The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them: six.

Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard:

 
— 16 June 1904.

Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny’s corner and the slab where Wolfe Tone’s statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L. Y.’S and plodded back as they had come.

Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She’s not nicelooking, is she? The way she’s holding up her bit of a skirt. Wonder will that fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle’s. They kick out grand. Shannon and all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her. Hope to goodness he won’t keep me here till seven.

The telephone rang rudely by her ear.

 
— Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll ring them up after five. Only those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can go after six if you’re not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and six. I’ll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six.

She scribbled three figures on an envelope.