Ulysses | Page 4

doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You
crossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like some
hired mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I didn't mean to offend the
memory of your mother.
He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping wounds which the
words had left in his heart, said very coldly:
--I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.
--Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked.
--Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.
Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.

--O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.
He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post, gazing over the calm
sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew dim. Pulses were beating in his
eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt the fever of his cheeks.
A voice within the tower called loudly:
--Are you up there, Mulligan?
--I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered.
He turned towards Stephen and said:
--Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola, Kinch, and come on
down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers.
His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level with the roof:
--Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the moody brooding.
His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of the stairhead:
AND NO MORE TURN ASIDE AND BROOD UPON LOVE'S BITTER MYSTERY
FOR FERGUS RULES THE BRAZEN CARS.
Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward
where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by
lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A
hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words
shimmering on the dim tide.
A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. It lay
beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song: I sang it alone in the house, holding
down the long dark chords. Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with
awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words,
Stephen: love's bitter mystery.
Where now?
Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber
beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny window of her house when she
was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the pantomime of TURKO THE TERRIBLE and
laughed with others when he sang:
I AM THE BOY THAT CAN ENJOY INVISIBILITY.
Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.

AND NO MORE TURN ASIDE AND BROOD.
Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his brooding brain.
Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had approached the sacrament. A cored
apple, filled with brown sugar, roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her
shapely 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.
--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