Ulysses | Page 5

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 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.
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.
--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.
He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his brows:
--Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the
Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads?
--I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.
--Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?
--I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the Mabinogion. Mother
Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.

Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight.
--Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth and blinking his
eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming!
Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened rasping voice as
he hewed again vigorously