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Ulysses

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A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through
a door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one
hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly.
Who'll read the book? I, said the rook.

They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book
with a fluent croak.

Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. DOMINE-NAMINE.
Bully about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe
betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst
sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on him
like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: burst
sideways.

--NON INTRES IN JUDICIUM CUM SERVO TUO, DOMINE.

Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem
mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist.
Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in
the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad
too. What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of
the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of bad
gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks.
Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's
lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins
sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One
whiff of that and you're a goner.

My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better.

The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's
bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and
shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you
were before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it.

--ET NE NOS INDUCAS IN TENTATIONEM.

The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be
better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of
course ...

Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed
up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.
What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day a
fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in
childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls
with little sparrows' breasts. All the year round he prayed the same thing
over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam now.

--IN PARADISUM.

Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over everybody.
Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.

The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server.
Corny Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted
the coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny
Kelleher gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All
followed them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came
last folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the
ground till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels
ground the gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots
followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres.

The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here.

--The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him.

Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone.

--He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But his
heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here, Simon!

--Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'll soon be stretched
beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.

Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little
in his walk. Mr Power took his arm.

--She's better where she is, he said kindly.

--I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in
heaven if there is a heaven.

Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to
plod by.

--Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.

Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.

--The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can
do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.

They covered their heads.

--The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think?
Mr Kernan said with reproof.

Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret
eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We are
the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else.

Mr Kernan added:

--The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more
impressive I must say.

Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing.

Mr Kernan said with solemnity:

--I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. That touches a man's inmost heart.

--It does, Mr Bloom said.

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two
with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.
Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood
every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of
them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn the
thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead.
That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth,
Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every
fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his
traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in
a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure.

Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.

--Everything went off A1, he said. What?

He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With
your tooraloom tooraloom.

--As it should be, Mr Kernan said.

--What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.

Mr Kernan assured him.

--Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I
know his face.

Ned Lambert glanced back.

--Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the
soprano. She's his wife.

--O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some time.
he was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen seventeen
golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a good armful she
was.

He looked behind through the others.

--What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery line?
I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

--Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper.

--In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like
that for? She had plenty of game in her then.

--Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.

John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead.

The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among
the grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their
caps.

--John O'Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend.

Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:

--I am come to pay you another visit.

--My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don't want your
custom at all.

Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin
Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his back.

--Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe?

--I did not, Martin Cunningham said.

They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The
caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke in
a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

--They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy
evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for
Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After traipsing
about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the drunks spelt
out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking up at a statue
of Our Saviour the widow had got put up.

The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He
resumed:

--And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, NOT A BLOODY BIT LIKE THE
MAN, SAYS HE. THAT'S NOT MULCAHY, says he, WHOEVER DONE IT.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, accepting
the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he walked.

--That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes.

--I know, Hynes said. I know that.

--To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It's pure goodheartedness:
damn the thing else.

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. All want to be on
good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O'Connell, real good sort. Keys:
like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks. HABEAS
CORPUS. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write
Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing
to Martha? Hope it's not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better
of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when the hairs
come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey.
Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to any girl.
Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might
thrill her first. Courting death ... Shades of night hovering here with
all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when churchyards
yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be a descendant I suppose who is this used
to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the same like a big
giant in the dark. Will o' the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind
off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a
ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I
have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve.
Still they'd kiss all right if properly keyed up. Whores in Turkish
graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young
widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones. Romeo. Spice of
pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet.
Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the
starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to
do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway.

He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field
after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. Sitting
or kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some day above
ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground
must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim grass and
edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, so it is.
Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies
growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic Gardens
are just over there. It's the blood sinking in the earth gives new life.
Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Every man
his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable
for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor
and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds thirteen and six.
With thanks.

I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh,
nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot
quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy
kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing out of
them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they are
go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to feed
on feed on themselves.

But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply
swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little
seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of
power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life.
Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about the
bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning. 11 p.m.
(closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men
anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what's in
fashion. A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out
the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. Gravediggers
in HAMLET. Shows the profound knowledge of the human heart. Daren't joke
about the dead for two years at least. DE MORTUIS NIL NISI PRIUS. Go out
of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. Seems a sort of a joke.
Read your own obituary notice they say you live longer. Gives you second
wind. New lease of life.

--How many have-you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked.

--Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven.

The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to
trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping
with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its
nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.

Burying him. We come to bury Caesar. His ides of March or June.
He doesn't know who is here nor care.
Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh?
Now who is he I'd like to know? Now I'd give a trifle to know who he is.
Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. A fellow could live on his
lonesome all his life. Yes, he could. Still he'd have to get someone to
sod him after he died though he could dig his own grave. We all do. Only
man buries. No, ants too. First thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say
Robinson Crusoe was true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every
Friday buries a Thursday if you come to look at it.


O, POOR ROBINSON CRUSOE!
HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY DO SO?


Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of
them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could
invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that way.
Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow's. They're so
particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land.
Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one coffin. I see what
it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible even in the earth. The
Irishman's house is his coffin. Embalming in catacombs, mummies the same
idea.

Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared
heads. Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen.
Death's number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the
chapel, that I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had
one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was
once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit of
mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not
married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him.

The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the
gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty.

Pause.

If we were all suddenly somebody else.

Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one,
they say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away.

Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper.
The boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly
in the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly
caretaker. Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will
go next. Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you feel.
Must be damned unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be:
someone else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet.
Then darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would
you like to see a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you
hid all your life. The death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his
lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the
soles of his feet yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the
floor since he's doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing
him a woman. Dying to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of LUCIA.
SHALL I NEVERMORE BEHOLD THEE? Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People
talk about you a bit: forget you. Don't forget to pray for him.
Remember him in your prayers. Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then
they follow: dropping into a hole, one after the other.

We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well
and not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the
fire of purgatory.

Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do
when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning.
Near you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma,
poor mamma, and little Rudy.

The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay
in on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive all
the time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of
course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have
some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or
a telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of
distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well
to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there's no.

The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.

The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had
enough of it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering
themselves without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly
figure make its way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of
his ground, he traversed the dismal fields.

Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he
knows them all. No: coming to me.

--I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your
christian name? I'm not sure.

--L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too.
He asked me to.

--Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the FREEMAN once.

So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne.
Good idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they
know. He died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few
ads. Charley, you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well,
does no harm. I saw to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged.
Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing.

--And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was
over there in the ...

He looked around.

--Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?

--M'Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. I don't know who he is. Is that
his name?

He moved away, looking about him.

--No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!

Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of
all the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good
Lord, what became of him?

A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.

--O, excuse me!

He stepped aside nimbly.

Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.
A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their
spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath
against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put
on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then
knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the
haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with
shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead
another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning
away, placed something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir:
trouble. Headshake. I know that. For yourselves just.

The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths,
staying at whiles to read a name on a tomb.

--Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time.

--Let us, Mr Power said.

They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr
Power's blank voice spoke:

--Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled
with stones. That one day he will come again.

Hynes shook his head.

--Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was mortal
of him. Peace to his ashes.

Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels,
crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast
eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on
some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does
anybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot.
Then lump them together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll
be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of
weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near
death's door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it
of their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket.
More interesting if they told you what they were. So and So, wheelwright.
I travelled for cork lino. I paid five shillings in the pound. Or a
woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew. Eulogy in a country
churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas
Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put it. Old Dr Murren's.
The great physician called him home. Well it's God's acre for them.
Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal spot to
have a quiet smoke and read the CHURCH TIMES. Marriage ads they never
try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil.
Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical.
The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses nothing.
Immortelles.

A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the
wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him.
Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder.
Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a
daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.

The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be
sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was
dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this
infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket of
fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the boy.
Apollo that was.

How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.
As you are now so once were we.

Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well,
the voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it
in the house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather.
Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain
hellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph
reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after
fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died
when I was in Wisdom Hely's.

Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop!

He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait.
There he goes.

An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the
pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey
alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it.
Good hidingplace for treasure.

Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert
Emmet was buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds.

Tail gone now.

One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the
bones clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is
meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that
VOYAGES IN CHINA that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse.
Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm.
Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime
feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea.
Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water.
Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But
being brought back to life no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a
flying machine. Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh one is let
down. Underground communication. We learned that from them. Wouldn't be
surprised. Regular square feed for them. Flies come before he's well dead.
Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't care about the smell of it. Saltwhite
crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips.

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