Stately,
plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing
a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay
crossed.
A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained
gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held
the bowl aloft and intoned: - Introibo ad altare
Dei.
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Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and
called up coarsely: - Come up, Kinch. Come up, you
fearful Jesuit. Solemnly he came forward and
mounted the round gun rest. He faced about and blessed
gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country
and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight
of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made
rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat
and shaking his head.
Stephen
Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms
on the top of the staircase and looked coldly
at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him,
equine in its length, and at the light untonsured
hair, grained
and hued like pale oak.
Buck
Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and
then covered the bowl smartly. - Back to barracks,
he said sternly. He added in a preacher's tone
- For this, 0 dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine:
body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music,
please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little
trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence,
all. He peered sideways up and gave a long low
whistle of call then paused awhile in apt attention,
his even white teeth glistening here and there
with gold points.
Chrysostomos.
Two strong shrill whistles answered through the
calm. - Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That
will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely
at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose
folds of
his gown.
The
plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled
a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages.
A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.
- The mockery of it. he said gaily. Your absurd
name, an ancient Greek. He pointed his finger
in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
laughing to himself.
Stephen
Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily halfway
and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching
him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet,
dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered checks
and neck. Buck Mulligan's gay voice went
on. - My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan,
two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't
it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself.
We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get
the aunt to fork out twenty quid?
He
laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight,
cried: - Will he come?The jejune jesuit. Ceasing,
he began to shave with care. - Tell me, Mulligan,
Stephen said quietly. - Yes, my love? -
How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?
Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right
shoulder. - God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly.
A ponderous Saxon. He thinks you're not a gentleman.
God, these bloody English. Bursting with money
and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford.
You know Dedalus, you have the real Oxford manner.
He can't make you out. 0, my name for you is the
best: Kinch, the knifeblade. He shaved warily
over his chin. - He was raving all night about
a black panther, Stephen said.
Where
is his guncase? - A woeful lunatic, Mulligan said.
Were you in a funk? - I was, Stephen said with
energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark
with a man I don't know raving and moaning to
himself about shooting a black panther.You saved
men from drowning.
I'm
not a hero, however. If he stays on here I am
off. Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his
razor blade. He hopped down from his perch and
began to search his trouser pockets hastily. -
Scutter, he cried thickly. He came over to the
gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper
pocket, said - Lend us a loan of your noserag
to wipe my razor. Stephen suffered him to
pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty
crumpled handkerchief.
Buck
Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. Then, gazing
over the
handkerchief, he said - The bard's noserag. A
new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.
You can almost taste it, can't you?He mounted
to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin
bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.
- God, he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy
calls it : a great sweet mother? The snotgreen
sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton.
Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks.
I
must teach you. You must read them in the original.
Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother.
Come and look. Stephen stood up and went over
to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked down on
the water and on the mailboat clearing tile harbour
mouth of Kingstown.
Our
mighty mother, Buck Mulligan said. He turned abruptly
his great searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's
face. - The aunt thinks you killed your mother,
he said. That's why she won't let me have anything
to do with you. - Someone killed her, Stephen
said gloomily. - You could have knelt down, damn
it, Kinch, when your dying mother asked you, Buck
Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you.
But to think of your mother begging you with her
last breath to kneel down and pray for her. And
you refused.
There
is something sinister in you... He broke off and
lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant
smile curled his lips. - But a lovely mummer,
he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest mummer
of them all. He shaved evenly and with care, in
silence, seriously. Stephen, an elbow rested on
the jagged granite, leaned his palm against his
brow and gazed
at the fraying edge of his shiny black coatsleeve.
Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted
his heart. Silently, in a dream she had come to
him after her death, her wasted body within its
loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of
wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon
him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted
ashes. Across the...
James
Joyce 1882-1941.
Words from Ulysses
©
James Joyce
Photographs of 'Joyce's tower',
Sandycove, nr Dublin © Ciarán Ryan
(July 2002?)
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce |
