2.1  --You, Cochrane, what city sent for him?

2.2  --Tarentum, sir.2.3--Very good. Well?

2.4  --There was a battle, sir.

2.5  --Very good. Where?

2.6  The boy's blank face asked the blank window.

2.7  Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as

2.8  memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of

2.9  excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling

2.10  masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then?

2.11  --I forget the place, sir.  279 B. C.

2.12  --Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the gorescarred

2.13  book.

2.14  --Yes, sir. And he said: ANOTHER VICTORY LIKE THAT AND WE ARE DONE FOR.

2.15  That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a

2.16  hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers,

2.17  leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear.

2.18  --You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?

2.19  --End of Pyrrhus, sir?2.20--I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said.

2.21  --Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?

2.22  A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel. He curled them

2.23  between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to

2.24  the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy's breath. Welloff people, proud

2.25  that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico road, Dalkey.

2.26  --Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

2.27  All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round at

2.28  his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh more

2.29  loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay.

2.30  --Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book,

2.31  what is a pier.

2.32  --A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a

2.33  bridge. Kingstown pier, sir.

2.34  Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench

2.35  whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. All.

2.36  With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes:

2.37  their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering

2.38  in the struggle.

2.39  --Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge.

2.40  The words troubled their gaze.

2.41  --How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river.

2.42  For Haines's chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild

2.43  drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A

2.44  jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a

2.45  clement master's praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly

2.46  for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other too

2.47  often heard, their land a pawnshop.

2.48  Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not

2.49  been knifed to death. They are not to be thought away. Time has branded

2.50  them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite

2.51  possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing

2.52  that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass?

2.53  Weave, weaver of the wind.2.54--Tell us a story, sir.

2.55  --O, do, sir. A ghoststory.

2.56  --Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book.

2.57  --WEEP NO MORE, Comyn said.2.58--Go on then, Talbot.

2.59  --And the story, sir?

2.60  --After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot.

2.61  A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork of

2.62  his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the

2.63  text:

2.64  --WEEP NO MORE, WOFUL SHEPHERDS, WEEP NO MORE

2.65  FOR LYCIDAS, YOUR SORROW, IS NOT DEAD,

2.66  SUNK THOUGH HE BE BENEATH THE WATERY FLOOR ..

.2.67  It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible.

2.68  Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated

2.69  out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he

2.70  had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a

2.71  delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains

2.72  about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in

2.73  my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of

2.74  brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of

2.75  thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the

2.76  soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms.

2.77  Talbot repeated:

2.78  --THROUGH THE DEAR MIGHT OF HIM THAT WALKED THE WAVES,

2.79  THROUGH THE DEAR MIGHT ...

2.80  --Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don't see anything.

2.81  --What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward.

2.82  His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again,

2.83  having just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over

2.84  these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips

2.85  and on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the

2.86  tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long look

2.87  from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the church's looms. Ay.

2.88  RIDDLE ME, RIDDLE ME, RANDY RO.

2.89  MY FATHER GAVE ME SEEDS TO SOW.

2.90  Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel.

2.91  --Have I heard all? Stephen asked.

2.92  --Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir.

2.93  --Half day, sir. Thursday.

2.94 --Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked.

2.95  They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling.

2.96  Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all gabbling

2.97 gaily:

2.98  --A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir.

2.99  --O, ask me, sir.

2.100  --A hard one, sir.

2.101  --This is the riddle, Stephen said:

2.102  THE COCK CREW,

2.103  THE SKY WAS BLUE:

2.104  THE BELLS IN HEAVEN

2.105  WERE STRIKING ELEVEN.

2.106  TIS TIME FOR THIS POOR SOUL

2.107  TO GO TO HEAVEN.

2.108  What is that?

2.109  --What, sir?

2.110  --Again, sir. We didn't hear.

2.111  Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence

2.112  Cochrane said:

2.113  --What is it, sir? We give it up.

2.114  Stephen, his throat itching, answered:

2.115  --The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.

2.116  He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries

2.117  echoed dismay.

2.118  A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called:

2.119  --Hockey!

2.120  They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them.

2.121  Quickly they were gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks

2.122  and clamour of their boots and tongues.

2.123  Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an

2.124  open copybook. His thick hair and scraggy neck gave witness of

2.125  unreadiness and through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading.

2.126  On his cheek, dull and bloodless, a soft stain of ink lay, dateshaped,

2.127  recent and damp as a snail's bed.

2.128  He held out his copybook. The word SUMS was written on the

2.129  headline. Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature

2.130  with blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.

2.131  --Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them to

2.132  you, sir.

2.133  Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility.

2.134  --Do you understand how to do them now? he asked.

2.135  --Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to

2.136  copy them off the board, sir.

2.137  --Can you do them. yourself? Stephen asked.

2.138  --No, sir.

2.139  Ugly and futile: lean neck and thick hair and a stain of ink, a snail's

2.140  bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart.

2.141  But for her the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, a

2.142  squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from

2.143  her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His mother's

2.144  prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. She was no

2.145  more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of

2.146  rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from being trampled

2.147  underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul gone to heaven:

2.148  and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur,

2.149  with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the

2.150  earth, listened, scraped and scraped.

2.151  Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by

2.152  algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather. Sargent peered

2.153  askance through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the

2.154  lumberroom: the hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field.

2.155  Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery

2.156  of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands,

2.157  traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from

2.158  the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and

2.159  movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the

2.160  world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend.

2.161  --Do you understand now? Can you work the second for yourself?

2.162  --Yes, sir.

2.163  In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a

2.164  word of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint hue

2.165  of shame flickering behind his dull skin. AMOR MATRIS: subjective and

2.166  objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed him

2.167  and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands.

2.168  Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My

2.169  childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or

2.170  lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony

2.171  sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their

2.172  tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned.

2.173  The sum was done.

2.174  --It is very simple, Stephen said as he stood up.

2.175  --Yes, sir. Thanks, Sargent answered.

2.176  He dried the page with a sheet of thin blottingpaper and carried his

2.177  copybook back to his bench.

2.178  --You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said as

2.179  he followed towards the door the boy's graceless form.

2.180  --Yes, sir.

2.181  In the corridor his name was heard, called from the playfield.

2.182  --Sargent!

2.183  --Run on, Stephen said. Mr Deasy is calling you.

2.184  He stood in the porch and watched the laggard hurry towards the

2.185  scrappy field where sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams

2.186  and Mr Deasy came away stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet.

2.187  When he had reached the schoolhouse voices again contending called to

2.188  him. He turned his angry white moustache.

2.189  --What is it now? he cried continually without listening.

2.190  --Cochrane and Halliday are on the same side, sir, Stephen said.

2.191  --Will you wait in my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said, till I restore

2.192  order here.

2.193  And as he stepped fussily back across the field his old man's voice

2.194  cried sternly:2.195--What is the matter? What is it now?

2.196  Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides: their many forms

2.197  closed round him, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his illdyed

2.198  head.

2.199  Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded

2.200  leather of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here. As

2.201  it was in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart

2.202  coins, base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be. And snug in their

2.203  spooncase of purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached to

2.204  all the gentiles: world without end.

2.205  A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his

2.206  rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table.

2.207  --First, our little financial settlement, he said.

2.208  He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It

2.209  slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid

2.210  them carefully on the table.

2.211  --Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away.

2.212  And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen's embarrassed hand

2.213  moved over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money

2.214  cowries and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir's turban, and

2.215  this, the scallop of saint James. An old pilgrim's hoard, dead treasure,

2.216  hollow shells.2.217A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.

2.218  --Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand.

2.219  These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is for

2.220  shillings. Sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See.

2.221  He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.

2.222  --Three twelve, he said. I think you'll find that's right.

2.223  --Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy

2.224haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers.

2.225  --No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it.

2.226  Stephen's hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols

2.227  too of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket: symbols soiled by greed

2.228  and misery.

2.229  --Don't carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You'll pull it out somewhere

2.230  and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You'll find them very handy.

2.231  Answer something.

2.232  --Mine would be often empty, Stephen said.

2.233  The same room and hour, the same wisdom: and I the same. Three

2.234  times now. Three nooses round me here. Well? I can break them in this

2.235  instant if I will.

2.236  --Because you don't save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don't

2.237  know yet what money is. Money is power. When you have lived as long as I

2.238  have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say?

2.239  PUT BUT MONEY IN THY PURSE.

2.240  --Iago, Stephen murmured.

2.241  He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man's stare.

2.242  --He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet, yes,

2.243  but an Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do

2.244  you know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an

2.245  Englishman's mouth?

2.246  The seas' ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: it seems

2.247  history is to blame: on me and on my words, unhating.

2.248  --That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets.

2.249  --Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That's not English. A French Celt said that. He

2.250  tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail.

2.251  --I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. I PAID MY WAY.

2.252  Good man, good man.

2.253  --I PAID MY WAY. I NEVER BORROWED A SHILLING IN MY LIFE. Can you feel

2.254  that? I OWE NOTHING. Can you?

2.255  Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties.

2.256  Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings.

2.257  Temple, two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob

2.258  Reynolds, half a guinea, Koehler, three guineas, Mrs MacKernan, five

2.259  weeks' board. The lump I have is useless.

2.260  --For the moment, no, Stephen answered.

2.261  Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox.

2.262--I knew you couldn't, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it. We

2.263  are a generous people but we must also be just

.2.264  --I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.

2.265  Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at

2.266  the shapely bulk of a man in tartan filibegs: Albert Edward, prince of

2.267  Wales.

2.268  --You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I

2.269  saw three generations since O'Connell's time. I remember the famine

2.270  in '46. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the

2.271  union twenty years before O'Connell did or before the prelates of your

2.272  communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things.

2.273  Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in

2.274  Armagh the splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and

2.275  armed, the planters' covenant. The black north and true blue bible.

2.276  Croppies lie down.

2.277  Stephen sketched a brief gesture.

2.278  --I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But I

2.279  am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are all

2.280  Irish, all kings' sons.

2.281  --Alas, Stephen said.

2.282  --PER VIAS RECTAS, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for it

2.283  and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to do so.

2.284  LAL THE RAL THE RA

2.285  THE ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN.

2.286  A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John!

2.287  Soft day, your honour! ... Day! ... Day! ... Two topboots jog dangling

2.288  on to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra. Lal the ral the raddy.

2.289  --That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus,

2.290  with some of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press.

2.291  Sit down a moment. I have just to copy the end.

2.292  He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and

2.293  read off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter.

2.294  --Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, THE DICTATES OF COMMON

2.295  SENSE. Just a moment.

2.296  He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his

2.297  elbow and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard

2.298  slowly, sometimes blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error.

2.299  Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence.

2.300  Framed around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their

2.301  meek heads poised in air: lord Hastings' Repulse, the duke of

2.302  Westminster's Shotover, the duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, PRIX DE PARIS,

2.303  1866. Elfin riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their speeds,

2.304  backing king's colours, and shouted with the shouts of vanished crowds.

2.305  --Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt ventilation of this

2.306  allimportant question ...

2.307  Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among

2.308  the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and

2.309  reek of the canteen, over the motley slush. Fair Rebel! Fair Rebel! Even

2.310  money the favourite: ten to one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers we

2.311  hurried by after the hoofs, the vying caps and jackets and past the

2.312  meatfaced woman, a butcher's dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of orange.

2.313  Shouts rang shrill from the boys' playfield and a whirring whistle.

2.314  Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a

2.315  medley, the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother's darling who

2.316  seems to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by

2.317  shock. Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the

2.318  slain, a shout of spearspikes baited with men's bloodied guts.

2.319  --Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising.

2.320  He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up.

2.321  --I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It's about the

2.322  foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two opinions

2.323  on the matter.

2.324  May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of LAISSEZ FAIRE

2.325  which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old

2.326  industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme.

2.327  European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of the

2.328  channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of

2.329  agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who

2.330  was no better than she should be. To come to the point at issue.

2.331  --I don't mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on.

2.332  Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch's preparation. Serum and

2.333  virus. Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor's horses at

2.334  Murzsteg, lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price.

2.335  Courteous offer a fair trial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant

2.336  question. In every sense of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking

2.337  you for the hospitality of your columns.

2.338  --I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at the

2.339  next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be

2.340  cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is

2.341  regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They offer

2.342  to come over here. I am trying to work up influence with the department.

2.343  Now I'm going to try publicity. I am surrounded by difficulties,

2.344  by ... intrigues by ... backstairs influence by ...

2.345  He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke.

2.346  --Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the

2.347  jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are the

2.348  signs of a nation's decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation's

2.349  vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as we are

2.350  standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction.

2.351  Old England is dying.

2.352  He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a

2.353  broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again.

2.354  --Dying, he said again, if not dead by now.

2.355  THE HARLOT'S CRY FROM STREET TO STREET

2.356  SHALL WEAVE OLD ENGLAND'S WINDINGSHEET.

2.357  His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in

2.358  which he halted.

2.359  --A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or

2.360  gentile, is he not?

2.361  --They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see

2.362  the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the

2.363  earth to this day.

2.364  On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting

2.365  prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud,

2.366  uncouth about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk

2.367  hats. Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full

2.368  slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and unoffending, but knew

2.369  the rancours massed about them and knew their zeal was vain. Vain patience

2.370  to heap and hoard. Time surely would scatter all. A hoard heaped by the

2.371  roadside: plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew their years of

2.372  wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh.

2.373  --Who has not? Stephen said.

2.374  --What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked.

2.375  He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell

2.376  sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me.

2.377  --History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

2.378  From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal.

2.379  What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?

2.380  --The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human

2.381  history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.

2.382  Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:

2.383  --That is God.

2.384  Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!

2.385  --What? Mr Deasy asked.

2.386  --A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

2.387  Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his nose

2.388  tweaked between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free.

2.389  --I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors and

2.390  many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no

2.391  better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years

2.392  the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the strangers

2.393  to our shore here, MacMurrough's wife and her leman, O'Rourke, prince of

2.394  Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many errors, many failures but

2.395  not the one sin. I am a struggler now at the end of my days. But I will

2.396  fight for the right till the end.

2.397 FOR ULSTER WILL FIGHT

2.398  AND ULSTER WILL BE RIGHT.

2.399  Stephen raised the sheets in his hand.

2.400  --Well, sir, he began ...

2.401  --I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long at

2.402  this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am wrong.

2.403  --A learner rather, Stephen said.

2.404  And here what will you learn more?

2.405  Mr Deasy shook his head.

2.406  --Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is the great

2.407  teacher.

2.408  Stephen rustled the sheets again.

2.409  --As regards these, he began.

2.410  --Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have them

2.411  published at once.

2.412  TELEGRAPH. IRISH HOMESTEAD.

2.413  --I will try, Stephen said, and let you know tomorrow. I know two editors

2.414  slightly.

2.415  --That will do, Mr Deasy said briskly. I wrote last night to Mr Field,

2.416  M.P. There is a meeting of the cattletraders' association today at the

2.417  City Arms hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You see

2.418  if you can get it into your two papers. What are they?

2.419  --THE EVENING TELEGRAPH ...

2.420  --That will do, Mr Deasy said. There is no time to lose. Now I have to

2.421  answer that letter from my cousin.

2.422  --Good morning, sir, Stephen said, putting the sheets in his pocket.

2.423  Thank you.

2.424  --Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I like

2.425  to break a lance with you, old as I am.

2.426  --Good morning, sir, Stephen said again, bowing to his bent back.

2.427  He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the

2.428  trees, hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield.

2.429  The lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate:

2.430  toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub

2.431  me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard.

2.432  --Mr Dedalus!

2.433  Running after me. No more letters, I hope.

2.434  --Just one moment.

2.435  --Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate.

2.436  Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath.

2.437  --I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of

2.438  being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that?

2.439  No. And do you know why?

2.440  He frowned sternly on the bright air.

2.441  --Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile.

2.442  --Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.

2.443  A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a

2.444  rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his

2.445  lifted arms waving to the air.

2.446  --She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he

2.447  stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That's why.

2.448  On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung

2.449  spangles, dancing coins.