They fit well enough, Stephen answered.īuck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip. I must give you a shirt and few noserags. Ah, poor dogsbody, he said in a kind voice. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.īuck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the well-fed voice beside him. Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown grave-clothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve. He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously. But a lovely mummer, he murmured to himself. He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. But to think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her. You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother asked you, Buck Mulligan said. Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily. That's why she won't let me have anything to do with you. The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. He turned abruptly his great searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's face. Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbour mouth of Kingstown. Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:
Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief. Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor. He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper pocket, said: He hopped down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily. If he stays on here I am off.īuck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. Out here in the dark with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther. I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade. You know, Dedalus you have the real Oxford manner. God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?īuck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder. Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly. He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried: Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid? But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily half way 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 cheeks and neck. He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, laughing to himself. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips. The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm. He peered sideways up and gave a long low whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. 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.īuck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.
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. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
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