April 28, 2004 - 8:55 p.m.

gelid JEL-id, adjective:
Extremely cold; icy. 
from Latin gelidus, from gelu, "frost, cold."

drouth = drought

Ikey = acute, slippery, wily, leery, tricky, foxy, smart (Hungarian)
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Dublin, June 16, 1904, 8:00 am...




Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs 
of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, 
nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices 
fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most 
of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave 
to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the 
kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on 
the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the 
kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning 
everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish.

The coals were reddening.

Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: 
right. She didn't like her plate full. Right. He 
turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob 
and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull 
and squat, its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. 
Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly round a leg 
of the table with tail on high.

--Mkgnao!

--O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the 
fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly 
round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she 
stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. 
Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black 
form. Clean to see: the gloss of her sleek hide, 
the white button under the butt of her tail, the 
green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands 
on his knees.

--Milk for the pussens, he said.

--Mrkgnao! the cat cried.

They call them stupid. They understand what we say 
better than we understand them. She understands all 
she wants to. Vindictive too. Cruel. Her nature. 
Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder 
what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she 
can jump me.

--Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. 
Afraid of the chookchooks. I never saw such a 
stupid pussens as the pussens.

Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem 
to like it.

--Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, 
mewing plaintively and long, showing him her 
milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits 
narrowing with greed till her eyes were green 
stones. Then he went to the dresser, took the jug 
Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, poured 
warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on 
the floor.

--Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.

He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak 
light as she tipped three times and licked lightly. 
Wonder is it true if you clip them they can't mouse 
after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the 
tips. Or kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps.

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. 
No good eggs with this drouth. Want pure fresh 
water. Thursday: not a good day either for a mutton 
kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of 
pepper. Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While 
the kettle is boiling. She lapped slower, then 
licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so 
rough? To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she 
can eat? He glanced round him. No.

On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to 
the hall, paused by the bedroom door. She might 
like something tasty. Thin bread and butter she 
likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.

He said softly in the bare hall:

--I'm going round the corner. Be back in a minute.

And when he had heard his voice say it he added:

--You don't want anything for breakfast?

A sleepy soft grunt answered:

--Mn.

No. She didn't want anything. He heard then a warm 
heavy sigh, softer, as she turned over and the 
loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must 
get those settled really. Pity. All the way from 
Gibraltar. Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. 
Wonder what her father gave for it. Old style. Ah 
yes! of course. Bought it at the governor's 
auction. Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a 
bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. 
I rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. 
Still he had brains enough to make that corner in 
stamps. Now that was farseeing.

His hand took his hat from the peg over his 
initialled heavy overcoat and his lost property 
office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback 
pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim 
too. Course they do. The sweated legend in the 
crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto's high 
grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather 
headband. White slip of paper. Quite safe.

On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the 
latchkey. Not there. In the trousers I left off. 
Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No use 
disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. 
He pulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, 
more, till the footleaf dropped gently over the 
threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till 
I come back anyhow.

He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose 
cellarflap of number seventyfive. The sun was 
nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a warm 
day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel 
it more. Black conducts, reflects, (refracts is 
it?), the heat. But I couldn't go in that light 
suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly 
often as he walked in happy warmth. Boland's 
breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she 
prefers yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns 
hot. Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: 
early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in 
front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep 
it up for ever never grow a day older technically. 
Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city 
gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old Tweedy's 
big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear. 
Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going 
by. Dark caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the 
terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiled 
pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water 
scented with fennel, sherbet. Dander along all day. 
Might meet a robber or two. Well, meet him. Getting 
on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques among the 
pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver 
of the trees, signal, the evening wind. I pass on. 
Fading gold sky. A mother watches me from her 
doorway. She calls her children home in their dark 
language. High wall: beyond strings twanged. Night 
sky, moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters. 
Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of those 
instruments what do you call them: dulcimers. I 
pass.

Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff 
you read: in the track of the sun. Sunburst on the 
titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur 
Griffith said about the headpiece over the FREEMAN 
leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest 
from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland. He 
prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: 
homerule sun rising up in the north-west.

He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar 
grating floated up the flabby gush of porter. 
Through the open doorway the bar squirted out 
whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, 
however: just the end of the city traffic. For 
instance M'Auley's down there: n. g. as position. 
Of course if they ran a tramline along the North 
Circular from the cattlemarket to the quays value 
would go up like a shot.

Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use 
canvassing him for an ad. Still he knows his own 
business best. There he is, sure enough, my bold 
Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his 
shirtsleeves watching the aproned curate swab up 
with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him off to 
a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what 
I'm going to tell you? What's that, Mr O'Rourke? Do 
you know what? The Russians, they'd only be an 
eight o'clock breakfast for the Japanese.

Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad 
thing about poor Dignam, Mr O'Rourke.

Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in 
greeting through the doorway:

--Good day, Mr O'Rourke.

--Good day to you.

--Lovely weather, sir.

--'Tis all that.

Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded 
curates from the county Leitrim, rinsing empties 
and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold, 
they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. 
Then thin of the competition. General thirst. Good 
puzzle would be cross Dublin without passing a pub. 
Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put 
down three and carry five. What is that, a bob here 
and there, dribs and drabs. On the wholesale orders 
perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town 
travellers. Square it you with the boss and we'll 
split the job, see?

How much would that tot to off the porter in the 
month? Say ten barrels of stuff. Say he got ten per 
cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint Joseph's 
National school. Brats' clamour. Windows open. 
Fresh air helps memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee 
defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee doubleyou. Boys 
are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At 
their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom.

He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the 
hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white. 
Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitened in his 
mind, unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The 
shiny links, packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze 
and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath 
of cooked spicy pigs' blood.

A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned 
dish: the last. He stood by the nextdoor girl at 
the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the 
items from a slip in her hand? Chapped: 
washingsoda. And a pound and a half of Denny's 
sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. 
Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is 
oldish. New blood. No followers allowed. Strong 
pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. 
She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked 
skirt swings at each whack.

The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he 
had snipped off with blotchy fingers, sausagepink. 
Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer.

He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the 
model farm at Kinnereth on the lakeshore of 
Tiberias. Can become ideal winter sanatorium. Moses 
Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round 
it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from 
him: interesting: read it nearer, the title, the 
blurred cropping cattle, the page rustling. A young 
white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, 
the beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, 
flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed 
boots trudging through the litter, slapping a palm 
on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one, 
unpeeled switches in their hands. He held the page 
aslant patiently, bending his senses and his will, 
his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt 
swinging, whack by whack by whack.

The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, 
wrapped up her prime sausages and made a red 
grimace.

--Now, my miss, he said.

She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her 
thick wrist out.

--Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence 
change. For you, please?

Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk 
behind her if she went slowly, behind her moving 
hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the morning. 
Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. 
She stood outside the shop in sunlight and 
sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed down his 
nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. 
Crusted toenails too. Brown scapulars in tatters, 
defending her both ways. The sting of disregard 
glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For 
another: a constable off duty cuddling her in 
Eccles lane. They like them sizeable. Prime 
sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I'm lost in the 
wood.

--Threepence, please.

His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid 
it into a sidepocket. Then it fetched up three 
coins from his trousers' pocket and laid them on 
the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly 
and quickly slid, disc by disc, into the till.

--Thank you, sir. Another time.

A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He 
withdrew his gaze after an instant. No: better not: 
another time.

--Good morning, he said, moving away.

--Good morning, sir.

No sign. Gone. What matter?

He walked back along Dorset street, reading 
gravely. Agendath Netaim: planters' company. To 
purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish government 
and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for 
shade, fuel and construction. Orangegroves and 
immense melonfields north of Jaffa. You pay eighty 
marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with 
olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives 
cheaper: oranges need artificial irrigation. Every 
year you get a sending of the crop. Your name 
entered for life as owner in the book of the union. 
Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly 
instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15.

Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it.

He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. 
Silverpowdered olivetrees. Quiet long days: 
pruning, ripening. Olives are packed in jars, eh? I 
have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them 
out. Knows the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue 
paper packed in crates. Citrons too. Wonder is poor 
Citron still in Saint Kevin's parade. And 
Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings 
we had then. Molly in Citron's basketchair. Nice to 
hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it 
to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, 
heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the same, year 
after year. They fetched high prices too, Moisel 
told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant 
old times. Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming 
all that way: Spain, Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the 
Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, 
chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling 
them barefoot in soiled dungarees. There's 
whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do you? Doesn't see. 
Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His 
back is like that Norwegian captain's. Wonder if 
I'll meet him today. Watering cart. To provoke the 
rain. On earth as it is in heaven.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. 
Grey. Far.

No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. 
Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, 
sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those 
waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. 
Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities 
of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead 
names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old 
now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag 
crossed from Cassidy's, clutching a naggin bottle 
by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away 
over all the earth, captivity to captivity, 
multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay 
there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old 
woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world.

Desolation.

Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into 
his pocket he turned into Eccles street, hurrying 
homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling 
his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. 
Well, I am here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning 
mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. 
Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the 
hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number 
eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only 
twenty-eight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: 
parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a 
sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of 
the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample 
bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.

Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley 
road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along the 
brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a 
girl with gold hair on the wind.

Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He 
stooped and gathered them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His 
quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs 
Marion.

--Poldy!

Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and 
walked through warm yellow twilight towards her 
tousled head.

--Who are the letters for?

He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.

--A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, 
and a card to you. And a letter for you.

He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread 
near the curve of her knees.

--Do you want the blind up?

Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his 
backward eye saw her glance at the letter and tuck 
it under her pillow.

--That do? he asked, turning.

She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.

--She got the things, she said.

He waited till she had laid the card aside and 
curled herself back slowly with a snug sigh.

--Hurry up with that tea, she said. I'm parched.

--The kettle is boiling, he said.

But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped 
petticoat, tossed soiled linen: and lifted all in 
an armful on to the foot of the bed.

As he went down the kitchen stairs she called:

--Poldy!

--What?

--Scald the teapot.

On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the 
spout. He scalded and rinsed out the teapot and put 
in four full spoons of tea, tilting the kettle then 
to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he 
took off the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the 
live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and 
melt.



Extract from Ulysess by James Joyce, 1923
 => http://manybooks.net/pages/joycejametext03ulyss12/59.html





Written during the first world war and set 100 
years ago;  what an amazing description of daily 
life. It's a side of the story you'll never get in 
history books. all the minutiae adds up to give you 
a real sense of the place.  i can just picture 
it. lovely.

What happens in the rest of the book?
Well, it gets much more inaccessable, with obscure
classical references and quotations in latin, 
french, italian, ancient greek, german, spanish and 
gaelic.
Some bits are brilliant (the above extract and the 
final monologue), some i find completely annoying 
(the long, intellectual and pretentious 
conversation about Shakespeare. Plus I dont 
understand it and it makes me feel inferior).
Pick up a paper copy and flick through.
Everything in the book takes place on one day and 
is based on Homer's Odyssey. 
Summary in Pictures

yes, thats the Greek myth with the Odysseus trying 
to sail back home after some war and meeting a 
cyclops + various monsters on the way.  
I think he based it on the Oddyssey so that people
could relate to it easier. I guess he lived in a 
world where the education system placed a lot more 
emphasis on the Greek classics.  Something about a 
'shared mythology'; like Starwars and The Matrix 
being based on the Bible.
Powerful stories because we already subconsciously 
know the plots?

 
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