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.

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 gunrest. 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, O 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 rapt 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 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.

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. O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.

He shaved warily over his chin.

-- He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is his guncase?

-- A woful 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 razorblade. 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 grey 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 the 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 coat-sleeve. 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 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. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the well-fed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. 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.

Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.

-- Ah, poor dogsbody, he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt and few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?

-- They fit well enough, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.

-- The mockery of it, he said contentedly, secondleg they should be. God knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You look damn well when you're dressed.

-- Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey.

-- He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.

He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the smooth skin.

Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes.

-- That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, says you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Conolly Norman. General paralysis of the insane.

He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong wellknit trunk.

-- Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard.

Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack, hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

-- I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her all right. The aunt always keeps plain-looking servants for Malachi. Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.

Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.

-- The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If Wilde were only alive to see you.

Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:

-- It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had thrust them.

-- It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. God knows you have more spirit than any of them.

Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The cold steelpen.

-- Cracked lookingglass of a servant. Tell that to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise it.

Cranly's arm. His arm.

-- And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you up your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll bring down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive Kempthorpe.

Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces: they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another, O, I shall expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the tailor's shears. A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't want to be debagged! Don't you play the giddy ox with me!

Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, pushes his mower on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms.

To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos.

-- Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at night.

-- Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm quite frank with you. What have you against me now?

They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly.

-- Do you wish me to tell you? he asked.

-- Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything.

He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow, fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of anxiety in his eyes.

Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:

-- Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's death?

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:

-- What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God?

-- You were making tea, Stephen said, and I went across the landing to get more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room.

-- Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget.

-- You said, Stephen answered, O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead.

A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck Mulligan's cheek.

-- Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that?

He shook his constraint from him nervously.

-- And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissecting room. It's a beastly thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes are not functioning. She calls the doctor Sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like some hired mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I didn't mean to offend the memory of your mother.

He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:

-- I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.

-- Of what, then? Buck Mulligan asked.

-- Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.

-- O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.

He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post, gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt the fever of his cheeks.

A voice within the tower called loudly:

-- Are you up there, Mulligan?

-- I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered.

He turned towards Stephen and said:

-- Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola, Kinch, and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers.

His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level with the roof.

-- Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the moody brooding.

His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of the stairhead:

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery
For Fergus rules the brazen cars.
Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.
A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. It lay behind him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song: I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen: love's bitter mystery.

Where now?

Her secrets: old feather fans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the pantomime of Turko the terrible and laughed with others when he sang:

I am the boy
That can enjoy
Invisibility.
Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.
And no more turn aside and brood
Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children's shirts.
In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes.

Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat.

Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!

No mother. Let me be and let me live.

-- Kinch ahoy!

Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry, heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.

-- Dedalus, comedown, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is apologizing for waking us last night. It's all right.

-- I'm coming, Stephen said, turning.

-- Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our sakes.

His head disappeared and reappeared.

-- I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean.

-- I get paid this morning, Stephen said.

-- The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one.

-- If you want it, Stephen said.

-- Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent sovereigns.

He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of tune with a Cockney accent:

O, won't we have a merry time
Drinking whisky, beer and wine,
On coronation,
Coronation day?
O, won't we have a merry time
On coronation day?
Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shaving-bowl shone, forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there all day, forgotten friendship?
He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant.

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form moved briskly about the hearth to and fro, hiding and revealing its yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor from the high barbicans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning.

-- We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you?

Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open the inner doors.

-- Have you the key? a voice asked.

-- Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I'm choked. He howled without looking up from the fire:

-- Kinch!

-- It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.

The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set them down heavily and sighed with relief.

-- I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when .

But hush. Not a word more on that subject. Kinch, wake up. Bread, butter, honey. Haines, come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk.

Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

-- What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.

-- We can drink it black, Stephen said. There's a lemon in the locker.

-- O, damn you and your Paris fads, Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove milk.

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:

-- That woman is coming up with the milk.

-- The blessings of God on you, Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I can't go fumbling at the damned eggs. He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three plates, saying:

-- In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

Haines sat down to pour out the tea.

-- I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you?

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's wheedling voice:

-- When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.

-- By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.

Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:

-- So I do, Mrs Cahill, says she. Begob, ma'am, says Mrs Cahill, God send you don't make them in the one pot.

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled on his knife.

-- That's folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.

He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his brows:

-- Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads?

-- I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.

-- Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?

-- I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.

Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight.

-- Charming, he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming.

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf:

-- For old Mary Ann
She doesn't care a damn,
But, hising up her petticoats...
He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.
The doorway was darkened by an entering form.

-- The milk, sir.

-- Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.

An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow.

-- That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God.

-- To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure. Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.

-- The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of the collector of prepuces.

-- How much, sir? asked the old woman.

-- A quart, Stephen said.

He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out. Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour.

-- It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups.

-- Taste it, sir, she said.

He drank at her bidding.

-- If we could only live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust, horsedung and consumptives' spits.

-- Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.

-- I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered.

Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman; me she slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the serpent's prey. And to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes.

-- Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.

-- Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.

Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently.

-- Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?

-- I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from west, sir?

-- I am an Englishman, Haines answered.

-- He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish in Ireland.

-- Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak the language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows.

-- Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma'am?

-- No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the milkcan on her forearm and about to go.

Haines said to her:

-- Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we?

Stephen filled the three cups.

-- Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling and one and two is two and two, sir.

Buck Mulligan sighed and having filled his mouth with a crust thickly buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his trouser pockets.

-- Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him smiling.

Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the thick rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his fingers and cried:

-- A miracle!

He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying:

-- Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give. Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand.

-- We'll owe twopence, he said.

-- Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good morning, sir.

She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's tender chant:

-- Heart of my heart, were it more,
More would be laid at your feet.
He turned to Stephen and said:
-- Seriously, Dedalus. I'm stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland expects that every man this day will do his duty.

-- That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your national library today.

-- Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.

He turned to Stephen and asked blandly:

-- Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch?

Then he said to Haines:

-- The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month.

-- All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey trickle over a slice of the loaf.

Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke:

-- I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me.

Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience. Yet here's a spot.

-- That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol of Irish art is deuced good.

Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and said with warmth of tone:

-- Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.

-- Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just thinking of it when that poor old creature came in.

-- Would I make money by it? Stephen asked.

Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of the hammock, said:

-- I don't know, I'm sure.

He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and said with coarse vigour:

-- You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for?

-- Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think.

I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes.

-- I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him.

Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen's arm.

-- From me, Kinch, he said.

In a suddenly changed tone he added:

-- To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they are good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let us get out of the kip.

He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying resignedly:

-- Mulligan is stripped of his garments.

He emptied his pockets on to the table.

-- There's your snotrag, he said.

And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie, he spoke to them, chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and rummaged in his trunk while he called for - a clean handkerchief. Agenbite of inwit. God, we'll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and green boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of his talking hands.

-- And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said.

Stephen picked it up and put it on: Haines called to them from the doorway:

-- Are you coming, you fellows?

-- I'm ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out, Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow:

-- And going forth he met Butterly.

Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket.

At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked:

-- Did you bring the key?

-- I have it, Stephen said, preceding them.

He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses.

-- Down, sir. How dare you, sir? Haines asked:

-- Do you pay rent for this tower?

-- Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said.

-- To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder.

They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last:

-- Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it?

-- Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on the sea. But ours is the omphalos.

-- What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen.

-- No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I'm not equal to Thomas Aquinas and the fiftyfive reasons he has made to prop it up. Wait till I have a few pints in me first.

He turned to Stephen, saying as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his primrose waistcoat:

-- You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you?

-- It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer.

-- You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox?

-- Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.

-- What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself?

Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear:

-- O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!

-- We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is rather long to tell.

Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands.

-- The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said.

-- I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. That beetles o'er his base into the sea, isn't it?

Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires.

-- It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.

Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the smokeplume of the mailboat, vague on the bright skyline, and a sail tacking by the Muglins.

-- I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused. The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the Father.

Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice:

-- I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.
My mother's a jew, my father's a bird.
With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree,
So here's to disciples and Calvary.
He held up a forefinger of warning.
-- If anyone thinks that I amn't divine
He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.
He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running forward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins or wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted:
-- Goodbye, now, goodbye. Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet's breezy... Goodbye, now, goodbye.
He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdlike cries.
Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and said:

-- We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of it somehow, doesn't it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner?

-- The ballad of Joking Jesus, Stephen answered.

-- O, Haines said, you have heard it before?

-- Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily.

-- You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a personal God.

-- There's only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said.

Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it.

-- Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette.

Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk towards Stephen in the shell of his hands.

-- Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe or you don't, isn't it? Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a personal God. You don't stand for that, I suppose?

-- You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible example of free thought.

He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. My familiar, after me, calling Steeeeeeeeeephen. A wavering line along the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. He wants that key. It is mine, I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his eyes.

-- After all, Haines began...

Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not all unkind.

-- After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your own master, it seems to me.

-- I am the servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian.

-- Italian? Haines said.

A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me.

-- And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.

-- Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean?

-- The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he spoke.

-- I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame.

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of their brazen bells: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam: the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ's terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael's host, who defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields.

Hear, hear. Prolonged applause. Zut! Nom de Dieu!

-- Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines' voice said, and I feel as one. I don't want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either. That's our national problem, I'm afraid, just now.

Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman, boatman.

-- She's making for Bullock harbour.

The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain.

-- There's five fathoms out there, he said. It'll be swept up that way when the tide comes in about one. It's nine days today.

The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, salt white. Here I am.

They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him moved slowly frogwise his green legs in the deep jelly of the water.

-- Is the brother with you, Malachi?

-- Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons.

-- Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young thing down there. Photo girl he calls her.

-- Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure.

Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, water glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water rilling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black sagging loincloth.

Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips and breastbone.

-- Seymour's back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army.

-- Ah, go to God, Buck Mulligan said.

-- Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?

-- Yes.

-- Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with money.

-- Is she up the pole?

-- Better ask Seymour that.

-- Seymour a bleeding officer, Buck Mulligan said.

He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying tritely:

-- Redheaded women buck like goats.

He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt.

-- My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the Uebermensch. Toothless Kinch and I, the supermen.

He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his clothes lay.

-- Are you going in here, Malachi?

-- Yes. Make room in !he bed.

The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached the middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a stone, smoking.

-- Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked.

-- Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast. Stephen turned away.

-- I'm going, Mulligan, he said.

-- Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat.

Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped clothes.

-- And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there.

Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly:

-- He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake Zarathustra.

His plump body plunged.

-- We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the path and smiling at wild Irish.

Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon.

-- The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve.

-- Good, Stephen said.

He walked along the upwardcurving path.

Liliata rutilantium.
Turnia circumdet.
Iubilantium te virginum
The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.
A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round.

Usurper.

体态丰满而有风度的勃克·穆利根[1]从楼梯口出现。他手里托着一钵肥皂沫，上面交叉放了一面镜子和一把剃胡刀。他没系腰带，淡黄色浴衣被习习晨风吹得稍微向后蓬着[2]。他把那只钵高高举起，吟诵道：

我要走向上主的祭台。

他停下脚步，朝那昏暗的螺旋状楼梯下边瞥了一眼，粗声粗气地嚷道：

“上来，金赤[3]。上来，你这敬畏天主的耶酥会士[4]。”

他庄严地向前走去，登上圆形的炮座。他朝四下里望望，肃穆地对这座塔[5]和周围的田野以及逐渐苏醒着的群山祝福了三遍。然后，他一瞧见斯蒂芬·迪达勒斯就朝他弯下身去，望空中迅速地画了好几个十字，喉咙里还发出咯咯声，摇看头。斯蒂芬·迪达勒斯气恼而昏昏欲睡，双臂倚在楼梯栏杆上，冷冰冰地瞅着一边摇头一边发出咯咯声向他祝福的那张马脸，以及那顶上并未剃光[6]、色泽和纹理都像是浅色橡木的淡黄头发。

勃克·穆利根朝镜下瞅了一眼，赶快阖上钵。

“回到营房去，”他厉声说。

接着又用布道人的腔调说：

“啊，亲爱的人们，这是真正的克里斯廷[7]：肉体和灵魂，血和伤痕。请把音乐放慢一点儿。闭上眼睛，先生们。等一下。这些白血球有点儿不消停。请大家肃静。”

他朝上方斜睨，悠长地低声吹了下呼唤的口哨，随后停下来，全神贯注地倾听着。他那口洁白齐整的牙齿有些地方闪射着金光。克里索斯托[8]。两声尖锐有力的口哨划破寂静回应了他。

“谢谢啦，老伙计，”他精神抖擞地大声说。“蛮好。请你关上电门，好吗?”

他从炮座上跳下来，神色庄重地望着那个观看他的人，并将浴衣那宽松的下摆拢在小腿上。他那郁郁寡欢的胖脸和阴沉的椭圆形下颚令人联想到中世纪作为艺术保护者的高僧。他的唇边徐徐地绽出了榆快的笑意。

“多可笑。”他快活地说。“你这姓名太荒唐了，一个古希腊人[9]。”

他友善而打趣地指了一下，一面暗自笑着，走到胸墙那儿。斯蒂芬·迪达勒斯爬上塔顶，无精打采地跟着他走到半途，就在炮座边上坐下来，静静地望着他怎样把镜子靠在胸墙上，将刷子在钵里浸了浸，往面颊和脖颈上涂起皂沫。

勃克·穆利根用愉快的声调继续讲下去。

“我的姓名也荒唐，玛拉基·穆利根，两个扬抑抑格。可它带些古希腊味道，对不?轻盈快活得正像只公鹿[10]。咱们总得去趟雅典。我要是能从姑妈身上挤出二十镑，你肯一道去吗?”

他把刷子撂在一边，开心地大声笑着说：

“他去吗，那位枯燥乏味的耶酥会士?”

他闭上嘴，仔细地刮起脸来。

“告诉我，穆利根，”斯蒂芬轻声说。

“嗯?乖乖。”

“海恩斯还要在这座塔里住上多久?”

勃克·穆利根从右肩侧过他那半边刮好的脸。

“老天啊，那小子多么讨人嫌!”他坦率地说。“这种笨头笨脑的撒克逊人，他就没把你看作一位有身份的人。天哪，那帮混账的英国人。腰缠万贯，脑满肠肥。因为他是牛津出身呗。喏，迪达勒斯，你才真正有牛津派头呢。他捉摸不透你。哦，我给你起的名字再好不过啦：利刃金赤。”

他小心翼翼地刮着下巴。

“他整宵都在说着关于一只什么黑豹的梦话，”斯蒂芬说，“他的猎枪套在哪儿?”

“一个可悯可悲的疯子!”穆利根说。“你害怕了吧?”

“是啊，”斯蒂芬越来越感到恐怖，热切地说，“黑咕隆咚地在郊外，跟一个满口胡话、哼哼卿卿要射杀一只黑豹的陌生人呆在一块儿。你曾救过快要淹死的人。可我不是英雄。要是他继续呆在这儿，那我就走。”

勃克·穆利根朝着剃胡刀上的肥皂沫皱了皱眉，从坐着的地方跳了下来，慌忙地在裤兜里摸索。

“糟啦，”他瓮声瓮气地嚷道。

他来到炮座跟前，把手伸进斯蒂芬的胸兜，说：

“把你那块鼻涕布借咱使一下。擦擦剃胡刀。”

斯蒂芬听任他拽出那条皱巴巴的脏手绢，捏着一角，把它抖落开来。勃克·穆利根干净利索地揩完剃胡刀，望着手绢说：

“‘大诗人’[11]的鼻涕布。属于咱们爱尔兰诗人的一种新的艺术色彩，鼻涕绿。简直可以尝得出它的滋味，对吗?”

他又跨上胸墙，眺望着都柏林湾。他那浅橡木色的黄头发微微飘动着。

“喏!”他安详地说。“这海不就是阿尔杰所说的吗：一位伟大可爱的母亲[12]?鼻涕绿的海。使人的睾丸紧缩的海。到葡萄紫的大海上去[13]。喂，迪达勒斯，那些希腊人啊。我得教给你。你非用原文来读不可。海!海[14]!她是我们的伟大可爱的母亲。过来瞧瞧。”

斯蒂芬站起来，走到胸墙跟前。他倚着胸墙，俯瞰水面和正在驶出国王镇[15]港口的邮轮。

“我们的强有力的母亲[16]，”勃克·穆利根说。

他那双目光锐利的灰色眼睛猛地从海洋移到斯蒂芬的脸上。

“姑妈认为你母亲死在你手里，”他说。“所以她不计我跟你有任何往来。”

“是有人害的她，”斯蒂芬神色阴郁地说。

“该死，金赤，当你那位奄奄一息的母亲央求你跪下来的时候，你总应该照办呀，”勃克·穆利根说。“我跟你一样是个冷心肠人。可你想想看，你那位快咽气的母亲恳求你跪下来为她祷告。而你拒绝了。你身上有股邪气……”

他忽然打住，又往另一边面颊上轻轻涂起肥皂沫来。一味宽厚的笑容使他撇起了嘴唇。

“然而是个可爱的哑剧演员，”他自言自语着。“金赤，所有的哑剧演员当中最可爱的一个。”

他仔细地把脸刮得挺匀净，默默地，专心致专地。

斯蒂芬一只肘支在坑洼不平的花岗石上，手心扶额头，凝视着自己发亮的黑上衣袖子那磨破了的袖口。痛苦——还说不上是爱的痛苦——煎熬着他的心。她去世之后，曾在梦中悄悄地来找过他，她那枯槁的身躯裹在宽松的褐色衣衾里，散发出蜡和黄檀的气味;当她带着微嗔一声不响地朝他俯下身来时，依稀闻到一股淡淡的湿灰气味。隔着槛褛的袖口，他瞥见被身旁那个吃得很好的人的嗓门称作伟大可爱的母亲的海洋。海湾与天际构成环形，盛着大量的暗绿色液体。母亲弥留之际，床畔曾放着一只白瓷钵，里边盛着粘糊糊的绿色胆汁，那是伴着她一阵阵的高声呻吟，撕裂她那腐烂了的肝脏吐出来的。

勃克·穆利根又揩了揩剃刀刃。

“啊，可怜的小狗[17]!”他柔声说，“我得给你件衬衫，几块鼻涕布。那条二手货的裤子怎么样?”

“挺合身，”斯蒂芬回答说。

勃克·穆利根开始刮下唇底下凹陷的部位。

“不是什么正经玩艺儿，”他沾沾自喜地说，“应该叫作二腿货。天晓得是哪个患了梅毒的酒疯子丢下的。我有一条好看的细条纹裤子，灰色的。你穿上一定蛮帅。金赤，我不是在开玩笑。你打扮起来，真他妈的帅。”

“谢谢，”斯蒂芬说，“要是灰色的，我可不能穿。”

“他不能穿，”勃克·穆利根对着镜中自己的脸说，“礼数终归是礼数。他害死了自己的母亲，可是不能穿灰裤子。”

他利利索索地折上剃胡刀，用手指的触须抚摩着光滑的皮肤。

斯蒂芬将视线从海面移向那张有着一双灵活的烟蓝色眼睛的胖脸。

“昨儿晚上跟我一道在‘船记’[18]的那个人，”勃克·穆利根说，“说是你患了痴麻症。他是康内利·诺曼的同事，在痴呆镇工作[19]。痴呆性全身麻痹症。”

他用镜子在空中划了半个圈子，以便把这消息散发到正灿烂地照耀着海面的阳光中去。他撇着剃得干干净净的嘴唇笑了，露出发着白光的齿尖。笑声攫住了他那整个结实强壮的身子。

“瞧瞧你自己，”他说，“你这丑陋的‘大诗人’。”

斯蒂芬弯下身去照了照举在跟前的镜子。镜面上有一道弯曲的裂纹，映在镜中的脸被劈成两半，头发倒竖着。他和旁人眼里的我就是这样的。是谁为我挑选了这么一张脸？这只要把寄生虫除掉的小狗。它也在这么问我。

“是我从老妈子屋里抄来的，”勃克·穆利根说。“对她就该当如此。姑妈总是派没啥姿色的仆人去伺候玛拉基。不叫他受到诱惑[20]。而她的名字叫乌水苏拉[21]。”

他又笑着，把斯蒂芬直勾勾地望着的镜子挪开了。

“凯列班在镜中照不见自己的脸时所感到的愤怒，”[22]他说。“要是王尔德还在世，瞧见你这副尊容，该有多妙。”

斯蒂芬后退了几步，指着镜子沉痛地说：

“这就是爱尔兰艺术的象征。仆人的一面有裂纹的镜子[23]。”

勃克·穆利根突然挽住斯蒂芬的一只胳膊，同他一道在塔顶上转悠。揣在兜里的剃胡刀和镜子发出相互碰撞的丁当声。

“像这样拿你取笑是不公道的，金赤，对吗?”他亲切地说。“老天晓得，你比他们当中的任何人都有骨气。”

又把话题岔开了。他惧怕我的艺术尖刀，正如我害怕他的冷酷无情的钢笔。

“仆人用的有裂纹的镜子。把这话讲给楼下那个牛津家伙[24]听，向他挤出一基尼[25]。他浑身发散着铜臭气，没把你看成有身份的人。他老子要么是把药喇叭[26]根做成的泻药卖给了祖鲁人[27]，要么就是靠干下了什么鬼骗局发的家。喂，金赤，要是咱俩通力合作，兴许倒能为本岛干出点名堂来。把它希腊化了[28]。”

克兰利的胳膊[29]。他的胳膊。

“想想看，你竟然得向那些猪猡告帮!我是唯一赏识你的人。你为什么不更多地信任我呢?你凭什么对我鼻子朝天呢?是海恩斯吗?要是他在这儿稍微一闹腾，我就把西摩[30]带来，我们会狠狠地收拾他一顿，比他们收拾克莱夫·肯普索普的那次还要厉害。”

从克莱夫·肯普索普的房间里传出阔少们的喊叫声。一张张苍白的面孔，他们抱在一起，捧腹大笑。唉呀。我快断气啦!要委婉地向她透露这消息，奥布里[31]!我这就要死啦!他围着桌子一瘸一拐地跑，衬衫被撕成一条条的，像缎带一般在空中呼扇着，裤子脱落到脚后跟上[32]，被麦达伦学院那个手里拿着裁缝大剪刀的埃德斯追赶着。糊满了桔子酱的脸惊惶得像头小牛犊。别扒下我的裤子!你们别拿我当呆牛耍着玩!

从敞开着的窗户传出的喧嚷声，惊动了方院的暮色。耳聋的花匠系着围裙，有着一张像煞马修·阿诺德[33]的脸，沿着幽幽的草坪推着割草机，仔细地盯着草茎屑末的飞舞。

我们自己……新异教教义……中心[34]。

“让他呆下去吧，”斯蒂芬说。“他只不过是夜间不对头罢了。”

“那么，是怎么回事?”勃克·穆利根不耐烦地问道。“干脆说吧。我对你是直言不讳的。现在你有什么跟我过不去的呢？”

他们停下脚步，眺望着布莱岬角[35]那钝角形的海岬——它就像一条酣睡中的鲸的鼻尖，浮在水面上。斯蒂芬轻轻地抽出胳膊。

“你要我告诉你吗?”他问。

“嗯，是怎么回事?”勃克·穆利根回答说。“我一点儿也记不起来啦。”

他边说边端详斯蒂芬的脸。微风掠过他的额头，轻拂着他那未经梳理的淡黄头发，使焦灼不安的银光在他的眼睛里晃动。

斯蒂芬边说边被自己的声音弄得很沮丧：

“你记得我母亲去世后，我头一次去你家那天的事吗?”

勃克·穆利根马上皱起眉头，说：

“什么?哪儿？我什么也记不住。我只记得住观念和感觉[36]。你为什么问这个?天哪，到底发生了什么事？”

“你在沏茶，”斯蒂芬说，“我穿过楼梯平台去添开水。你母亲和一位客人从客厅里走出来。她问你，谁在你的房间里。”

“咦?”勃克·穆利根说。“我说什么来看?我可忘啦。”

“你是这么说的，”斯蒂芬回答道，“哦，只不过是迪达勒斯呗，他母亲死得像头畜生。”

勃克·穆利根的两颊骤然泛红了，使他显得更年轻而有魅力。

“我是这么说的吗?”他问道。“啊？那又碍什么事?”

他神经质地晃了晃身子，摆脱了自己的狼狈心情。

“死亡又是什么呢?”他问道，“你母亲也罢，你也罢，我自己也罢。你只瞧见了你母亲的死。我在圣母和里奇蒙[37]那里，每天都看见他们突然咽气，在解剖室里被开膛破肚。这是畜生也会有的那种事情，仅此而已。你母亲弥留之际，要你跪下来为她祷告，你却拒绝了。为什么？因为你身上有可诅咒的耶稣会士的气质，只不过到了你身上就拧啦。对我来说，这完全是个嘲讽，畜生也会有的事儿。她的脑叶失灵了。她管大夫叫彼得·蒂亚泽爵士[38]，还把被子上的毛莨饰花拽下来。哄着她，直到她咽气为止呗。你拒绝满足她生前最后的一个愿望，却又跟我怄气，因为我不肯像拉鲁哀特殡仪馆花钱雇来的送葬人那样号丧。荒唐!我想必曾这么说过吧。可我无意损害你母亲死后的名声。”

他越说越理直气壮了。斯蒂芬遮掩着这些话语在他心坎上留下的创伤，极其冷漠地说：

“我想的不是你对我母亲的损害。”

“那么你想的是什么呢?”勃克·穆利根问。

“是对我的损害，”斯蒂芬回答说。

勃克·穆利根用脚后跟转了个圈儿。

“哎呀，你这家伙可真难缠!”他嚷道。

他沿着胸墙疾步走开。斯蒂芬依然站在原地，目光越过风平浪静的海洋，朝那岬角望去。此刻，海面和岬角朦朦胧胧地混为一片了。他两眼的脉搏在跳动，视线模糊了，感到双颊在发热。

从塔里传来朗声喊叫：

“穆利根，你在上边吗？”

“我这就来，”勃克·穆利根回答说。

他朝斯蒂芬转过身来，并说：

“瞧瞧这片大海。它哪里在乎什么损害?跟罗耀拉[39]断绝关系，金赤，下来吧。那个撒克逊征服者[40]早餐要吃煎火腿片。”

他的脑袋在最高一级梯磴那儿又停了一下，这样就刚好同塔顶一般齐了。

“不要成天为这档子事闷闷不乐。我这个人就是有一搭无一搭的。别再那么苦思冥想啦。”

他的头消失了，然而楼梯口传来他往下走时的低吟声：

莫再扭过脸儿去忧虑，

沉浸在爱情那苦涩的奥秘里，

因黄铜车由弗格斯驾驭[41]。

树林的阴影穿过清晨的寂静，从楼梯口悄然无声地飘向他正在眺望着的大海。岸边和海面上，明镜般的海水正泛起一片白色，好像是被登着轻盈的鞋疾跑着的脚踹起来的一般。朦胧的海洋那雪白的胸脯。重音节成双地交融在一起。一只手拨弄着竖琴，琴弦交错，发出谐音。一对对的浪白色歌词闪烁在幽暗的潮水上。

一片云彩开始徐徐地把太阳整个儿遮住，海湾在阴影下变得越发浓绿了。这钵苦水就躺在他脚下。弗格斯之歌，我独自在家里吟唱，抑制着那悠长、阴郁的和音。她的门敞开着，她巴望听到我的歌声。怀着畏惧与怜悯，我悄悄地走近她床头。她在那张简陋的床上哭泣着。为了这一句，斯蒂芬，爱情那苦涩的奥秘。

而今在何处？

她的秘藏：她那上了锁的抽屉里有几把陈旧的羽毛扇、麝香熏过的带穗子的舞会请帖和一串廉价的琥珀珠子。少女时代，她家那浴满阳光的窗户上挂着一只鸟笼。她曾听过老罗伊斯在童话剧《可怕的土耳克》[42]中演唱，而当他这么唱的时候，她就跟旁人一起笑了：

我就是那男孩

能够领略随心所欲地

隐身的愉快。

幻影般的欢乐被贮存起来了，用麝香熏过的。

莫再扭过脸儿去忧虑……

随着她那些小玩艺儿，被贮存在大自然的记忆中了[43]。往事如烟，袭上他那郁闷的心头。当她将领圣体[44]时，她那一玻璃杯从厨房的水管里接来的凉水。在昏暗的秋日傍晚，炉架上为她焙着的一个去了核、填满红糖的苹果。由于替孩子们掐衬衫上的虱子，她那秀丽的指甲被血染红了。

在一个梦中，她悄悄地来到他身旁。她那枯稿的身躯裹在宽松的衣衾里，散发出蜡和黄檀的气味。她朝他俯下身去，向他诉说着无声的密语，她的呼吸有着一股淡淡的湿灰气味。

为了震撼并制伏我的灵魂，她那双呆滞无神的眼睛，从死亡中直勾勾地盯着我。只盯着我一人。那只避邪蜡烛照着她弥留之际的痛苦。幽灵般的光投射在她那备受折磨的脸上。当大家跪下来祷告时，她那嗄哑响亮的呼吸发出恐怖的呼噜呼噜声。她两眼盯着我，想迫使我下跪。饰以百合的光明的司铎群来伴尔，极乐圣童贞之群高唱赞歌来迎尔[45]。

食尸鬼[46]!啖尸肉者!

不，妈妈!由着我，让我活下去吧。

“喂，金赤!”

圆塔里响起勃克·穆利根的嗓音。它沿着楼梯上来，靠近了，又喊了一声。斯蒂芬依然由于灵魂的呼唤而浑身发颤，听到了倾泻而下的温煦阳光以及背后的空气中那友善的话语。

“迪达勒斯，下来吧，乖乖地快点儿挪窝吧。早点做好了。海恩斯为夜里把咱们吵醒的事宜表示歉意。一切都好啦。”

“我这就来，”斯蒂芬转过身来说。

“看在耶稣的面上，来吧，”勃克·穆利根说。“为了我，也为了咱们大家。”

他的头消失了，接着又露了出来。

“我同他谈起你那爱尔兰艺术的象征。他说，非常聪明。向他讨一镑好不好?我是说，一个基尼。”

“今儿早晨我就领薪水了，”斯蒂芬说。

“学校那份儿吗?”勃克·穆利根说。“多少呀?四镑？借给咱一镑。”

“如果你要的话，”斯蒂芬说。

“四枚闪闪发光的金镑，”勃克·穆利根兴高采烈地嚷道。“咱们要豪饮一通，把那些正宗的德鲁伊特[47]吓一跳。四枚万能的金镑。”

他抡起双臂，咚咚地走下石梯，用东伦敦口音荒腔走调地喝道：

啊，咱们快乐一番好吗?

喝威士忌、啤酒和葡萄酒，

为了加冕，

加冕日。

啊，咱们快乐一番好吗?

为了加冕日[48]。

暖洋洋的日光在海面上嬉戏着。镍质肥皂钵在胸墙上发着亮光，被遗忘了。我何必非把它带去不可呢?要么就把它撂在那儿一整天吧，被遗忘的友谊?

他走过去，将它托在手里一会儿，触摸着那股凉劲儿，闻着里面戳着刷子的肥皂沫那粘液的气味。当年在克朗戈伍斯[49]我曾提过香炉[50]。如今我换了个人，可又是同一个人。依然是个奴仆。一个奴仆的奴仆[51]。

在塔内那间有着拱顶的幽暗起居室里，穿着浴衣的勃克·穆利根的身姿，在炉边敏捷地镀来镀去，淡黄色的火焰随之忽隐忽现。穿过高高的堞口，两束柔和的阳光落到石板地上。光线汇合处，一簇煤烟以及煎油脂的气味飘浮着，打着旋涡。

“咱们都快闷死啦，”勃克·穆利根说。“海恩斯，打开那扇门，好吗?”

斯蒂芬将那只刮胡子用的钵撂在橱柜上。坐在吊床上的高个子站起来，走向门道，拉开内侧的两扇门。

“你有钥匙吗?”一个声音问道。

“在迪达勒斯手里，”勃克·穆利根说。“老爷爷，我都给呛死啦。”

他两眼依热望着炉火，咆哮