Page 179 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It’s all the
same. Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley.
Pomp of death. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood
by his barrow of cakes and fruit. Simnel cakes those are,

stuck together: cakes for the dead. Dogbiscuits. Who ate
them? Mourners coming out.
He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned
Lambert followed, Hynes walking after them. Corny
Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took out the two
wreaths. He handed one to the boy.
Where is that child’s funeral disappeared to?
A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling
plodding tread, dragging through the funereal silence a
creaking waggon on which lay a granite block. The
waggoner marching at their head saluted.
Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse
looking round at it with his plume skeowways. Dull eye:
collar tight on his neck, pressing on a bloodvessel or
something. Do they know what they cart out here every
day? Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then
Mount Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the
world everywhere every minute. Shovelling them under
by the cartload doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too
many in the world.

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