Page 693 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with three
colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the
City Arms with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty
different colours. Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass

flashing. That’s how that wise man what’s his name with
the burning glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can’t
be tourists’ matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry rub
together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles in the
furze act as a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have
it! My memory’s not so bad.
Ba. Who knows what they’re always flying for. Insects?
That bee last week got into the room playing with his
shadow on the ceiling. Might be the one bit me, come
back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what they say.
Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they
have to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in
storms, telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big
brutes of oceangoing steamers floundering along in the
dark, lowing out like seacows. Faugh a Ballagh! Out of
that, bloody curse to you! Others in vessels, bit of a
handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake when
the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away
for years at the ends of the earth somewhere. No ends
really because it’s round. Wife in every port they say. She

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