Page 725 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

and Master Bloom, at the braggart’s side, spoke to him
calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it
was no other thing but a hubbub noise that he heard, the
discharge of fluid from the thunderhead, look you, having

taken place, and all of the order of a natural phenomenon.
But was young Boasthard’s fear vanquished by Calmer’s
words? No, for he had in his bosom a spike named
Bitterness which could not by words be done away. And
was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the
other? He was neither as much as he would have liked to
be either. But could he not have endeavoured to have
found again as in his youth the bottle Holiness that then
he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was not there to find
that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the god
Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of
Phenomenon? Heard? Why, he could not but hear unless
he had plugged him up the tube Understanding (which he
had not done). For through that tube he saw that he was
in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain
one day die as he was like the rest too a passing show. And
would he not accept to die like the rest and pass away? By
no means would he though he must nor would he make
more shows according as men do with wives which
Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book

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