Page 759 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of
bright trinketware (alas! a thing now of the past!) and a
quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwon
housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a

budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell
me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile, but,
more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address,
brought home at duskfall many a commission to the head
of the firm, seated with Jacob’s pipe after like labours in
the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is
aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some
paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto,
the mirror is breathed on and the young knighterrant
recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a tiny speck within the mist.
Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be
his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own
child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard
by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a
poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for
a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the
heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass
the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will
never forget the name, ever remember the night: first
night, the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost

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