Page 793 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his
hands, his head going back till both hands are a span from his
breast, down turned, in planes intersecting, the fingers about to

part, the left being higher.)
LYNCH: Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That
or the customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch
and walk.
(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and,
clasping, climbs in spasms. From the top spur he slides down.
Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. The navvy lurches against the
lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark. The navvy, swaying,
presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and ejects from the
farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he
staggers away through the crowd with his flaring cresset.
Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools,
middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the
south beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy,
staggering forward, cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the
tramsiding on the farther side under the railway bridge bloom
appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a
sidepocket. From Gillen’s hairdresser’s window a composite
portrait shows him gallant Nelson’s image. A concave mirror at
the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom.
Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. he passes,

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