Part 28 (1/2)

--How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't seen you for a month of Sundays.

--Never better. How are all in Cork's own town?

--I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with d.i.c.k Tivy.

--And how is d.i.c.k, the solid man?

--Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.

--By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. d.i.c.k Tivy bald?

--Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said, pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the insurance is cleared up.

--Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front?

--Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is behind. He put down his name for a quid.

--I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.

--How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what?

--Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh.

They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood behind the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three s.h.i.+llings to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin into the chapel. Which end is his head?

After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.

A server bearing a bra.s.s bucket with something in it came out through a door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly.

Who'll read the book? I, said the rook.

They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book with a fluent croak.

Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Domine-namine._ Bully about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: burst sideways.

_--Non intres in judicium c.u.m servo tuo, Domine._

Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem ma.s.s.

c.r.a.pe weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too.

What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you're a goner.

My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better.

The priest took a stick with a k.n.o.b at the end of it out of the boy's bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you were before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it.

_--Et ne nos inducas in tentationem._

The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course ...

Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.