Tuesday 5 November 2013

Tuesday, 5 November 2013, Pages 762 - 771, Eumaeus, Episode 16

Today we stopped at "who made toys or airs and John Bull" 
16.1769 (Gabler), p. 771 (Penguin)



Bloom is still silently enjoying, with some self-satisfaction, the retort he snapped at the fanatical nationalist in Cyclops. He dislikes the way the cabmen talk about and laugh at Parnell, though, and he also regrets that Stephen should waste his time in brothels and risk catching venereal disease. Many of Bloom's thoughts about Stephen and his words to him are inspired by his mistaken interpretation of him, though. We continue to see and enjoy various (failed) attempts by Bloom (but also by Stephen) to sound original, as e.g. in the following muddles:

But something substantial he certainly ought to eat, were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled.
(Bloom's inventive wording for "egg")

-- At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired though unwrinkled face.
(Bloom's alternative to a simple "when?")

Stephen:
-- One thing I never understood, he said, to be original on the spur of the moment, why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs upside down on the tables In cafes.
Bloom:
At least he would be in safe hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet.
(Bloom's muddle out of as warm as toast and as right as a trivet)


It gets late, time to retire, Bloom would like to take Stephen home with him but doesn't know how to word his invitation and turns around various possible phrasings in his head (and he also remembers that, the last time he took a lame dog home for the night, Molly got rather angry). He would also like to help Stephen materially. Finally, he manages to make him leave the shelter with him in what is made to look like a mysterious, high tension, gangsteresque paying-for-the-drinks-and-leaving-swiftly-scene.

Outside, talk turns to the subject of music and Stephen, who has been rather silent, loosens up a little. He is not very firm on his legs, though, and Bloom goes to his side to support him. He says to him, "The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man. It's not far. Lean on me". He passes his arm in Stephens and leads him on. Stephen replies "Yes", uncertainly, "because he thought he felt a strange kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and all that". Stephen, who rather dislikes physical contact, does feel a different man, but that different man is Bloom. Bloom and Stephen are talking at cross purposes all the time here - Bloom wanting to show that he knows, Stephen talking without explaining or caring. Incidentally, "sinewless" and "wobbly" are adjectives that would describe rather well the way in which this chapter is written.