Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/205

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
202

And from her arms.

Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will woo you?

Read the skies. Autontimerumenos. Bous Stephanoumenos. Where's your configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D: sua donna. Già: di lui. Gelindo risolve di non amar. S. D.

—What is that, Mr Dedalus? the quaker librarian asked. Was it a celestial phenomenon?

—A star by night, Stephen said, a pillar of the cloud by day.

What more's to speak?

Stephen looked on his hat, his stick, his boots.

Stephanos, my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of my feet. Buy a pair. Holes in my socks. Handkerchief too.

—You make good use of the name, John Eglinton allowed. Your own name is strange enough. I suppose it explains your fantastical humour.

Me, Magee and Mulligan.

Fabulous artificer, the hawklike man. You flew. Whereto? Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Icarus. Pater, ait. Seabedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing he.

Mr Best eagerquietly lifted his book to say:

—That's very interesting because that brother motive, don't you know, we find also in the old Irish myths. Just what you say. The three brothers Shakespeare. In Grimm too, don't you know, the fairytales. The third brother that marries the sleeping beauty and wins the best prize.

Best of Best brothers. Good, better, best.

The quaker librarian springhalted near.

—I should like to know, he said, which brother you… I understand you to suggest there was misconduct with one of the brothers… But perhaps I am anticipating?

He caught himself in the act: looked at all: refrained.

An attendant from the doorway called:

—Mr Lyster! Father Dineen wants…

—O! Father Dineen! Directly.

Swiftly rectly creaking rectly rectly he was rectly gone.

John Eglinton touched the foil.

—Come, he said. Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and Edmund. You kept them for the last, didn't you?

—In asking you to remember those two noble kinsmen nuncle Richie