everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes pro rata having a comfortable
tidysized income, in no niggard fashion either, something in the neighbourhood
of £ 300 per annum That’s the vital issue at stake and it’s feasible and would
be provocative of friendlier intercourse between man and man. At least that’s
my idea for what it’s worth. I call that patriotism. Ubi patria, as we learned a
small smattering of in our classical day in Alma Mater, vita beni. Where you
can live well, the sense is, if you work.
Over his untasteable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular. He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning, burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or didn’t say the words the voice he heard said — if you work.
— Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning to work.
The eyes were surprised at this observation, because as he, the person who owned them pro. tem. observed, or rather, his voice speaking did : All must work, have to, together.
— I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest possible sense. Also literary labour, not merely for the kudos of the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel nowadays. That’s work too. Important work. After all, from the little I know of you, after all the money expended on your education, you are entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. Each is equally important.
— You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may be important because I belong to the faubourg Saint-Patrice called Ireland for short.
— I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.
— But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me.
— What belongs? queried Mr Bloom, bending, fancying he was perhaps under some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately I didn’t catch the latter portion. What was it you?...
Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of coffee, or whatever you like to call it, none too politely, adding :
— We can’t change the country. Let us change the subject.
