We stopped at "... gradual discolouration." (Penguin 830.20), (Gabler 17.1319)
Bloom - our rational man - concludes, after being confronted with the spectacle of the night sky, that it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not a heavenman. {The use of the word heaventree has been the focus of much discussion. See an example here (original in the library of Zürich James Joyce Foundation). It is also the subject of a work of the British painter, Richard Hamilton, and has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at the British Museum as well as at Tate in London.}
Bloom does not believe in any heaven. For him it is rather like an Utopia, the imaginary island of Thomas More. In any case, he says that there is no known method from the known (earth) to the unknown (heaven), and that if the stars represent the past, then it possibly had ceased to exist before we, the spectators, entered our actual present. Is Bloom (Joyce?) referring here to the speed of light and the astronomical distances to the stars that make us conscience of the existence of a star even though it may have ceased to exist long before its light reaches us?
Bloom also does not believe in the influence of these heavenly bodies on the disasters that happen here on earth. But he is quite aware of the esthetic value/beauty of what he and Stephen are observing. Special affinities appear to him to exist between the moon and woman, though almost every aspect mentioned in the list that follows applies basically only to the moon! With, perhaps, the exception of this beautiful sentence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.
By then the dim light of a paraffin lamp in the second story of the house attracts their attention. It is a visible splendid sign. Here there are two allusions, the first to the meeting between Cato and Dante and Virgil as they approach the Mount of Purgatory; the second to the ceremony of Sacrament as the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace. Molly as Beatrice? Molly as Mary?
At Stephen's suggestion (he had drunk lots the previous evening), both of them urinate. We are told about the trajectories they reach now, reached as kids and about the problems (Bloom's thoughts in this matter focus on the physical aspects, Stephen's on religious ones, on the circumcision of Jesus, on the divine excrescences as hair and toenails) each thinks of in connection with the other's invisible audible collateral organ.
They see a shooting star. Finally Bloom opens the garden door, they shake hands and Stephen leaves. Right at that moment, the bells of the nearby Church of Saint George chime. The sound makes Stephen think of the prayer recited at his mother's deathbed (Penguin p. 11: Liliata rutilantium te confessorum... / May the crowd of joyful confessors encompass thee...), whereas Bloom hears in the chime, Heigho! Heigho! just as he had heard them that morning when he was leaving home to go to Paddy Dignam's funeral (Penguin p. 85).
Stephen leaves. Out of Bloom's house, out of this novel, and thus out of Bloom's and our lives. Bloom is all alone. Dawn is about to break. Like Stephen, Bloom has been awake the whole night. The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the apparition of a new solar disk make him linger for a while in the garden. He is not eager to go to bed though he is actually not a nocturnal person. The only other time he had witnessed the slow disappearance of night (according to Jewish tradition, if one can see three stars, it is still night), and the spreading of the diffuse light of dawn was in 1887, almost twenty years ago.
Bloom, all alone, feels the cold of the interstellar space! He thinks of many of his comrades who are no more. He crosses the garden, reenters the passage, goes up the stairs. As he goes into the front room, he hits his head against the walnut sideboard, which has been rearranged along with the plume plush sofa, the blue and white checker inlaid majolica topped table, a rectangular rug with upturned fringe, and two chairs - one a squat stuffed easychair, and the other a slender splayfoot one of glossy cane curves. (Naturally the latter signal Boylan and Molly). There are additional signs in the room of its recent occupants: a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves on a vertical piano, an ashtray with used matches and cigarettes, and music sheets of Love's Old Sweet Song. Bloom experiences different kinds of emotions as he observes the current state of the furniture in the room. The sight of the gradual discolouration of the seat of the easychair, in particular, seems to evoke pleasant thoughts in Bloom.
Finally, the question remains as to why on earth would Molly wear long yellow gloves to practice a song at home with Boylan! Remember the color of her gloves is the same as that of the dressing gown Buck Mulligan wore the previous morning as he ascended the stairs of the Martello tower to shave (Penguin, p.1). The symbolism of the colour yellow depends on culture, religion, etc. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols (p.1138, edition: 1996), 'yellow was associated with adultery since the sacred bonds of marriage had been snapped just as Satan had snapped the bonds of divine love.'
Wikipedia writes the following: 'In the Roman Catholic church, yellow symbolizes gold, and the golden key to the Kingdom of Heaven, which Christ gave to Saint Peter... Golden haloes mark the saints in religious paintings. Yellow also has a negative meaning, symbolizing betrayal; Judas Iscariot is usually portrayed wearing a pale yellow toga, and without a halo.'
Bloom - our rational man - concludes, after being confronted with the spectacle of the night sky, that it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not a heavenman. {The use of the word heaventree has been the focus of much discussion. See an example here (original in the library of Zürich James Joyce Foundation). It is also the subject of a work of the British painter, Richard Hamilton, and has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at the British Museum as well as at Tate in London.}
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| (The heaventree of stars by Richard Hamilton) |
Bloom also does not believe in the influence of these heavenly bodies on the disasters that happen here on earth. But he is quite aware of the esthetic value/beauty of what he and Stephen are observing. Special affinities appear to him to exist between the moon and woman, though almost every aspect mentioned in the list that follows applies basically only to the moon! With, perhaps, the exception of this beautiful sentence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.
By then the dim light of a paraffin lamp in the second story of the house attracts their attention. It is a visible splendid sign. Here there are two allusions, the first to the meeting between Cato and Dante and Virgil as they approach the Mount of Purgatory; the second to the ceremony of Sacrament as the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace. Molly as Beatrice? Molly as Mary?
At Stephen's suggestion (he had drunk lots the previous evening), both of them urinate. We are told about the trajectories they reach now, reached as kids and about the problems (Bloom's thoughts in this matter focus on the physical aspects, Stephen's on religious ones, on the circumcision of Jesus, on the divine excrescences as hair and toenails) each thinks of in connection with the other's invisible audible collateral organ.
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| (Old church of St. George at the end of Eccles Street. Note that the clocks on the clock tower show different times!) |
Stephen leaves. Out of Bloom's house, out of this novel, and thus out of Bloom's and our lives. Bloom is all alone. Dawn is about to break. Like Stephen, Bloom has been awake the whole night. The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the apparition of a new solar disk make him linger for a while in the garden. He is not eager to go to bed though he is actually not a nocturnal person. The only other time he had witnessed the slow disappearance of night (according to Jewish tradition, if one can see three stars, it is still night), and the spreading of the diffuse light of dawn was in 1887, almost twenty years ago.
Bloom, all alone, feels the cold of the interstellar space! He thinks of many of his comrades who are no more. He crosses the garden, reenters the passage, goes up the stairs. As he goes into the front room, he hits his head against the walnut sideboard, which has been rearranged along with the plume plush sofa, the blue and white checker inlaid majolica topped table, a rectangular rug with upturned fringe, and two chairs - one a squat stuffed easychair, and the other a slender splayfoot one of glossy cane curves. (Naturally the latter signal Boylan and Molly). There are additional signs in the room of its recent occupants: a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves on a vertical piano, an ashtray with used matches and cigarettes, and music sheets of Love's Old Sweet Song. Bloom experiences different kinds of emotions as he observes the current state of the furniture in the room. The sight of the gradual discolouration of the seat of the easychair, in particular, seems to evoke pleasant thoughts in Bloom.
Finally, the question remains as to why on earth would Molly wear long yellow gloves to practice a song at home with Boylan! Remember the color of her gloves is the same as that of the dressing gown Buck Mulligan wore the previous morning as he ascended the stairs of the Martello tower to shave (Penguin, p.1). The symbolism of the colour yellow depends on culture, religion, etc. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols (p.1138, edition: 1996), 'yellow was associated with adultery since the sacred bonds of marriage had been snapped just as Satan had snapped the bonds of divine love.'
Wikipedia writes the following: 'In the Roman Catholic church, yellow symbolizes gold, and the golden key to the Kingdom of Heaven, which Christ gave to Saint Peter... Golden haloes mark the saints in religious paintings. Yellow also has a negative meaning, symbolizing betrayal; Judas Iscariot is usually portrayed wearing a pale yellow toga, and without a halo.'
