The reading stopped at "... pallor of human beings." (Penguin 823.2), (Gabler 17.1136)
On being asked by Stephen whether he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, Bloom is on the verge of explaining that he (Bloom) could not be present at the funeral of his (Stephen's) mother, Mary Dedalus (born Goulding) on 26 June 1903, as he was keeping vigil that day. The reason being that the following day was the seventeenth death anniversary of his own father who had taken his life on 27 June 1886. But Bloom manages to suppress his urge to explain.
Bloom's offer of a bed to sleep is declined by Stephen promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully. Then Bloom returns to Stephen the money (1-7-0) he had been taking care of since the time he had rescued it from Stephen in the Nighttown. After discussing, among other things, about starting a course of Italian instruction with Stephen as the instructor and Molly as the one to be instructed, they leave the house going into the back garden with Bloom caring a lighted candle in stick and Stephen carrying his diaconal hat on ash plant. This very simple act of going out of the house assumes in the hands of Joyce biblical proportions. Carrying of the lighted candle is compared to the Sunday vespers, the going out itself is compared to the going of the children of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness of Sinai under Moses's leadership. Psalms from King James Bible are thought of / recited. (For more details, refer to commentaries 17.1021 to 17.1031 in Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated.) Though, in addition, Dante and Virgil are also part of this grand scenario of going out of the house, Joyce does not lose sight of very ordinary happenings as shown by the following question and answer:
"For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress? For a cat."
Anyway, in the garden the spectacle of the heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit confronts them. Here Joyce makes full use of his intention of making this episode, Ithaca, a mathematico- astronomico- physico-mechanico-geometrico-chemico sublimation. Under the heavenly stars, Bloom is in his elements. He talks of the stars, of the planets and their features, of the constellations, of evolution, of the geographical history of the earth, and so on. He has problems with believing in a redeemer, with redemption. He says: "The minor was proved by the major." In other words (Gifford, 17.1102), redemption was doubtful. The major premise of Bloom's answer: humanoid existence on other planets is possible, but if it exists, it will be human and therefore vain. The minor premise: since vain, redemption would be doubtful.
