Friday 12 March 2021

Online reading on Thursday, 11 March 2021 (10.716)

The last reading stopped at: “sister Monica!” (10.716)

Summary:

We meet on these pages many more Dubliners: Tom Rochford, Nosey Flynn, Lenehan, M'Coy, Bloom, Dilly and Simon Dedalus, among others.

We follow the conversation between Lenehan and M'Coy as they walk down Sycamore street. Of the two, Lenehan is the one who has many tales to tell. To start with, he is full of praise for Tom Rochford, who had once gone down a manhole to rescue a worker stuck inside. They think of the Gold cup horse race that was to take place that afternoon at Ascot Heath. Under Merchant's arch, they see a darkbacked figure scanning books on the hawker's cart (10.521). This glimpse of Mr Bloom inspires Lenehan to quote the song, Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye. He also recites in great detail how once he had shared a ride late at night with Bloom and his wife after the annual dinner at Glencree reformatory. Lenehan's description of how every jolt the bloody car gave had her bumping up against (10.558) him leaves M'Coy unmoved damping Lenehan's spirits.

We also observe how our Bloom turns over idly pages of many books in a shabby bookshop before deciding to buy for Molly the book, Sweets of Sin for Molly.

We see Dilly Dedalus waiting for her father in front of Dillon's auction rooms. We had known from an earlier scene with Katey, Maggy and Boody Dedalus that Dilly had gone to meet their father. Dilly wants to get some money from him. When Simon Dedalus finally turns up there, he tries at first to distract Dilly from her intentions. On being asked directly whether he got any money, he tells her, “There is no-one in Dublin would lend me fourpence (10.669).” But Dilly is an old hand at this game. She manages to extract a shilling and two pennies from her father. Simon Dedalus, not charmed by his daughter's insistence, walks off, murmuring to himself. After he hands over two copper pennies to Dilly, telling her, “Get a glass of milk for yourself and a bun or something (10.706)”, and walks muttering to himself about little nuns ... little sister Monica (10.716) - a reference to Sz. Monica's almshouse -, the viceregal cavalcade passes.

 (Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)