The last reading stopped mid-paragraph at: “made haste to reply.” (10.1236)
Please note that the reading will continue over Easter: The group is convening as usual on April 1, Maundy Thursday (Gründonnerstag).
Summary:
Next we meet Mulligan and Haines, sitting in D. B. C. (Dublin Bakery Company) enjoying melange with real Irish cream. They are talking about Stephen. Mulligan declares his personal judgement on Stephen: “He can never be a poet. . . . ” (10.1074) and adds, “He is going to write something in ten years” (10.1089). Mulligan's prophecy that Stephen is going to write something in ten years must be noted in conjunction with two dates: the year (1904) Joyce assigns as the year of his Ulysses and the year (1914) in which he starts to write Ulysses. Another hint that Stephen is the alter ego of J. J.
Next we meet Mulligan and Haines, sitting in D. B. C. (Dublin Bakery Company) enjoying melange with real Irish cream. They are talking about Stephen. Mulligan declares his personal judgement on Stephen: “He can never be a poet. . . . ” (10.1074) and adds, “He is going to write something in ten years” (10.1089). Mulligan's prophecy that Stephen is going to write something in ten years must be noted in conjunction with two dates: the year (1904) Joyce assigns as the year of his Ulysses and the year (1914) in which he starts to write Ulysses. Another hint that Stephen is the alter ego of J. J.
We also meet some Dubliners, whom we had met in earlier episodes: Stephen's teacher, Almidano Artifoni, Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tindall Farrell, and a blind stripling.
The most engaging and moving section of the entire episode is the one where we meet Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, whose father was buried just that morning. We experience death and its effects from the eyes and minds of a young boy. Seeing schoolboys, young Dignam wonders whether they notice that he is in mourning. He recalls how his dead father looked: His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a fly walking over it up to his eye (10.1161). The finality of death strikes the young fellow when he thinks, that he will never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead (10.1169). Young Dignam finally hopes that his father is in purgatory now because he went to confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night (10.1173).
The last section of the episode summarizes the passing of the viceroy's cavalcade through Dublin and how the Dubliners we encountered in this episode react to the sight of the viceroy and his cavalcade. Some of them greet the viceroy. Some of the greeters are noticed by those in the cavalcade, and some like Thomas Kernan are not. Some like Young Dignam, whose father was buried that morning, see the cavalcade but do not recognize the personages inside. Some like Mr Breen salute the wrong carriage!
(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)
