The reading stopped at ". . . or some place." (13.465)
Summary:
There is more background information about Gerty on these pages. We read about Gerty's intense yearning to find a husband (her longing after a manly man with a strong quiet face, 13.210), her current home-life (father who was a prey to the fumes of intoxication (13.299), her snuff-taking mother, who gets raging splitting headaches (13.327), and even the picture of halcyon days (13.334) that she had tacked on the wall of that place - the toilet), and about the tension amongst herself, Cissy Caffrey and Edy Boardman, who were introduced to us at the beginning of the episode as three girl friends (13.9).
It is with the description of Jacky and Tommy playing with the ball that a gentleman in black sitting there by himself (13.349) is brought into the picture. This part establishes the link between Joyce's Nausicaa in Ulysses and Homer's Nausicaa in the Odyssey. Gerty, who becomes aware of the gentleman, is very quick to forget all about Reggy Wylie, the boy who used to ride a bicycle in front of her window and to transfer her affections and daydreams to him.
When all this is going on, sounds of the recitation of the litany of Our Lady of Loreto (13.287) in the church nearby, where the men's temperance retreat was being conducted (13.282), are carried over to the strand.
