The reading stopped at " . . . Kingstown for England." (17.1614)
Summary:
The style of the episode still follows that of catechism with the answers taking off and getting a life of their own, often forgetting the question that was posed in the first place!
As we read on, we come to know the gifts Bloom and Molly received at their wedding and the various books* Bloom has collected. Observing these various objects displayed in the living room, Bloom feels quite happy. At the same time, he feels constrained by all the layers of clothes he has been wearing since the morning, and takes them off one by one. As he undresses, he feels the scar of a bee sting below the diaphragm. (We had heard of it earlier in Oxen of the Sun, episode 14). Odysseus also had a scar, above his knees, caused by a wild boar. That is how his old nurse, Eurycleia, could recognize him when he returned home after 20 years.
Bloom empties his pockets and takes out, and puts back, a silver coin he has had with him since the funeral of Mrs Emily Sinico**. At this point we are presented with Bloom's budget, albeit incomplete, for the previous day. We are not sure whether this list is actually written down, whether Bloom just thinks about the items.
What follows is the description of Bloom's ambitions. Two full pages follow detailing the kind of house (to be named Bloom Cottage or Saint Leopold's or Flowerville) he would have, the books that would rest on his bookshelf, the flowers that would grow in his garden, the names of shops from where he would buy the seeds necessary for his garden, the various implements he would keep, and so on. He continues to dream of the improvements he will introduce to his grounds, how he will commute to the city, the intellectual pursuits and recreations both in summer and winter he could engage in. . .
*The library at the Zurich James Joyce Foundation has copies of most of these books except for The Hidden Life of Christ. Note that a different book but with the same title was published in 2011.
** Mrs Sinico is familiar to the readers of Dubliners, Joyce's collection of short stories.
(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)
