The reading stopped at ". . . oriental incense." (17.1332)
Summary:
After Bloom suggests that Stephen should sleep that night in his house, and after the offer is politely refused, both of them go out of the house and into the garden. In the garden they witness the spectacle of starry night (heaventree). Here Joyce makes full use of his intention of making this episode, Ithaca, a mathematico-astronomico-physico-mechanico- geometrico-chemico sublimation of Bloom and Stephen. Under the heavenly stars, Bloom is in his elements. He talks of stars, of planets and their features, of constellations, of evolution, of the geographical history of the earth, and so on. He has problems with believing in a redeemer, with the idea of redemption. According to him the minor was proved by the major. In other words, redemption is 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 (Gifford, 17.1102).
Bloom does not believe in any heaven. For him it is rather like the Utopia, the imaginary island of Thomas More. He does not also believe in the influence of these heavenly bodies on the disasters that happen here on earth. But he is quite aware of the aesthetic beauty of what he and Stephen are observing.
By then the dim light of a paraffin lamp in the second story of the house attracts their attention. This visible splendid sign hints at an invisible attractive person. There are two allusions here: the first to the meeting between Cato and Dante and Virgil as they approach the Mount of Purgatory; the second to the Ceremony of Sacrament as the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual Grace. Molly as Beatrice. Molly as Mary.
At Stephen's suggestion both of them urinate. We are told about the trajectories they reach now and reached as kids. . . . Finally Bloom opens the garden door, shakes Stephen's hands, who then leaves. Right at that moment, the bells of the nearby Church of Saint George chime. The sound makes Stephen think of the prayer recited at his mother's deathbed whereas Bloom hears in the chime, Heigho, heigho, just as he had heard them that morning as he came out of the outdoor toilet.
Stephen leaves. Bloom, all alone, feels the cold of the interstellar space. He thinks of many of his comrades who are no more. He crosses the garden, reenters the passage, goes up the stairs. As he goes into the front room, he hits his head against the walnut sideboard, which, in his absence, has been rearranged along with other furniture. He experiences different kinds of emotions as he observes the current state of the furniture in the room.
Bloom then takes out an incense cone igniting it, fumigates the room in which Boylan has been, just like Odysseus fumigates his palace after the suitors have been killed.
(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)
