The Annotated "Ulysses"/Page 007
Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:
— It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant.
Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen’s and walked with him
round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had
thrust them.
— It’s not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. God
knows you have more spirit than any of them.
Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The cold
steel pen.
— Cracked lookingglass of a servant. Tell that to the oxy chap down-
stairs and touch him for a guinea. He’s stinking with money and thinks
you’re not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus
or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only
work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise it.
Cranly’s arm. His arm.
— And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I’m the only
one that knows what you are. Why don’t you trust me more? What have
you up your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I’ll
bring down Seymour and we’ll give him a ragging worse than they gave
Clive Kempthorpe.
Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe’s rooms. Pale-
faces : they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another, O, I shall
expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit ribbons
of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the table, with
trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the tailor’s shears.
A scared calf’s face gilded with marmalade. I don’t want to be debagged! Don’t
you play the giddy ox with me!
Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A
deaf gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold’s face, pushes his mower
on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms.
To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos.
— Let him stay, Stephen said. There’s nothing wrong with him except at
night.
— Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I’m
quite frank with you. What have you against me now?
They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the
water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly.
Annotations
[edit]lancet of my art Stephen is afraid of Mulligan's surgeon's scalpel, but Mulligan is afraid of Stephen's weapon - his pen (ie. he does not want to be portrayed unfavourably in a future literary work by Stephen).