The Annotated "Ulysses"/Page 074

by James Joyce

He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently champing
teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the sweet oaten
reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they know or care
about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too full for words.
Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded too : a stump of
black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might be happy all
the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their neigh can be very
irritating.

He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he
carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.

He passed the cabman’s shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies,
all weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio e non.
Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying syllables as
they pass. He hummed :

Là ci darem la mano

La la lala la la.

He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the
lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and
tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its for-
gotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at
marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking
sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a
piece out of his mantel not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles
when I went to that old dame’s school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis’s.
And Mr? He opened the letter within the newspaper.

A flower. I think it’s a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not annoyed
then? What does she say?

Dear Henry,

I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry
you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am awfully
angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you naughty
boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the real