that instrument talk, the VIBRATO: fifty pounds a year they say he had in
Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the STABAT MATER of
Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? Christ,
but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. Footdrill stopped.
Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner.
I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the people looking up:

QUIS EST HOMO.

Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last
words. Mozart's twelfth mass: GLORIA in that. Those old popes keen on
music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for
example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too,
chanting, regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green
Chartreuse. Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit
thick. What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own
strong basses. Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after.
Kind of a placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don't they? Gluttons, tall,
long legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it.

He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about
and bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom
glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up
at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again and he
sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the altar,
holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answered each other
in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a card:

--O God, our refuge and our strength ...

Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw
them the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass?
Glorious and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More
interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful
organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants
to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon in
their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I
schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look
down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears.
Husband learn to his surprise. God's little joke. Then out she comes.
Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and
Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes.
Salvation army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address
the meeting. How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be
in Rome: they work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too?
Bequests also: to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion.
Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.
Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in
the witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.
Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the
church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.

The priest prayed:

--Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be our
safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God restrain
him, we humbly pray!): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the
power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other wicked
spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The
women remained behind: thanksgiving.

Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate
perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.

He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all
the time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a
(whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked.
Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don't. Why didn't you tell me
before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. He
passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main door
into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble bowl
while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in the
low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a widow in
her weeds. Notice because I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. How
goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet. Better get that lotion made
up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place.
Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir.
Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of the flood. Huguenot churchyard
near there. Visit some day.

He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the
other trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral
affair. O well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made
up last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it
must have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions
book.

The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he
seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone.
The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then.
Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character.
Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his
alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid.
Smell almost cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor Whack. He ought
to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that
picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be
careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue litmus
paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts.


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