Molly from outside

(mostly her singing and her sensuality)

64? "Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks."

67? "Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.15. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot. Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the hours. Explain that morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow."

72: "— Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said. [,,,] — My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the Ulster hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.
— That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it up?"

75: "Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. [...]
P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to know."

89: "Mr Power asked:
— How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?
— O very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It's a good idea, you see...
— Are you going yourself?
— Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.
— Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now. Have you good artists?
— Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we'll have all topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in fact.
— And Madame, Mr Power said, smiling. Last but not least."

102: "— Bloom, he said, Madam Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the soprano. She's his wife.
— O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some time. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's, in Roundtown. And a good armful she was.
He looked behind through the others.
— What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.
Ned Lambert smiled.
— Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper.
— In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like that for? She had plenty of game in her then.
— Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads."


130: "— And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's prime favourite.
Lenehan gave a loud cough.
— Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a cold in the park. The gate was open."


149: "— No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for ages.
— In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily, Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know."


156? "— Are those yours, Mary?
— I don't wear such things... Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Out half the night."


164: "— Wife well?
— Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?
— Yes, sir.
Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.
— Doing any singing those times?
Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match. Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. Does no harm. Free ad.
— She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard perhaps.
— No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up?"


218: "— Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid."

225: "— But wait till I tell you, he said, Delahunt of Camden street had the catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife were there. Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and sherry and curacoa to which we did ample justice. Fast and furious it was. After liquids came solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies...
— I know, M'Coy said. The year the missus was there...
Lenehan linked his arm warmly.
— But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o'clock the morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter's night on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one side of the car and I was with the wife on the other. We started singing glees and duets: Lo, the early beam of morning. She was well primed with a good load of Delahunt's port under her bellyband. Every jolt the bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell's delights! She has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that.
He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning:
— I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time. Know what I mean?
His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips.
— The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a gamey mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and Hercules and the dragon and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. And what star is that, Poldy? says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure that's only what you might call a pinprick. By God, he wasn't far wide of the mark."


258: "— I knew he was on the rocks, he said. The wife was playing the piano in the coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and who was it gave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? Do you remember? We had to search all Holles street to find them till the chap in Keogh's gave us the number. Remember?
Ben remembered, his broad visage wondering.
— By God she had some luxurious operacloaks and things there.
Mr Dedalus wandered back, pipe in hand.
— Merrion square style. Balldresses, by God, and court dresses. He wouldn't take any money either. What? Any God's quantity of cocked hats and boleros and trunkhose. What?
— Ay, ay, Mr Dedalus nodded. Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of all descriptions.
Jingle jaunted down the quays. Blazes sprawled on bounding tyres.
Liver and bacon. Steak and kidney pie. Right, sir. Right, Pat.
Mrs Marion met him pike hoses. Smell of burn of Paul de Kock. Nice name he.
— What's this her name was? A buxom lassy. Marion...
— Tweedy.
— Yes. Is she alive?
— And kicking.
— She was a daughter of...
— Daughter of the regiment.
— Yes, begad. I remember the old drummajor.
Mr Dedalus struck, whizzed, lit, puffed savoury puff after
— Irish? I don't know, faith. Is she, Simon?
Puff after stiff, a puff, strong, savoury, crackling.
— Buccinator muscle is... What?... Bit rusty... O, she is... My Irish Molly, O.
He puffed a pungent plumy blast.
— From the rock of Gibraltar... all the way.
They pined in depth of ocean shadow, gold by the beerpull, bronze by maraschino, thoughtful all two, Mina Kennedy, 4 Lismore terrace, Drumcondra with Idolores, a queen, Dolores, silent."

(Simon sees Molly as slutty but doesn't view her with lust, for a change)


302: "Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used to be in rivers of tears sometimes with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out with her eight inches of fat all over her. "


306: "— Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe.
— My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a success too. He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent.
Hoho begob, says I to myself, says I. That explains the milk in the cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the tootle on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the bucko that'll organise her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddareesh.
Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. The chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms."


307: "— Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half and half.
— How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he...
— Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish nor flesh.
— Nor good red herring, says Joe.
— That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what that is."


319? "M. B. loves a fair gentleman."

321: "when they were in the (dark horse) Pisser Burke was telling me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube she's better or she's (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool if he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!) Ireland my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody (there's the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos."

323: "— O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a tin of Neave's food six weeks before the wife was delivered."

348: "There was the allimportant question and she was dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But even if — what then? Would it make a very great difference?"


374?? "the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet, margerain gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most sacred and most worthy to be most sacred."

390: "Far be it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a respectable lady, the daughter of a gallant major, or to cast the most distant reflections upon her virtue but if he challenges attention there (as it was indeed highly his interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy woman she has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than the derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strata of society! Nay, had the hussy's scouringbrush not been her tutelary angel it had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe's hearing brought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for the want of a ploughshare?"

 404: "Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin, I do. Full of a dure. See her in her dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love. [...] Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and her anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot."

421? "MRS BREEN (Holds up a finger.) Now don't tell a big fib! I know somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly!"

507? "BELLO (Sarcastically.) I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but there's a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! [...] (Ruthlessly.) No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman's will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Return and see. [...] In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in the rain for art for art' sake."