The tear is bloody near your eye.
45th cast. page 249, line 401
The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat. Fitter for him go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married, Mooney, the bumbailiff’s daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke street, that used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on her, exposing her person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour.
Episode12. Barney Kiernan's pub. Today the funeral of Paddy Dignam was held. Bob Dolan, a customer, is crying over his death. The narrator of this episode is cursing it in his mind.
"Talk through one's hat", means to tell a big lie. Etymology unknown.
Bob Doran is also a character in Dubliners,
'The Lodger'. He worked for a wine merchant and was a resident of Mrs
Mooney's boarding house, but he had an affair with her daughter, Polly, and
they married under pressure from Mrs Mooney.
Already before 10 am, he had drinks with
Bantam Lyons and C.P. McCoy at Conway (now Kennedy's). In the early afternoon
he was stopped by Boylan in front of La Maison Claire in Grafton Road. He then
made his way to the Liberties. The Liberties was then (1904) a poor district on
the south bank of Liffey. There might have been cheap drinking places. And by 5
pm he was here in Barney Kiernan.
There are several references to Dolan, "he's on one of his periodical bends" (U60.107) "On his annual bend" (U137.595). “Bend” is slang for “drink and float”. He seems to be under pressure from his wife or mother-in-law, usually taking a pledge to abstain from drinking and staying sober and has an annual day of release from drinking. Today was that day, and he was drunk from the morning.
“Sleepwalking” – “night wandering” is one of the key words of Ulysses, as mentioned in the 17th entry of the blog.
“bumbailiff” is “bound bailiff”.
Sheriff was a government official
who carried out duties such as court orders and law enforcement; Bailiff was
subordinate to Sheriff and was actually responsible for evictions, mortgages
and the collection of unpaid taxes. In short, they were the officials at the
end of the line. Dolan's wife Polly's father, Mr Mooney, a former butcher's
master, had fallen out of favour and become a bailiff.
Sheriff appears frequently in the novel.
Long John Fanning is sub-sheriff. Alf Bergan, who is just in this pub, may be a
bailiff, as he is a subordinate of Fanning.
The translator of Ulysses into Japanese,
Naoki Yanase, says that the narrator of this chapter is a dog. If we read the
book without relying on this theory, the narrator refers to himself as a
'collector of bad and doubtful debts'.
As a collector is a job that competes with
or is secondary to that of a government bailiff, the narrator may be familiar
with Mr Mooney, who was a bailiff, and may have ill-feeling towards him. This
may be why he speaks ill of Doran and the Mooney family.
“landing” is a staircase landing which are
important setting of the short story 'The Lodger'.
File:Hardwicke Street with St. George's Church at end, Dublin.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
The method of this blog ⇒ Here
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