Cast 67. Page 403, line 1816
(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I. O. U’s, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly collected.)
BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother.
MRS THORNTON: (In nursetender’s gown.) Embrace me tight, dear. You’ll be soon over it. Tight, dear.
This is from the hallucination scene in Episode 15. Bloom transforms into a woman and gives birth.
Miss Thornton is the midwife. She attended the births of Bloom’s son Rudy and daughter Milly. (U54.417)
Taken literally, there is not much more to unpack here. But the items collected in the street donation somehow feel familiar. So let me force a few associations from elsewhere in the novel.
① Gold and silver coins and banknotes
These recall the wages Stephen receives from Mr Deasy in Episode 2: two one-pound notes, one sovereign, two crown pieces, and two shillings. And, as mentioned in Cast 29 of this blog, the gold coin even dances on Mr Deasy’s shoulder.
He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid them carefully on the table.
—Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away.
・・・
A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.
・・・
He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.
—Three twelve, he said. I think you’ll find that’s right.
—Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers.
② Blank cheques
These bring to mind Davy Byrne’s pub in Episode 8, where Bloom goes for lunch. As I mentioned in Cast 42, the stingy proprietor once cashed a cheque for him.
He entered Davy Byrne’s. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat. Stands a drink now and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.
（U140.733）
③ Jewels
In Episode 10, Stephen peers in at the jeweller old Russell polishing a gem.
Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it and held it at the point of his Moses’ beard. Grandfather ape gloating on a stolen hoard.
(U198.812)
④ Treasury bonds
These are revealed in Episode 17: the £900 of Canadian 4% government stock stored in the second drawer of the Blooms’ cupboard.
certificate of possession of £ 900, Canadian 4% (inscribed) government stock (free of stamp duty):
(U194.1065)
⑤ Maturing bills of exchange
These recall the promissory notes and dishonoured bills protruding from the beggar’s wallet of the Jewish moneylender Reuben J. Dodd, who appeared in Episode 15 and in Cast 35 of this blog.
(Reuben J Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim’s wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills.
(U415.2147)
⑥ I. O. U.’s
“I. O. U.” means “I owe you,” i.e. a written acknowledgment of debt. In Episode 9, Stephen owes one pound to George Russell (A.E.).
I, I and I. I.
A.E.I.O.U.(U156.213)
⑦ Wedding rings
In Episode 15, the brothel madam Bella Cohen is described as wearing wedding rings on her left hand.
(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings.
(U429.2745)
⑧ Watchchains
In Episode 13, when the girl Cissy Caffrey asks Bloom the time on the strand, he grows flustered and begins to toy with his watchchain. His watch, moreover, has stopped.
So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his watchchain, looking up at the church.
(U236.539)
⑨ Lockets
A locket is a small pendant worn around the neck, usually containing a photograph or keepsake. In Episode 14, at the maternity hospital, the medical student Alec Bannon reveals that he is Milly Bloom’s sweetheart, and that he carries her photograph in a locket.
With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took a complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very picture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein.
(U331.754)
⑩ Necklaces
This recalls a memory in Episode 4: the amberoid necklace Bloom gave Milly when she was about four years old.
Only five she was then. No, wait: four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke.
(U51.285)
⑪ Bracelets
In Episode 15, the dancing “hours of the night” wear bracelets that make a dull bell-like sound.
(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils.)
THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho!
(U470.4083)
I rather suspect Joyce may well have had this kind of thing in mind when writing the passage.
Episode 15 feels, in a way, like a grand theatrical performance in which the characters from the rest of the novel all come back on stage—bringing their props and stage furniture with them.
Uniforms for the nurses at St George's Hospital, ca. 1892
File:St. George's Hospital Nurses Wellcome L0060863.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
For the method behind this blog, see Here.
No comments:
Post a Comment