81 (U642.1531) O I suppose that cant be helped Ill do

 Cast 81. Page 642, line 1531.

O I suppose that cant be helped Ill do the indifferent 1 or 2 questions Ill know by the answers when hes like that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest aboutyes O wait now sonny my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and friendly over it O but I was forgetting this bloody pest of a thing pfooh you wouldnt know which to laugh or cry were such a mixture of plum and apple

This is from Episode 18. The final episode consists of Molly Bloom’s inner monologue. It is made up of eight enormous flowing sentences, without periods or commas. This passage comes from near the end of the eighth and last one. Molly is thinking about Bloom.

“I suppose” appears over and over again in Episode 18. It is probably one of Molly’s characteristic turns of phrase.

As I mentioned in blog Cast 12, Joyce reportedly said that the words ① because, ② bottom, ③ woman, and ④ yes represent the four poles of femininity, and that he uses them repeatedly in this episode. Here too, both yes and bottom appear.

The phrase “plum and apple” also comes up a little earlier in the episode.

that lovely fresh place I bought I think Ill get a bit of fish tomorrow or today is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange with black currant jam like long ago not those 2 lb pots of mixed plum and apple from the London and Newcastle Williams and Woods

(U629.941)

Molly is thinking that she will buy some fish today, and have dessert with blackcurrant jam, like in the old days—not the cheap mixed plum-and-apple jam sold by Williams and Woods of London and Newcastle. So “plum and apple” seems to refer to jam.

Williams & Woods was a Dublin confectionery and jam manufacturer. The factory building they put up on King’s Inns Street in 1910 still survives.

"WILLIAMS & WOODS BUILDING [USED A SIGMA 14mm WIDE-ANGLE LENS]-157962" by infomatique is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

What exactly is the “bloody pest of a thing” Molly had forgotten? And why does it lead her to think of jam? I am not really sure. The novel then goes on for only about two more pages before it ends.

The Williams & Woods postcard

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