72 (U368.600) THE GAFFER: (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.)

Cast 72. Page 368, line 600.

THE GAFFER: (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.) And when Cairns came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings for Derwan’s plasterers.

THE LOITERERS: (Guffaw with cleft palates.) O jays!

(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)

BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.

THE LOITERERS: Jays, that’s a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the men’s porter.

(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.)

THE WHORES:

Are you going far, queer fellow?
How’s your middle leg?
Got a match on you?
Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

 Johann Rudolf Glauber

File:Portrait of Johann Rudolph Glauber Wellcome M0013765.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

This is from Episode 15. Bloom has just arrived in the brothel district. This passage comes just before the one discussed in Cast 25. He is passing through the area where a foreman and a group of loafers are hanging about.

Bloom is now at the “hellsgates” near the corner of Mabbot Street and Mecklenburch Street (marked with a star ★ on the map). He is on his way to Bella Cohen’s brothel (marked with a diamond ♦). Beaver Street (the street enclosed in an oval) is not far from where he is standing. It is in fact on the scaffolding there that Stephen will shortly be harassed by the British soldiers, as mentioned in the previous blog entry.

(At the corner of Beaver street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)

（U479.4365）

The foreman is telling the story of how a workman named Cairns urinated into a plasterer’s bucket of porter. As we saw in Cast 51, Bloom encounters a number of “coincidences” today. This is one of them. But what exactly is the coincidence here? It relates to something Bloom recalls in Episode 13. Bloom had revisited Dignam’s house after leaving Barney Kiernan’s pub, and at that time he relieved himself standing up. That, supposedly, is the coincidence. Whether this is really the correct interpretation is not entirely clear, but I have not been able to find a better one.

Good job I let off there behind the wall coming out of Dignam’s. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn’t have.

（U302.860）

I could not find “Jays” in the dictionary. According to Gifford’s note, it means “Jesus.”

“Glauber salts” is sodium sulfate, formerly used as a laxative. It is also called “Glauber’s salt” after the German-Dutch pharmacist and chemist Johann Rudolf Glauber (1604?–1670), who discovered it.

In the prostitutes’ little street song, “Got a match on you?” I think “match” means “a partner” or “someone lined up.”

Now then, the bucket keeps turning up insistently later on as well.

In the hallucinated courtroom scene, Bloom is put under examination. He is suspected of having defecated into the bucket in Beaver Street.

(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A large bucket. Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad. A plasterer’s bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial moment. He did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A Titbits back number.)

（U377.930）

In the scene I mentioned a moment ago, where Stephen gets into a quarrel with the British soldier, King Edward VII appears. (This too is part of the hallucination.) The King is dressed in Masonic robes and carries a trowel and a plasterer’s bucket. Printed on the bucket, in French, is a warning against urination.

(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. ・・・ He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left hand he holds a plasterer’s bucket on which is printed Défense d’uriner. A roar of welcome greets him.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. ・・・

(・・・Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)

（U482.4449～）

In fact, Edward VII really was a Freemason. Since Freemasonry originally grew out of guilds of masons, stonecutters, and builders, the trowel is one of its symbols. So perhaps the appearance here of words such as “size and lime” (materials used in plaster and cement) and “lodges” is connected with that Masonic association. But why Joyce chooses to connect that theme with this particular spot remains a mystery.

For the method behind this blog, see ☞ Here.