— I — [ 1 ] Stately , plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead , bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed .
A yellow dressinggown , ungirdled , was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air .
He held the bowl aloft and intoned : — Introibo ad altare Dei .
Halted , he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely : — Come up , Kinch !
Come up , you fearful jesuit !
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest .
He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower , the surrounding land and the awaking mountains .
Then , catching sight of Stephen Dedalus , he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air , gurgling in his throat and shaking his head .
Stephen Dedalus , displeased and sleepy , leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him , equine in its length , and at the light untonsured hair , grained and hued like pale oak .
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly .
— Back to barracks !
he said sternly .
He added in a preacher ’s tone : — For this , O dearly beloved , is the genuine Christine : body and soul and blood and ouns .
Slow music , please .
Shut your eyes , gents .
One moment .
A little trouble about those white corpuscles .
Silence , all .
He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call , then paused awhile in rapt attention , his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points .
Chrysostomos .
Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm .
— Thanks , old chap , he cried briskly .
That will do nicely .
Switch off the current , will you ?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher , gathering about his legs the loose folds of his gown .
The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate , patron of arts in the middle ages .
A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips .
— The mockery of it !
he said gaily .
Your absurd name , an ancient Greek !
He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet , laughing to himself .
Stephen Dedalus stepped up , followed him wearily halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest , watching him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet , dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered cheeks and neck .
Buck Mulligan ’s gay voice went on .
— My name is absurd too : Malachi Mulligan , two dactyls .
But it has a Hellenic ring , has n’t it ?
Tripping and sunny like the buck himself .
We must go to Athens .
Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid ?
He laid the brush aside and , laughing with delight , cried : — Will he come ?
The jejune jesuit !
Ceasing , he began to shave with care .
— Tell me , Mulligan , Stephen said quietly .
— Yes , my love ?
— How long is Haines going to stay in this tower ?
Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder .
— God , is n’t he dreadful ?
he said frankly .
A ponderous Saxon .
He thinks you ’re not a gentleman .
God , these bloody English !
Bursting with money and indigestion .
Because he comes from Oxford .
You know , Dedalus , you have the real Oxford manner .
He ca n’t make you out .
O , my name for you is the best : Kinch , the knife-blade .
He shaved warily over his chin .
— He was raving all night about a black panther , Stephen said .
Where is his guncase ?
— A woful lunatic !
Mulligan said .
Were you in a funk ?
— I was , Stephen said with energy and growing fear .
Out here in the dark with a man I do n’t know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther .
You saved men from drowning .
I ’m not a hero , however .
If he stays on here I am off .
Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade .
He hopped down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily .
— Scutter !
he cried thickly .
He came over to the gunrest and , thrusting a hand into Stephen ’s upper pocket , said : — Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor .
Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief .
Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly .
Then , gazing over the handkerchief , he said : — The bard ’s noserag !
A new art colour for our Irish poets : snotgreen .
You can almost taste it , ca n’t you ?
He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay , his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly .
— God !
he said quietly .
Is n’t the sea what Algy calls it : a great sweet mother ?
The snotgreen sea .
The scrotumtightening sea .
Epi oinopa ponton .
Ah , Dedalus , the Greeks !
I must teach you .
You must read them in the original .
Thalatta !
Thalatta !
She is our great sweet mother .
Come and look .
Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet .
Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of Kingstown .
— Our mighty mother !
Buck Mulligan said .
He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen ’s face .
— The aunt thinks you killed your mother , he said .
That ’s why she wo n’t let me have anything to do with you .
— Someone killed her , Stephen said gloomily .
— You could have knelt down , damn it , Kinch , when your dying mother asked you , Buck Mulligan said .
I ’m hyperborean as much as you .
But to think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her .
And you refused .
There is something sinister in you ... .
He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek .
A tolerant smile curled his lips .
— But a lovely mummer !
he murmured to himself .
Kinch , the loveliest mummer of them all !
He shaved evenly and with care , in silence , seriously .
Stephen , an elbow rested on the jagged granite , leaned his palm against his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve .
Pain , that was not yet the pain of love , fretted his heart .
Silently , in a dream she had come to him after her death , her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood , her breath , that had bent upon him , mute , reproachful , a faint odour of wetted ashes .
Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him .
The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid .
A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting .
Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade .
— Ah , poor dogsbody !
he said in a kind voice .
I must give you a shirt and a few noserags .
How are the secondhand breeks ?
— They fit well enough , Stephen answered .
Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip .
— The mockery of it , he said contentedly .
Secondleg they should be .
God knows what poxy bowsy left them off .
I have a lovely pair with a hair stripe , grey .
You ’ll look spiffing in them .
I ’m not joking , Kinch .
You look damn well when you ’re dressed .
— Thanks , Stephen said .
I ca n’t wear them if they are grey .
— He ca n’t wear them , Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror .
Etiquette is etiquette .
He kills his mother but he ca n’t wear grey trousers .
He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the smooth skin .
Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its smokeblue mobile eyes .
— That fellow I was with in the Ship last night , said Buck Mulligan , says you have g. p. i. He ’s up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman .
General paralysis of the insane !
He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea .
His curling shaven lips laughed and the edges of his white glittering teeth .
Laughter seized all his strong wellknit trunk .
— Look at yourself , he said , you dreadful bard !
Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him , cleft by a crooked crack .
Hair on end .
As he and others see me .
Who chose this face for me ?
This dogsbody to rid of vermin .
It asks me too .
— I pinched it out of the skivvy ’s room , Buck Mulligan said .
It does her all right .
The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi .
Lead him not into temptation .
And her name is Ursula .
Laughing again , he brought the mirror away from Stephen ’s peering eyes .
— The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror , he said .
If Wilde were only alive to see you !
Drawing back and pointing , Stephen said with bitterness : — It is a symbol of Irish art .
The cracked lookingglass of a servant .
Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen ’s and walked with him round the tower , his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had thrust them .
— It ’s not fair to tease you like that , Kinch , is it ?
he said kindly .
God knows you have more spirit than any of them .
Parried again .
He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his .
The cold steel pen .
— Cracked lookingglass of a servant !
Tell that to the oxy chap downstairs and touch him for a guinea .
He ’s stinking with money and thinks you ’re not a gentleman .
His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other .
God , Kinch , if you and I could only work together we might do something for the island .
Hellenise it .
Cranly ’s arm .
His arm .
— And to think of your having to beg from these swine .
I ’m the only one that knows what you are .
Why do n’t you trust me more ?
What have you up your nose against me ?
Is it Haines ?
If he makes any noise here I ’ll bring down Seymour and we ’ll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive Kempthorpe .