Ulysses Part 3

--Kinch!

--It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.

The key sc.r.a.ped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set them down heavily and sighed with relief.

--I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, b.u.t.ter, honey. Haines, come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts.

Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk.

Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the b.u.t.tercooler from the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

--What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.

--We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the locker.

--O, d.a.m.n you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove milk.

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:

--That woman is coming up with the milk.

--The blessings of G.o.d on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I can't go fumbling at the d.a.m.ned eggs.

He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three plates, saying:

--_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti._

Haines sat down to pour out the tea.

--I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you?

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's wheedling voice:

--When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.

--By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.

Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:

--_So I do, Mrs Cahill,_ says she. _Begob, ma'am,_ says Mrs Cahill, _G.o.d send you don't make them in the one pot._

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled on his knife.

--That's folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishG.o.ds of Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.

He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his brows:

--Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads?

--I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.

--Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?

--I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.

Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight.

--Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming!

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoa.r.s.ened rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf:

_--For old Mary Ann She doesn't care a d.a.m.n.

But, hising up her petticoats..._

He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.

The doorway was darkened by an entering form.

--The milk, sir!

--Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.

An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow.

--That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to G.o.d.

--To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure!

Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.

--The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of the collector of prepuces.

--How much, sir? asked the old woman.

--A quart, Stephen said.

He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out.

Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour.

--It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups.

--Taste it, sir, she said.

He drank at her bidding.

--If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust, horsedung and consumptives' spits.

--Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.