0 Ulysses
firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented handkerchief
(not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas! a
thing now of the past!) and a quiverful of compliant smiles
for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her
fingertips or for a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but
the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the
smile, but, more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous
address, brought home at duskfall many a commission to
the head of the firm, seated with Jacob’s pipe after like la-
bours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be
sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles
some paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey,
presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young knighter-
rant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a tiny speck within the
mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might
be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own
child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard
by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor
waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare
shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the heavy
tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new
royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget
the name, ever remember the night: first night, the bride-
night. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer
with the willed, and in an instant (fiat!) light shall flood the
world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath
‘twas done but—hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the
poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of
darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunny-