Ulysses
the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of different
sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere
beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes
that said or didn’t say the words the voice he heard said, if
you work.
—Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work.
The eyes were surprised at this observation because as
he, the person who owned them pro tem. observed or rather
his voice speaking did, all must work, have to, together.
—I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in
the widest possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for
the kudos of the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is
the readiest channel nowadays. That’s work too. Important
work. After all, from the little I know of you, after all the
money expended on your education you are entitled to re-
coup yourself and command your price. You have every bit
as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philoso-
phy as the peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland,
the brain and the brawn. Each is equally important.
—You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half
laugh, that I may be important because I belong to the fau-
bourg Saint Patrice called Ireland for short.
—I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.
—But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must
be important because it belongs to me.
—What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying
he was perhaps under some misapprehension. Excuse me.
Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the latter portion. What was
it you ...?