Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/610

Rh

Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a singer having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered barely sweet sixteen. As for the face, it was a speaking likeness in expression but it did not do justice to her figure, which came in for a lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the best advantage in that getup She could without difficulty, he said, have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the... He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female form in general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later than that afternoon, he had seen those Grecian statues, perfectly developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry. All the rest, yes, Puritanism. It does though, St Joseph’s sovereign... whereas no photo could, because it simply wasn’t art, in a word.

The spirit moving him, he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar’s good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak for itself on the plea he... so that the other could drink in the beauty for himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional etiquette so, though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm... And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. Nevertheless, he sat tight, just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear, however, and looked away thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing the other’s possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving embonpoint. In fact, the slight soiling was only an added charm, like the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better, in fact, with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he?... I looked for the lamp which she told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of his because he then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses (sic) in it which must have fell down sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies to Lindley Murray.

The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated, distingué, and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the bunch, though you wouldn’t think he had it in him... yet you would. Besides he said the