Summary
Episode Ten consists of nineteen short views of characters,
major and minor, as they make their way around Dublin in the afternoon. Within
each subsection, short, disjunctive paragraphs pop up that depict
a simultaneous action in some other part of the city. These are not
rendered below.
Father John Conmee travels from his Dublin presbytery
to a suburban school to try to get Patrick Dignam’s son admitted
for free. Conmee walks to the tram station, passing a one-legged
sailor, three schoolboys, and others on the way. Conmee gets on
an outbound tram, notices a poster of Eugene Stratton, a blackface
minstrel, and thinks about missionary work. Conmee gets off at Howth
road, takes out his breviary (book of prayers), and reads to himself
as he walks. In front of him, a young couple guiltily emerges from
the hedgerow. Conmee blesses them.
Corny Kelleher examines a coffinlid, then gossips with
a policeman.
The one-legged sailor crutches up Eccles street, singing
a patriotic English song and asking for alms. He passes Katey and
Boody Dedalus. A woman’s arm (Molly’s) throws a coin out of a window for
the sailor.
Katey and Boody Dedalus enter their kitchen, where their
sister Maggy is washing clothes. The Dedalus sisters discuss the
household’s lack of money and food—Sister Mary Patrick has donated some
pea soup to them. Maggy explains that Dilly has gone to see their
father, Simon Dedalus.
The throwaway that Bloom threw into the river in Episode
Eight floats down river.
