Up the quay

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Bloom replies to Martha Clifford's letter in the dining room of the Ormond ("Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted"), and then he thinks of mailing the letter before going on to meet Martin Cunningham and Jack Power at the pub: "Done anyhow. Postal order, stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now. Enough. Barney Kiernan's I promised to meet them." There was a post office at 34 Ormond Quay––technically up the quay from the Ormond at number 8, not "down"––and Kiernan's pub lay about a quarter of a mile north of these two addresses.

After leaving the restaurant––perhaps he is still "in the Ormond hallway" on the far side of the bar, or he may have gone out onto the street––Bloom thinks of the post office again, noting that it is in the same building where Reuben J. Dodd has his office: "Postoffice near Reuben J's one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. Wish I hadn't promised to meet." He must turn north after visiting this post office, but the route he mentions is not the most direct way to get from there to Barney Kiernan's. Greek Street starts at the top of Pill Lane (now Chancery Place) and goes due north, avoiding the fish and produce markets. It is shown on the second map here. The first map shows Bloom taking Charles Street and then walking between the two markets. That it is mistaken in this one detail is made clear even by the text of Gunn and Hart's book, which notes that Bloom "follows a slightly devious route" via Greek Street to avoid running into people he knows on the busier path (61). That Bloom does go by the slightly longer route is confirmed in Cyclops when the narrator says that he saw him "sloping around by Pill lane and Greek street."

Having decided on his itinerary, Bloom appears several sentences later proceeding west on Upper Ormond Quay: "Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady, with sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went Poldy on." A full page later the narrative notes that "Bloom went by Barry's." J. M. Barry & Co., merchant tailors and outfitters, was at number 12, not far at all from the Ormond. After still another page of text, the narrative locates him at number 16: "In Lionel Marks's antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged candlestick melodeon oozing maggoty blowbags." Here he sees the framed poster of Robert Emmet's last words that he is still contemplating at the chapter's end. Bloom has traveled a total of about 100 feet––surprisingly little distance for what feels like a fairly long time to a reader of the chapter.

The narrative method is at least partly responsible for this disjunction: jumping back and forth between the departing Bloom, the people still in the bar, and the blind stripling who is tapping his way toward it creates a false sense of temporal and spatial extension. But it also appears that Bloom is not going anywhere fast, and his slow progress is associated with a reclusive state of mind. Throughout these pages he shies away from human society. He leaves the bar before people can rush together to congratulate Ben Dollard on his performance of The Croppy Boy: "General chorus off for a swill to wash it down. Glad I avoided." He schemes to avoid the crowds around the markets: "Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. Wish I hadn't promised to meet." He turns and stares into Marks's window to avoid meeting "the whore of the lane": "Hope she. Psst! Any chance of your wash. Knew Molly.... Too dear too near to home sweet home. Sees me, does she?... Look in here."

Bloom's wish to avoid the prying judgmental eyes of human beings at this time has an obvious cause: he has just seen Blazes Boylan leave the bar for Eccles Street. His halting progress, so unlike Boylan's jigging jogging impatience a few pages earlier, creates a sense of indirection and stasis much like the one sketched by his footsteps in Lotus Eaters. The two chapters are linked by a strong emotional commonality: the hour after leaving Molly in the morning held anguish and embarrassment, and this time must be no less painful. But Bloom's efforts to avoid running into people who know him are doomed: arriving at Barney Kiernan's in Cyclops, he finds himself out of the frying pan and into the hottest fire of social contempt he faces all day.