Ulysses by James Joyce Chapter 9 Page 66

Requiescat! Stephen prayed.

What of all the will to do?

It has vanished long ago...

She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the mobled queen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as rare as a motorcar is now and that its carvings were the wonder of seven parishes. In old age she takes up with gospellers (one stayed with her at New Place and drank a quart of sack the town council paid for but in which bed he slept it skills not to ask) and heard she had a soul.

She read or had read to her his chapbooks preferring them to the Merry Wives and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan, she thought over Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches and The most Spiritual Snuffbox to