Morning Rituals and Domestic Life — Ulysses

The novel pivots. We leave Stephen's introverted world and enter Leopold Bloom's: and the shift is immediate. Where Stephen is cold, self-lacerating, mythologically weighted, Bloom is warm, curious, earthbound, and kind. Joyce introduces him making breakfast, buying a kidney from a butcher, reading a letter from his daughter Milly, and feeding the cat.

Bloom is a Jewish advertising canvasser living in Dublin with his wife Molly, a concert singer. His marriage is in a particular condition: Molly's impresario, Blazes Boylan, is coming to visit this afternoon to rehearse: and both Bloom and Molly know what this visit means. Bloom does not confront this. He tucks it away, acknowledges it obliquely, and goes on with his morning.

Among the morning post is a letter for Molly from Boylan. Bloom notices it. He leaves it on the tray without comment.

The chapter's quiet masterpiece is the bedroom scene. Bloom brings Molly her tray in bed, and she asks about a word: 'metempsychosis.' She has been reading a novel and found the word. Bloom explains it: the transmigration of souls, the idea that we return in other forms. Molly simplifies it: 'O, rocks! Tell us in plain words.' Bloom smiles and tries again.

This small exchange contains everything Joyce wants to say about this marriage: Molly's earthiness against Bloom's intellectual reaching, her impatience and his patience, the warmth between them that survives infidelity and grief. Their son Rudy died at eleven days old. That loss has never been discussed between them. It sits under everything.

Bloom goes out to buy the kidney. The chapter ends with him eating at the kitchen table while reading Milly's letter, aware that Boylan's letter lies upstairs unread, aware of what afternoon will bring, and continuing anyway.