Burying him.  We come to bury Caesar.  His ides of March or June.  He doesn’t know who is here nor care.  Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh?  Now who is he I’d like to know?  Now I’d give a trifle to know who he is.  Always someone turns up you never dreamt of.  A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life.  Yes, he could.  Still he’d have to get someone to sod him after he died though he could dig his own grave.  We all do.  Only man buries.  No, ants too.  First thing strikes anybody.  Bury the dead.  Say Robinson Crusoe was true to life.  Well then Friday buried him.  Every Friday buries a Thursday if you come to look at it.

    O, poor Robinson Crusoe! 
    How could you possibly do so?

Poor Dignam!  His last lie on the earth in his box.  When you think of them all it does seem a waste of wood.  All gnawed through.  They could invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that way.  Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow’s.  They’re so particular.  Lay me in my native earth.  Bit of clay from the holy land.  Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one coffin.  I see what it means.  I see.  To protect him as long as possible even in the earth.  The Irishman’s house is his coffin.  Embalming in catacombs, mummies the same idea.

Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads.  Twelve.  I’m thirteen.  No.  The chap in the macintosh is thirteen.  Death’s number.  Where the deuce did he pop out of?  He wasn’t in the chapel, that I’ll swear.  Silly superstition that about thirteen.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit.  Tinge of purple.  I had one like that when we lived in Lombard street west.  Dressy fellow he was once.  Used to change three suits in the day.  Must get that grey suit of mine turned by Mesias.  Hello.  It’s dyed.  His wife I forgot he’s not married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him.

The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the gravetrestles.  They struggled up and out:  and all uncovered.  Twenty.

Pause.

If we were all suddenly somebody else.

Far away a donkey brayed.  Rain.  No such ass.  Never see a dead one, they say.  Shame of death.  They hide.  Also poor papa went away.

Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper.  Whisper.  The boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the black open space.  Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker.  Wellcut frockcoat.  Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next.  Well, it is a long rest.  Feel no more.  It’s the moment you feel.  Must be damned unpleasant.  Can’t believe it at first.  Mistake must be:  someone else.  Try the house opposite.  Wait, I wanted to.  I haven’t yet.  Then darkened deathchamber.  Light they want.