Stephen's liquidity

Bloom’s budget, as presented in ‘Ithaca’, could be characterised as ‘Ulysses for accountants’ as it records Bloom’s activities throughout the day in terms of financial transactions. The budget has various complications, most famously the fact that Bloom’s expenses at Bella Cohen’s are omitted entirely: one penny for the train from Westland Row station (15.636), the ten-shilling entrance fee to the brothel (15.3583–84), and one shilling to repair the lamp Stephen broke (15.4312). It is as if the budget were compiled for Molly’s oversight and so any incriminating evidence would be redacted; and this would be one of many places in ‘Ithaca’ where the information presented is not objective but is rather subjectively or perspectively delimited. And the budget also glosses over Bloom’s generosity to Stephen: in ‘Circe’ Stephen hands Bloom £1 6s. 11d. for safekeeping (15.3613) and Bloom later returns £1 7s (17.957–59), rounding up in Stephen’s favour as if he were a bank providing interest. This generosity is unnoted in the budget and the sum is recorded as £1 7s in both columns (17.1475, 17.1460).

     Beyond these matters, there are some pesky editorial issues with the budget. In the 1922 first edition, the numbers presented in the budget did not add up correctly. Gabler implemented one emendation which solved this problem and made the numbers add up: he changed the price of Bloom’s chocolate from one penny to one shilling. From the perspective of the manuscripts, this is a defensible change: when Joyce first added this item onto the budget, on a typescript, he clearly recorded its price as one shilling (JJA 16:132). The price changed to one penny on a subsequent proof page (JJA 21:89), but there is no record of this change being sanctioned by Joyce. And so Gabler reverts to the one-shilling price because it is the last figure attested in Joyce’s hand. But one shilling is egregiously overpriced for this humble commodity: it puts a humble Fry’s chocolate bar in the category of luxury chocolate. Furthermore, there is an alternative solution which Gabler discounts.1 In the errata for the second printing of Ulysses, Joyce changed the balance (Bloom’s cash-in-hand at the end of the day) from 16s. 6d. – the figure given in the first edition and which Gabler carries over (17.1476) – to 17s. 5d (JJA 12:183). This is the figure given in all editions in-between the first edition and Gabler. This one change keeps the budget arithmetically consistent and the chocolate at a historically accurate price.

My larger point here is that while there are some fiddly bits with Bloom’s budget, any apparent holes, such as the balance, are remediable. Such precision and accuracy is not exactly the case with Stephen’s budget. Stephen’s budget is not presented as a single document like Bloom’s budget and not all his expenditures are scrupulously accounted for. If the accuracy, or near-accuracy, or seeming accuracy of Bloom’s budget reflects or indicates his frugality and rationality, then the confusion around Stephen’s budget indicates his profligacy. But, if Stephen’s budget is not watertight, it still evinces some internal consistency.

     While there is much that is unknown and ambiguous apropos Stephen’s budget, we do benefit from a few cardinal points or fixed details, the first of which involves his profligate debts, which he mentally enumerates shortly after being paid in ‘Nestor’. If the figures as given are accurate and are not rounded, then Stephen owes a total of £25 17s. 6d., plus various articles of clothing to Mulligan, two lunches to Temple, and the unspecified five weeks’ rent to Mrs MacKernan (2.255–9). To give a sense of the magnitude of his total debt, the annual rent for 7 Eccles Street was £28 (Thom’s 1904, 1482). As he thinks, ‘The lump I have is useless’ (2.259). Also, apart from the non-monetary items on the list (lunches, rent, clothes), we are not told what exactly Stephen used all this money for, nor are we told the period over which Stephen accumulated these debts. Although, from what we do see of Stephen during the day, it seems reasonable to assume that much, if not most, or even all of this money went to drink.

     Harald Beck and Clive Hart have done yeoman service in terms of figuring out Stephen’s variable liquidity during the day and I will take their work as my starting point, but I do arrive at some different figures.2 Stephen does have an unspecified sum of money at the start of the day since he gives Mulligan twopence for milk in ‘Telemachus’ (1.724), his first recorded expenditure of the day. It is unknown if Stephen has any money left after this expenditure, making this the first uncertainty apropos Stephen’s budget. Beck and Hart note that it is entirely possible that Stephen’s cash to-hand at the start of the day derives from monies that had been lent to him by any of his various creditors.

     The next fixed point is Stephen’s salary, which he gets from Deasy in ‘Nestor’: £3 12s. (2.222). We even know the disposition of this sum: two one-pound banknotes, a sovereign, two crown coins, and two shilling coins (2.208–22). If Bloom had rounded up the money Stephen had handed him in Stephen’s favour, Mulligan rounds up Stephen’s salary but not in Stephen’s favour when he estimates that Stephen’s pay is £4 even (1.293).

     Prior to ‘Oxen of the Sun’, we only have an incomplete and vague picture of Stephen’s expenditures. Stephen has definitely spent money on the train from Dalkey (4d.) and the telegram to Mulligan cost one shilling (14.286–7), which makes for a rather expensive joke. So, this adds up to 1s. 4d. expenses of which we can be certain. Beck and Hart posit that after ‘Proteus’ Stephen might have taken a tram from Ringsend to get into town, which would have cost one penny, so there is the possibility of that small, additional expense. At the start of ‘Oxen’, we hear that Stephen is left with £2 19s.: ‘And he showed them glistering coins of tribute and goldsmith notes the worth of two pounds nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song which he writ’ (14.286–7). This is very helpful information. There is exactly a thirteen-shilling difference between Stephen’s salary of £3 12s. and £2 19s., so this must be the minimum amount he has spent, depending on how much money Stephen was left with after he paid for the milk. But of this amount, we can only explicitly account for just 1s. 4d., which leaves 11s. 8d. unaccounted for.

     While most of Stephen’s expenditures are not directly logged, there is indirect evidence as to where it would have gone. In ‘Scylla’, Stephen admits that he has already spent ‘a few shillings’ of ‘Dan Deasy’s ducats’ on drink (9.534–5). In ‘Sirens’, Lenehan, the consummate sponge, tells Simon that he had been with Stephen at Mooney’s en ville and Mooney’s sur mer (11.263–4). At the end of ‘Aeolus’, they had decamped to the former (7.892) and so evidently they subsequently went to the latter, which is only a short distance away on Eden Quay. Lenehan implies that Stephen had paid for the rounds, having received money for ‘the labour of his muse’ (11.265), a boast Stephen repeats in ‘Oxen’ (14.286–7). Hart and Beck posit the possibility Stephen did indeed receive money for his poem for Dana (9.1081). In real life, Joyce himself received the princely sum of one guinea (JJII 165) and was the only contributor to be remunerated. If Stephen were to be so lucky, this would involve a recalibration of his budget. But let us set this possibility to the side. The main information that Lenehan provides is that Stephen is over-generously buying rounds for multiple people.

In ‘Circe’, Philip Sober gives us the full itinerary of Stephen’s pub crawl: ‘Work it out with the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. Mooney’s en ville, Mooney’s sur mer, the Moira, Larchet’s, Holles street hospital, Burke’s’ (15.2516–19). To this, Philip Sober replies: ‘Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way’ (15.2522). Philip Sober implores Stephen to calculate his expenditures and Philip Drunk retorts that Stephen is (atypically) paying for himself in his act of buying rounds for all.

     Philip Sober provides us with the only indication of Stephen’s whereabouts after ‘Wandering Rocks’, two more stops on his pub crawl. Both are hotels, the Moira on Trinity Street and the Larchet on College Green. For what it’s worth, contemporary ads for the Moira note that ‘Only John Jameson and Son’s Guaranteed 10 Year Old Whiskey kept’ (Freeman’s Journal, 9 May 1900, p. 1, col. c). Other than this, we know nothing about Stephen’s time at these stops or who he was with. It is a reasonable assumption that Lenehan found Stephen at one or maybe both of them since Lenehan knows that Stephen is freely buying rounds. And Lenehan – like misery – loves company. More precisely, Lenehan seeks out a crowd into which he can embed himself in order to avail himself of free drink under the rounds system. And so Stephen must be with a group of people for whom he is buying rounds after rounds. It is also a reasonable assumption that at least at the last of these stops, Stephen is with one or more of the medical students (possibly even Mulligan), who then prompted that they go to Holles Street to drink some more. Since Holles Street is itself listed in the pub crawl, Stephen must have purchased the alcohol and other provisions that are consumed in the students’ common room, the cost of which would thus be folded into the pub crawl’s cost.

Now, a wee bit of maths – and some assumptions (worked out with the buttend of a pencil). The drinking party that left the offices of the Evening Telegraph for the first Mooney’s consists of six people: Stephen, Lenehan, O’Madden Burke, J. J. O’Molloy, Myles Crawford, and Professor MacHugh. Let us assume this complement remains constant for both Mooneys, although in ‘Sirens’ Lenehan only names MacHugh and O’Madden Burke (11.267–70). Since it is daytime, the drinks might not be more extravagant than a pint of Guinness, which cost two pence. Therefore each round costs one shilling. However, in ‘Scylla’, Stephen claimed that he drank ‘Three drams of usquebaugh’ (9.533). If he, or others, were indeed drinking whiskey then the cost per round would be greater. In any case, Stephen’s comment implies three rounds between the two Mooneys. So the first pair of stops would entail a cost of at least three shillings. Stephen’s foray to these pubs lasts one hour, concurrent to ‘Lestrygonians’. The next pair of stops, the two hotels, sits in a much longer span of time, the six hours in-between ‘Wandering Rocks’ and ‘Oxen’. Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to assume that more rounds were purchased, with Stephen spending more money. Once the provisions for Holles Street are factored in, it is just about possible that Stephen could have spent 11s. 8d. on his (epic) pub crawl by buying rounds for all and sundry and Lenehan.

     While we don’t get to see Stephen at the first four pubs of his pub crawl, we do see him at Burke’s at the end of ‘Oxen’, where we can also benefit from a precise accounting. Once at the pub, someone asks who’s buying. Various people claim they’re out of money, but then Stephen asks Mulligan what he’s having (‘Yours?’; Mulligan is identified in his reply) and then others jump in with their orders and then Stephen politely asks Bloom for his order. The dynamics here are important. Stephen is being generous, but he only explicitly prompts Mulligan and Bloom for their orders. Everyone else takes advantage of Stephen’s offer:

Query. Who’s astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall. Declare misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the Übermensch. Dittoh. Five number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. (14.1465–8)

The order amounts to five Bass ales, three Guinnesses, a ginger cordial (for Bloom), and absinthe for himself (14.1465–77). Later, when the landlord asks to be paid, someone points out that Stephen has money in abundance:

Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like, seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He’ve got the chink ad lib. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the oof. Two bar and a wing (14.1499–1503)

     So, Stephen’s largesse has been noted as someone points out: ‘Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn’, that is, I saw nearly three pounds on him a while ago that he said was his. The Scottish dialect implicates Crotthers and Stephen did indeed have almost three pounds on him at the start of ‘Oxen’. So, Stephen has the money, he pays the bill, which in this case is ‘two bar and a wing’, that is, two shillings and one penny, another exact amount (albeit rendered in the demotic of the coda to ‘Oxen’).3

This scene at Burke’s thus indicates that it is entirely possible that Stephen could well have spent at least 11s. 8d. across four different pubs earlier in the day. Indeed, Stephen even attempts to order a second round at Burke’s, this time absinthe for everyone (14.1533–4), but this time the landlord announces that it is closing time and so Stephen is spared this considerable expense.

     In any case, ‘Oxen’ gives us precise figures to work with: at the start of the episode he has £2 19s. and at Burke’s he spends 2s. 1d. Therefore, he ends the episode with £2 16s. 11d. Furthermore, if the figure given at the start of ‘Oxen’ is to be trusted as an accurate accounting of the total money Stephen has on him at this time, then it eliminates the problem of Stephen’s cash-in-hand prior to ‘Nestor’. Certainly, that ambiguity complicates any estimate of what Stephen has spent on his pub crawl before ‘Oxen’, but, from this point on, we can now mostly keep track of Stephen’s expenditures.

     At Bella’s we can quantify some further expenses. The train from Westland Row to Amiens Street Station cost one penny. Once at Bella Cohen’s, the prostitutes take advantage of Stephen’s laissez faire attitude to his remaining money. Stephen, in his inebriated state, initially pays a cumulative total of 40 shillings (or £2): first a banknote (15.3531) that is identified as a ‘poundnote’, then a gold coin that is presumably a half-sovereign (15.3540), and finally an additional two crowns (15.3546). In order to prevent Stephen from being further exploited, Bloom takes the pound note (20 shillings) and pays a half-sovereign (10 shillings) for himself, making the total payment to the house 30 shillings, ‘three times ten’ (15.3584), of which 20 shillings comes from Stephen. Shortly after this, Bloom offers to look after Stephen’s money in order to prevent him from being further exploited. It is unclear whether or not Bloom has returned the pound note to Stephen before he makes his offer and Stephen hands over his money for temporary safekeeping (15.3601–2), but this makes no functional difference to the transaction with Bella. The entrance fee to the brothel is 10 shillings (15.3543) so Bloom has paid the entrance fee for himself while Stephen has paid for himself and for Lynch. So, after ‘Oxen’, his expenditures amount to 20 shillings and a penny. Once that is subtracted from £2 16s. 11d., we get £1 16s. 10d.

     The total amount that Stephen hands over to Bloom for safekeeping is £1 6s. 11d. (15.3613). This is not the same as the £1 16s. 10d. that I calculated, but the figures are suspiciously similar. The penny difference might be explainable if Stephen did not pay the penny fare for the train. And this fare dodging might also explain Stephen’s mysterious hand injury (15.3720–1). But that still leaves 10 shillings unaccounted for. Either Joyce messed up the calculation (which is entirely possible) or Stephen did not hand over 10 shillings to Bloom. The advantage of this option is that it would explain why Stephen has half-crowns to give to Corley at the start of ‘Eumaeus’ (16.194) since Bloom has yet to return his money. While Stephen leaves Corley with one half-crown, he initially gives him an unspecified, plural number of half-crowns, which could be accounted for if Stephen somehow still had on his person 10 shillings in some form of coinage (10 shillings equals four half-crowns).

     Taking the £2 19s. Stephen has at the start of ‘Oxen’ as a starting point allows us to calculate the amount Stephen has in-hand when he leaves 7 Eccles Street in ‘Ithaca’. Assuming that Stephen did not pay for the train from Westland Row to Amiens Street, he has a surplus 10 shillings that he did not hand to Bloom. Of that sum, he gives one half-crown to Corley, which leaves him with 7s. 6d. to add to the £1 7s. Bloom returns to him, which means that Stephen’s budget has a balance of £1 14s. 6d. This also means that, surprisingly, Stephen ends Bloomsday with more cash-in-hand than Bloom.

     In terms of accounting for Stephen’s liquidity during the day there are many blank spots, things that just cannot be accounted for, so any attempt at calculation is just going to be an exercise in hypothesis and frustration (as you have just endured). We do have a number of fixed points we can cling to: Stephen’s salary in ‘Nestor’, the sum he has at the start of ‘Oxen’, the amount he spends at Burke’s, and the amount he spends at Bella Cohen’s. While the money Stephen hands to Bloom is a fixed and determinate sum, it cannot be all the money Stephen has to-hand at that point. Stephen’s expenditures become more traceable from ‘Oxen’ onwards, that is, once he is in Bloom’s company we can keep better track of his liquidity, although not without some ambiguity. It is as if Bloom’s financial probity partially contaminates Stephen’s profligacy.

Sam Slote

See also John Smurthwaite's article on A Joycean price guide