fulcrum gained retarded access to the kitchen through the subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free inflammable coal gas by turning on the ventcock, lit a high flame which, by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a portable candle.
What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive?
Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 C P , a man lighting a candle, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man leaving the kitchen holding a candle of 1 C P .
Did the man reappear elsewhere?
After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the halldoor. The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle.
Did Stephen obey his sign?
Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and followed softly along the hallway the man’s back and listed feet and lighted candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down a turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom’s house.
What did Bloom do?
He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for Stephen with its back to the area window, the other for himself when necessary, knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons of best Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs Flower and M’Donald of 14 D’Olier street, kindled it at three projecting