Ulysses, Telemachus, No. 15

[Cf. 1922, 3:19-21; Gabler 3:21-23]

Another thing I've learned from Wikipedia. The black mass is not a Satanic ritual per se, but rather just kind of a fun "extra," a parody of the regular mass that's a morale-builder for the troops.

Why all this talk of a black mass? Are we just trying to build readership? No, gentle reader... Mulligan's been parodying the mass for the last 20 lines or so. Gifford parses "Christine" as referring to the black mass "tradition" of having a naked woman serve as an altar.

If this all seems farfetched, there's an lascivious and fascinating (forgive the redundancy) story in Ellmann's biography (and elsewhere) about Joyce's encounters with a young woman in Zurich named Marthe Fleischmann. In 1919, on his 37th birthday, Joyce made arrangements with his friend Frank Budgen to entertain Ms. Fleischmann in Budgen's studio. [ Fleischmann also may have served as the model for Bloom's correspondend Martha Clifford, and Gerty Macdowell...] We don't know much about what happened... Joyce later claimed to have explored the "hottest and coldest" parts of a woman's body. Very unsexy. Apparently he also brought a menorah (!) to the occasion, telling the man he bought it from that it was intended for a "black mass." this was two years after he wrote these lines. Interpret as you will...