Episode 5 — Lotus Eaters

Bloom has the funeral at eleven. He has time to kill. He walks across the river to Westland Row post office. He has been corresponding, under the assumed name "Henry Flower," with a woman named Martha Clifford whom he answered to a personal advert. He has never met her. There is a letter waiting; he collects it and reads it on a side street, with a flower pressed inside as her gimmick. The letter is mildly silly, mildly suggestive; she misspells words on purpose to flirt. He files it away in his head.

On his way back across town he glimpses Boylan, ducks into a doorway, and is relieved when Boylan does not see him. He wanders into All Hallows church off Westland Row and stands in the back during a Catholic communion service. He watches the women come up to the altar to receive the host. He has the curiosity of a non-believer who finds the rite anthropologically interesting — he speculates about the chemistry of the wafer, the politics of the sacrament, the comfort it offers. The chapter's metaphor is the lotus: people numbing themselves with mild drugs.

He goes to Sweny's the chemist on Lincoln Place to order a skin lotion Molly likes. While he waits he picks up a bar of lemon soap. He pays for the lotion, takes the soap, walks out — and only later realises he has not paid for the soap. He carries it in his pocket the rest of the day. He stops at a public bath. He undresses, sinks into the warm water, and looks at his own body floating in front of him with the same mild detached curiosity with which he watches everyone. The episode ends with him drifting in the bath. It is ten-forty-five.