Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

–INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:

–Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

So began a work published today in 1922 in Paris on the fortieth birthday of its author. The work is, of course, Ulysses, and the author, James Joyce. The book ends with a eight-sentence, unpunctuated chapter which Molly Bloom draws to an end with

I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

There you have it. Now all you have to do is read the stuff in the middle!