DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN
Dubliners. —Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived fifty and fiftythree years in Fumbally’s lane. —Where is that? the professor asked. —Off Blackpitts, Stephen said. Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistering tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records. Quicker, darlint! On now. Dare it. Let there be life. —They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson’s pillar. They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox. They shake out the threepenny bits and sixpences and coax out the pennies with the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven in coppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take their umbrellas for fear it may come on to rain. —Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said.
annotation:
Akasic records are the term that theosophists refer to the collected memory of all things past present and future that can be accessed via the etheric plane (source). This is the second time Stephen refers to the concept, the first coming in Telemachus when he thinks of his mother being “Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys” (source).