A.E. stands up to leave and tells Eglington he may see him at Moore’s that night but he has another meeting earlier. Stephen rather facetiously imagines astral planes and Buddha like postures. The librarian announces that A.E. is gathering the verse of young poets. Stephen alert to whether his name might be mentioned holds focus on his ashplant and hat and listens to their conversation. He gives A.E. Deasy’s letter for publication and is quite ingratiating towards him as he requests for it to go in the next issue of his literary journal. A.E. rather pompously tells him that if it is deemed important it will go to print and he then leaves.

The librarian turns to Stephen and continues the conversation by asking if Ann Hathaway was faithful to Shakespeare? Stephen reflects on the endless possibilities in all that might have been and he views the shelves of books as vaults of dead words when he wants the vigor of live thought and language. John Eglington extends the gauntlet yet again for Stephen to prove that Hamlet is other than Shakespeare. Stephen talks of molecules and weaving and unweaving bodies to make a link between father and unliving son. He refers to Shelly’s concept of ‘the intense instant’ when there is a synergy of past, present and future.