The abstractly rational language of Ithaca can paradoxically intensify the presentation of Bloom's emotional states, by gazing down blankly from olympian heights on his human griefs and longings. The first such moment comes as Bloom recollects other nights when he enjoyed meaningful intellectual conversation. After mentally ticking off a list of such talks, the narrative asks what inference he draws from "the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885, 1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904." Answer: "He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction of the converse domain of interindividual relations." The more we become ourselves, in other words, the less companionship we experience with others. Much later in the chapter, after Stephen Dedalus walks away from the Eccles Street house, this alienation is expressed more concretely in Bloom's poignant sensation of "lonechill."

Bloom's memory of other stimulating conversations involve particular people (Owen Goldberg, Cecil Turnbull, Percy Apjohn, "casual acquaintances and prospective purchasers," "major Brian Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy," Julius Mastiansky), places (streets, parlors, railway cars, doorsteps, a garden wall), and times ("at night," "in the evenings," "occasionally," "frequently," "once"). But as a series of bare numbers abstracted from their warm human contexts, the list of years invites depressive thoughts. Although its "irregular sequence" hardly justifies the formulation of a mathematical law, it does suggest some kind of inverse relationship between age and companionship. Adult personality displays a pattern of "progressive extension of the field of individual development and experience": as the years roll by we become more intellectually capable, more confident in our observations and judgments, more set in our ways, more ourselves. Meanwhile, in "the converse domain of interindividal relations," those same years see a "restriction." As we progress, we regress.

I use the word "we" because, as filtered through the abstract language of the narrative, Bloom seems to be contemplating a universal law of human experience: "progressive" individuality inevitably goes hand in hand with "regressive" interindividuality. But it may be that paraphrasing the words in this way allows style to warp content. Perhaps Bloom is thinking only about himself. If true, this in no way diminishes the pathos of the catechism. Bloom goes on to broaden his dark reflections to the entire span of his human life. Birth was an act of coming into relationship with others: "From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received." Life has been a process of searching for companionship in a sea of impersonal encounters: "existence with existence he was with any as any with any." Death will be a return to complete anonymity: "from existence to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived."

After this passage early in the chapter, Bloom turns to the business of unlocking his front door and leaves his gloomy thoughts behind. He cannot forget them, though. After all the animated conversation with Stephen, after Stephen's refusal of his warm offer to stay the night, after Stephen walks unconcernedly away down the lane, Bloom is left "Alone," "Alone," with "lonechill" under the stars. He thinks of half a dozen old "companions," one of whom, Percy Apjohn, was in the earlier list of people with whom he had satisfying late-night conversations, all now dead. Marion Tweedy now shares his bed and is the mother of his daughter, but intellectual exchange seems to play a small role in this marriage, and lately the mutual incomprehension has gotten worse. The end of Ithaca balances the ten-year interval "during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete" against a nine-month stretch in which "complete mental intercourse...had not taken place."

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