The first "event" in "The Lestrygonians" is Bloom's meeting with Mrs. Breen, and the details of that chat are crucial to Ulysses. Mrs. Breen tells Bloom that her husband, Denis, has gone half mad. His frenzied dream about "the ace of spades walking up the stairs" recalls Haines's nightmare about the black panther, and both images of black prefigure Bloom, who spends the day dressed in mourning clothes. The postcard received by Denis Breen, with the cryptic expression "U.P.: up," has driven him to the offices of Menton the solicitor (returned by now from Dignam's burial in the "Hades" episode) to seek vengeance against the unknown perpetrator; the letters "U.P." probably mean "It's all up with you" or "You're dead," although this interpretation is open to question as Joyce includes still another mystery in this novel. Again, Bloom's concern for Mrs. Mina Purefoy ("pure faith"), who has been in labor for three days, indicates Bloom's charitable nature and relates his thoughts to the theme of creativity and birth; yet Bloom confuses the beleaguered mother's name with that of Philip Beaufoy, author of "Matcham's Masterstroke"; Bloom, one might recall, "tore away half [of this] story" in "Calypso" to wipe himself. Finally, the appearance of Lamppost Farrell, an actual Dublin eccentric who dressed like a madman and superstitiously always walked on the outside of lampposts, is coupled with the incipient madness of Denis Breen to paint a most untowardly (though comic) picture of Dublin society. More important, though, is the dreadful toll that the madness of life has taken upon Mrs. Breen, and Bloom marvels that this ravaged woman is only a year or so older than Molly. Thus Mrs. Breen, as well as Bloom, fits the sad theme of "Me. And me now."
Leaving Mrs. Breen and then passing the offices of the Irish Times, Bloom recalls the ad that led him to Martha Clifford, and the reader is able to fill in important background information. Bloom thinks that there may well be other responses to his advertisement awaiting him at the Irish Times, in addition to the forty-four answers that he has already gone through, but he decides to "leave them there to simmer."
