Ulysses
By James Joyce

II (J)

PADDY LEONARD: Thank you.

NOSEY FLYNN: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

BLOOM: (OBDURATELY) Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five pounds.

J. J. O’MOLLOY: A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O’Brien!

NOSEY FLYNN: Where do I draw the five pounds?

PISSER BURKE: For bladder trouble?

Bloom:

    ACID. NIT. HYDROCHLOR. DIL., 20 minims
    TINCT. NUX VOM., 5 minims
    EXTR. TARAXEL. IIQ., 30 minims.
    AQ. DIS. TER IN DIE.

CHRIS CALLINAN: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?

BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. II.

JOE HYNES: Why aren’t you in uniform?

BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours?

BEN DOLLARD: Pansies?

BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.

BEN DOLLARD: When twins arrive?

BLOOM: Father (pater, dad) starts thinking.

LARRY O’ROURKE: An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I’m sending around a dozen of stout for the missus.

BLOOM: (COLDLY) You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no presents.

CROFTON: This is indeed a festivity.

BLOOM: (SOLEMNLY) You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.

ALEXANDER KEYES: When will we have our own house of keys?

BLOOM: I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses. Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay state.

O’MADDEN BURKE: Free fox in a free henroost.

DAVY BYRNE: (YAWNING) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!

BLOOM: Mixed races and mixed marriage.

LENEHAN: What about mixed bathing?

(BLOOM EXPLAINS TO THOSE NEAR HIM HIS SCHEMES FOR SOCIAL REGENERATION. ALL AGREE WITH HIM. THE KEEPER OF THE KILDARE STREET MUSEUM APPEARS, DRAGGING A LORRY ON WHICH ARE THE SHAKING STATUES OF SEVERAL NAKED GODDESSES, VENUS CALLIPYGE, VENUS PANDEMOS, VENUS METEMPSYCHOSIS, AND PLASTER FIGURES, ALSO NAKED, REPRESENTING THE NEW NINE MUSES, COMMERCE, OPERATIC MUSIC, AMOR, PUBLICITY, MANUFACTURE, LIBERTY OF SPEECH, PLURAL VOTING, GASTRONOMY, PRIVATE HYGIENE, SEASIDE CONCERT ENTERTAINMENTS, PAINLESS OBSTETRICS AND ASTRONOMY FOR THE PEOPLE.)

FATHER FARLEY: He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an anythingarian seeking to overthrow our holy faith.

MRS RIORDAN: (TEARS UP HER WILL) I’m disappointed in you! You bad man!

MOTHER GROGAN: (REMOVES HER BOOT TO THROW IT AT BLOOM) You beast! You abominable person!

NOSEY FLYNN: Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs.

Bloom: (with Rollicking Humour)

    I vowed that I never would leave her,
    She turned out a cruel deceiver.
    With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom.

HOPPY HOLOHAN: Good old Bloom! There’s nobody like him after all.

PADDY LEONARD: Stage Irishman!

BLOOM: What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of Casteele. (LAUGHTER.)

LENEHAN: Plagiarist! Down with Bloom!

THE VEILED SIBYL: (ENTHUSIASTICALLY) I’m a Bloomite and I glory in it. I believe in him in spite of all. I’d give my life for him, the funniest man on earth.

BLOOM: (WINKS AT THE BYSTANDERS) I bet she’s a bonny lassie.

THEODORE PUREFOY: (IN FISHINGCAP AND OILSKIN JACKET) He employs a mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (STABS HERSELF) My hero god! (SHE DIES)

(MANY MOST ATTRACTIVE AND ENTHUSIASTIC WOMEN ALSO COMMIT SUICIDE BY STABBING, DROWNING, DRINKING PRUSSIC ACID, ACONITE, ARSENIC, OPENING THEIR VEINS, REFUSING FOOD, CASTING THEMSELVES UNDER STEAMROLLERS, FROM THE TOP OF NELSON’S PILLAR, INTO THE GREAT VAT OF GUINNESS’S BREWERY, ASPHYXIATING THEMSELVES BY PLACING THEIR HEADS IN GASOVENS, HANGING THEMSELVES IN STYLISH GARTERS, LEAPING FROM WINDOWS OF DIFFERENT STOREYS.)

ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (VIOLENTLY) Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. Caliban!

THE MOB: Lynch him! Roast him! He’s as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!

(MOTHER GROGAN THROWS HER BOOT AT BLOOM. SEVERAL SHOPKEEPERS FROM UPPER AND LOWER DORSET STREET THROW OBJECTS OF LITTLE OR NO COMMERCIAL VALUE, HAMBONES, CONDENSED MILK TINS, UNSALEABLE CABBAGE, STALE BREAD, SHEEP’S TAILS, ODD PIECES OF FAT.)

BLOOM: (EXCITEDLY) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. He is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin’s Barn. Slander, the viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, SGENL INN BAN BATA COISDE GAN CAPALL. I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf.

DR MULLIGAN: (IN MOTOR JERKIN, GREEN MOTORGOGGLES ON HIS BROW) Dr Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace’s private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal, axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be VIRGO INTACTA.

(bloom Holds His High Grade Hat Over His Genital Organs.)

DR MADDEN: Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in spirits of wine in the national teratological museum.

DR CROTTHERS: I have examined the patient’s urine. It is albuminoid. Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent.

DR PUNCH COSTELLO: The FETOR JUDAICUS is most perceptible.

DR DIXON: (READS A BILL OF HEALTH) Professor Bloom is a finished example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the Reformed Priests’ Protection Society which clears up everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish manufacture winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby.

(GENERAL COMMOTION AND COMPASSION. WOMEN FAINT. A WEALTHY AMERICAN MAKES A STREET COLLECTION FOR BLOOM. GOLD AND SILVER COINS, BLANK CHEQUES, BANKNOTES, JEWELS, TREASURY BONDS, MATURING BILLS OF EXCHANGE, I. O. U’S, WEDDING RINGS, WATCHCHAINS, LOCKETS, NECKLACES AND BRACELETS ARE RAPIDLY COLLECTED.)

BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother.

MRS THORNTON: (IN NURSETENDER’S GOWN) Embrace me tight, dear. You’ll be soon over it. Tight, dear.

(BLOOM EMBRACES HER TIGHTLY AND BEARS EIGHT MALE YELLOW AND WHITE CHILDREN. THEY APPEAR ON A REDCARPETED STAIRCASE ADORNED WITH EXPENSIVE PLANTS. ALL THE OCTUPLETS ARE HANDSOME, WITH VALUABLE METALLIC FACES, WELLMADE, RESPECTABLY DRESSED AND WELLCONDUCTED, SPEAKING FIVE MODERN LANGUAGES FLUENTLY AND INTERESTED IN VARIOUS ARTS AND SCIENCES. EACH HAS HIS NAME PRINTED IN LEGIBLE LETTERS ON HIS SHIRTFRONT: NASODORO, GOLDFINGER, CHRYSOSTOMOS, MAINDOREE, SILVERSMILE, SILBERSELBER, VIFARGENT, PANARGYROS. THEY ARE IMMEDIATELY APPOINTED TO POSITIONS OF HIGH PUBLIC TRUST IN SEVERAL DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AS MANAGING DIRECTORS OF BANKS, TRAFFIC MANAGERS OF RAILWAYS, CHAIRMEN OF LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANIES, VICECHAIRMEN OF HOTEL SYNDICATES.)

A VOICE: Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

BLOOM: (DARKLY) You have said it.

BROTHER BUZZ: Then perform a miracle like Father Charles.

BANTAM LYONS: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger.

(BLOOM WALKS ON A NET, COVERS HIS LEFT EYE WITH HIS LEFT EAR, PASSES THROUGH SEVERAL WALLS, CLIMBS NELSON’S PILLAR, HANGS FROM THE TOP LEDGE BY HIS EYELIDS, EATS TWELVE DOZEN OYSTERS (SHELLS INCLUDED), HEALS SEVERAL SUFFERERS FROM KING’S EVIL, CONTRACTS HIS FACE SO AS TO RESEMBLE MANY HISTORICAL PERSONAGES, LORD BEACONSFIELD, LORD BYRON, WAT TYLER, MOSES OF EGYPT, MOSES MAIMONIDES, MOSES MENDELSSOHN, HENRY IRVING, RIP VAN WINKLE, KOSSUTH, JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, BARON LEOPOLD ROTHSCHILD, ROBINSON CRUSOE, SHERLOCK HOLMES, PASTEUR, TURNS EACH FOOT SIMULTANEOUSLY IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, BIDS THE TIDE TURN BACK, ECLIPSES THE SUN BY EXTENDING HIS LITTLE FINGER.)

BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (IN PAPAL ZOUAVE’S UNIFORM, STEEL CUIRASSES AS BREASTPLATE, ARMPLATES, THIGHPLATES, LEGPLATES, LARGE PROFANE MOUSTACHES AND BROWN PAPER MITRE) LEOPOLDI AUTEM GENERATIO. Moses begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O’Halloran and O’Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat O’Donnell Magnus and O’Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom ET VOCABITUR NOMEN EIUS EMMANUEL.

A DEADHAND: (WRITES ON THE WALL) Bloom is a cod.

CRAB: (IN BUSHRANGER’S KIT) What did you do in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?

A FEMALE INFANT: (SHAKES A RATTLE) And under Ballybough bridge?

A HOLLYBUSH: And in the devil’s glen?

BLOOM: (BLUSHES FURIOUSLY ALL OVER FROM FRONS TO NATES, THREE TEARS FILLING FROM HIS LEFT EYE) Spare my past.

THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (IN BODYCOATS, KNEEBREECHES, WITH DONNYBROOK FAIR SHILLELAGHS) Sjambok him!

(BLOOM WITH ASSES’ EARS SEATS HIMSELF IN THE PILLORY WITH CROSSED ARMS, HIS FEET PROTRUDING. HE WHISTLES Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. ARTANE ORPHANS, JOINING HANDS, CAPER ROUND HIM. GIRLS OF THE PRISON GATE MISSION, JOINING HANDS, CAPER ROUND IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.)

The Artane Orphans:

    You hig, you hog, you dirty dog!
    You think the ladies love you!

The Prison Gate Girls:

    If you see Kay
    Tell him he may
    See you in tea
    Tell him from me.

HORNBLOWER: (IN EPHOD AND HUNTINGCAP, ANNOUNCES) And he shall carry the sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and to Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham.

(ALL THE PEOPLE CAST SOFT PANTOMIME STONES AT BLOOM. MANY BONAFIDE TRAVELLERS AND OWNERLESS DOGS COME NEAR HIM AND DEFILE HIM. MASTIANSKY AND CITRON APPROACH IN GABERDINES, WEARING LONG EARLOCKS. THEY WAG THEIR BEARDS AT BLOOM.)

MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: Belial! Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah! Abulafia! Recant!

(GEORGE R MESIAS, BLOOM’S TAILOR, APPEARS, A TAILOR’S GOOSE UNDER HIS ARM, PRESENTING A BILL)

MESIAS: To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings.

BLOOM: (RUBS HIS HANDS CHEERFULLY) Just like old times. Poor Bloom!

(REUBEN J DODD, BLACKBEARDED ISCARIOT, BAD SHEPHERD, BEARING ON HIS SHOULDERS THE DROWNED CORPSE OF HIS SON, APPROACHES THE PILLORY.)

REUBEN J: (WHISPERS HOARSELY) The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties. Nip the first rattler.

THE FIRE BRIGADE: Pflaap!

BROTHER BUZZ: (INVESTS BLOOM IN A YELLOW HABIT WITH EMBROIDERY OF PAINTED FLAMES AND HIGH POINTED HAT. HE PLACES A BAG OF GUNPOWDER ROUND HIS NECK AND HANDS HIM OVER TO THE CIVIL POWER, SAYING) Forgive him his trespasses.

(LIEUTENANT MYERS OF THE DUBLIN FIRE BRIGADE BY GENERAL REQUEST SETS FIRE TO BLOOM. LAMENTATIONS.)

THE CITIZEN: Thank heaven!

BLOOM: (IN A SEAMLESS GARMENT MARKED I. H. S. STANDS UPRIGHT AMID PHOENIX FLAMES) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin.

(HE EXHIBITS TO DUBLIN REPORTERS TRACES OF BURNING. THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN, IN BLACK GARMENTS, WITH LARGE PRAYERBOOKS AND LONG LIGHTED CANDLES IN THEIR HANDS, KNEEL DOWN AND PRAY.)

The Daughters of Erin:

    Kidney of Bloom, pray for us
    Flower of the Bath, pray for us
    Mentor of Menton, pray for us
    Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us
    Charitable Mason, pray for us
    Wandering Soap, pray for us
    Sweets of Sin, pray for us
    Music without Words, pray for us
    Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us
    Friend of all Frillies, pray for us
    Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us
    Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.

(A CHOIR OF SIX HUNDRED VOICES, CONDUCTED BY VINCENT O’BRIEN, SINGS THE CHORUS FROM HANDEL’S MESSIAH ALLELUIA FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT REIGNETH, ACCOMPANIED ON THE ORGAN BY JOSEPH GLYNN. BLOOM BECOMES MUTE, SHRUNKEN, CARBONISED.)

ZOE: Talk away till you’re black in the face.

BLOOM: (IN CAUBEEN WITH CLAY PIPE STUCK IN THE BAND, DUSTY BROGUES, AN EMIGRANT’S RED HANDKERCHIEF BUNDLE IN HIS HAND, LEADING A BLACK BOGOAK PIG BY A SUGAUN, WITH A SMILE IN HIS EYE) Let me be going now, woman of the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I’m after having the father and mother of a bating. (WITH A TEAR IN HIS EYE) All insanity. Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not to be. Life’s dream is o’er. End it peacefully. They can live on. (HE GAZES FAR AWAY MOURNFULLY) I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest. (HE BREATHES SOFTLY) No more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell.

ZOE: (STIFFLY, HER FINGER IN HER NECKFILLET) Honest? Till the next time. (SHE SNEERS) Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts!

BLOOM: (BITTERLY) Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle. I’m sick of it. Let everything rip.

ZOE: (IN SUDDEN SULKS) I hate a rotter that’s insincere. Give a bleeding whore a chance.

BLOOM: (REPENTANTLY) I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil. Where are you from? London?

ZOE: (GLIBLY) Hog’s Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I’m Yorkshire born. (SHE HOLDS HIS HAND WHICH IS FEELING FOR HER NIPPLE) I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a short time? Ten shillings?

BLOOM: (SMILES, NODS SLOWLY) More, houri, more.

ZOE: And more’s mother? (SHE PATS HIM OFFHANDEDLY WITH VELVET PAWS) Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I’ll peel off.

BLOOM: (FEELING HIS OCCIPUT DUBIOUSLY WITH THE UNPARALLELED EMBARRASSMENT OF A HARASSED PEDLAR GAUGING THE SYMMETRY OF HER PEELED PEARS) Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed monster. (EARNESTLY) You know how difficult it is. I needn’t tell you.

ZOE: (FLATTERED) What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for. (SHE PATS HIM) Come.

BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle.

ZOE: Babby!

BLOOM: (IN BABYLINEN AND PELISSE, BIGHEADED, WITH A CAUL OF DARK HAIR, FIXES BIG EYES ON HER FLUID SLIP AND COUNTS ITS BRONZE BUCKLES WITH A CHUBBY FINGER, HIS MOIST TONGUE LOLLING AND LISPING) One two tlee: tlee tlwo tlone.

THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me.

ZOE: Silent means consent. (WITH LITTLE PARTED TALONS SHE CAPTURES HIS HAND, HER FOREFINGER GIVING TO HIS PALM THE PASSTOUCH OF SECRET MONITOR, LURING HIM TO DOOM.) Hot hands cold gizzard.

(HE HESITATES AMID SCENTS, MUSIC, TEMPTATIONS. SHE LEADS HIM TOWARDS THE STEPS, DRAWING HIM BY THE ODOUR OF HER ARMPITS, THE VICE OF HER PAINTED EYES, THE RUSTLE OF HER SLIP IN WHOSE SINUOUS FOLDS LURKS THE LION REEK OF ALL THE MALE BRUTES THAT HAVE POSSESSED HER.)

THE MALE BRUTES: (EXHALING SULPHUR OF RUT AND DUNG AND RAMPING IN THEIR LOOSEBOX, FAINTLY ROARING, THEIR DRUGGED HEADS SWAYING TO AND FRO) Good!

(ZOE AND BLOOM REACH THE DOORWAY WHERE TWO SISTER WHORES ARE SEATED. THEY EXAMINE HIM CURIOUSLY FROM UNDER THEIR PENCILLED BROWS AND SMILE TO HIS HASTY BOW. HE TRIPS AWKWARDLY.)

ZOE: (HER LUCKY HAND INSTANTLY SAVING HIM) Hoopsa! Don’t fall upstairs.

BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. (HE STANDS ASIDE AT THE THRESHOLD) After you is good manners.

ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after.

(SHE CROSSES THE THRESHOLD. HE HESITATES. SHE TURNS AND, HOLDING OUT HER HANDS, DRAWS HIM OVER. HE HOPS. ON THE ANTLERED RACK OF THE HALL HANG A MAN ’S HAT AND WATERPROOF. BLOOM UNCOVERS HIMSELF BUT, SEEING THEM, FROWNS, THEN SMILES, PREOCCUPIED. A DOOR ON THE RETURN LANDING IS FLUNG OPEN. A MAN IN PURPLE SHIRT AND GREY TROUSERS, BROWNSOCKED, PASSES WITH AN APE’S GAIT, HIS BALD HEAD AND GOATEE BEARD UPHELD, HUGGING A FULL WATERJUGJAR, HIS TWOTAILED BLACK BRACES DANGLING AT HEELS. AVERTING HIS FACE QUICKLY BLOOM BENDS TO EXAMINE ON THE HALLTABLE THE SPANIEL EYES OF A RUNNING FOX: THEN, HIS LIFTED HEAD SNIFFING, FOLLOWS ZOE INTO THE MUSICROOM. A SHADE OF MAUVE TISSUEPAPER DIMS THE LIGHT OF THE CHANDELIER. ROUND AND ROUND A MOTH FLIES, COLLIDING, ESCAPING. THE FLOOR IS COVERED WITH AN OILCLOTH MOSAIC OF JADE AND AZURE AND CINNABAR RHOMBOIDS. FOOTMARKS ARE STAMPED OVER IT IN ALL SENSES, HEEL TO HEEL, HEEL TO HOLLOW, TOE TO TOE, FEET LOCKED, A MORRIS OF SHUFFLING FEET WITHOUT BODY PHANTOMS, ALL IN A SCRIMMAGE HIGGLEDYPIGGLEDY. THE WALLS ARE TAPESTRIED WITH A PAPER OF YEWFRONDS AND CLEAR GLADES. IN THE GRATE IS SPREAD A SCREEN OF PEACOCK FEATHERS. LYNCH SQUATS CROSSLEGGED ON THE HEARTHRUG OF MATTED HAIR, HIS CAP BACK TO THE FRONT. WITH A WAND HE BEATS TIME SLOWLY. KITTY RICKETTS, A BONY PALLID WHORE IN NAVY COSTUME, DOESKIN GLOVES ROLLED BACK FROM A CORAL WRISTLET, A CHAIN PURSE IN HER HAND, SITS PERCHED ON THE EDGE OF THE TABLE SWINGING HER LEG AND GLANCING AT HERSELF IN THE GILT MIRROR OVER THE MANTELPIECE. A TAG OF HER CORSETLACE HANGS SLIGHTLY BELOW HER JACKET. LYNCH INDICATES MOCKINGLY THE COUPLE AT THE PIANO.)

KITTY: (COUGHS BEHIND HER HAND) She’s a bit imbecillic. (SHE SIGNS WITH A WAGGLING FOREFINGER) Blemblem. (LYNCH LIFTS UP HER SKIRT AND WHITE PETTICOAT WITH HIS WAND SHE SETTLES THEM DOWN QUICKLY.) Respect yourself. (SHE HICCUPS, THEN BENDS QUICKLY HER SAILOR HAT UNDER WHICH HER HAIR GLOWS, RED WITH HENNA) O, excuse!

ZOE: More limelight, Charley. (SHE GOES TO THE CHANDELIER AND TURNS THE GAS FULL COCK)

KITTY: (PEERS AT THE GASJET) What ails it tonight?

LYNCH: (DEEPLY) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

ZOE: Clap on the back for Zoe.

(THE WAND IN LYNCH’S HAND FLASHES: A BRASS POKER. STEPHEN STANDS AT THE PIANOLA ON WHICH SPRAWL HIS HAT AND ASHPLANT. WITH TWO FINGERS HE REPEATS ONCE MORE THE SERIES OF EMPTY FIFTHS. FLORRY TALBOT, A BLOND FEEBLE GOOSEFAT WHORE IN A TATTERDEMALION GOWN OF MILDEWED STRAWBERRY, LOLLS SPREADEAGLE IN THE SOFACORNER, HER LIMP FOREARM PENDENT OVER THE BOLSTER, LISTENING. A HEAVY STYE DROOPS OVER HER SLEEPY EYELID.)

KITTY: (HICCUPS AGAIN WITH A KICK OF HER HORSED FOOT) O, excuse!

ZOE: (PROMPTLY) Your boy’s thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.

(KITTY RICKETTS BENDS HER HEAD. HER BOA UNCOILS, SLIDES, GLIDES OVER HER SHOULDER, BACK, ARM, CHAIR TO THE GROUND. LYNCH LIFTS THE CURLED CATERPILLAR ON HIS WAND. SHE SNAKES HER NECK, NESTLING. STEPHEN GLANCES BEHIND AT THE SQUATTED FIGURE WITH ITS CAP BACK TO THE FRONT.)

STEPHEN: As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet’s rest. It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate COELA ENARRANT GLORIAM DOMINI. It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David’s that is Circe’s or what am I saying Ceres’ altar and David’s tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his almightiness. MAIS NOM DE NOM, that is another pair of trousers. JETEZ LA GOURME. FAUT QUE JEUNESSE SE PASSE. (HE STOPS, POINTS AT LYNCH’S CAP, SMILES, LAUGHS) Which side is your knowledge bump?

THE CAP: (WITH SATURNINE SPLEEN) Bah! It is because it is. Woman’s reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form of life. Bah!

STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone!

THE CAP: Bah!

STEPHEN: Here’s another for you. (HE FROWNS) The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval which ...

THE CAP: Which? Finish. You can’t.

STEPHEN: (WITH AN EFFORT) Interval which. Is the greatest possible ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which.

THE CAP: Which?

(OUTSIDE THE GRAMOPHONE BEGINS TO BLARE The Holy City.)

STEPHEN: (ABRUPTLY) What went forth to the ends of the world to traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow’s noise in the street. Self which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. ECCO!

LYNCH: (WITH A MOCKING WHINNY OF LAUGHTER GRINS AT BLOOM AND ZOE HIGGINS) What a learned speech, eh?

ZOE: (BRISKLY) God help your head, he knows more than you have forgotten.

(with Obese Stupidity Florry Talbot Regards Stephen.)

FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer.

KITTY: No!

ZOE: (EXPLODES IN LAUGHTER) Great unjust God!

FLORRY: (OFFENDED) Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my foot’s tickling.

(ragged Barefoot Newsboys, Jogging a Wagtail Kite, Patter Past, Yelling.)

THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.

(stephen Turns and Sees Bloom.)

STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time.

(REUBEN I ANTICHRIST, WANDERING JEW, A CLUTCHING HAND OPEN ON HIS SPINE, STUMPS FORWARD. ACROSS HIS LOINS IS SLUNG A PILGRIM’S WALLET FROM WHICH PROTRUDE PROMISSORY NOTES AND DISHONOURED BILLS. ALOFT OVER HIS SHOULDER HE BEARS A LONG BOATPOLE FROM THE HOOK OF WHICH THE SODDEN HUDDLED MASS OF HIS ONLY SON, SAVED FROM LIFFEY WATERS, HANGS FROM THE SLACK OF ITS BREECHES. A HOBGOBLIN IN THE IMAGE OF PUNCH COSTELLO, HIPSHOT, CROOKBACKED, HYDROCEPHALIC, PROGNATHIC WITH RECEDING FOREHEAD AND ALLY SLOPER NOSE, TUMBLES IN SOMERSAULTS THROUGH THE GATHERING DARKNESS.)

ALL: What?

THE HOBGOBLIN: (HIS JAWS CHATTERING, CAPERS TO AND FRO, GOGGLING HIS EYES, SQUEAKING, KANGAROOHOPPING WITH OUTSTRETCHED CLUTCHING ARMS, THEN ALL AT ONCE THRUSTS HIS LIPLESS FACE THROUGH THE FORK OF HIS THIGHS) IL VIENT! C’EST MOI! L’HOMME QUI RIT! L’HOMME PRIMIGENE! (HE WHIRLS ROUND AND ROUND WITH DERVISH HOWLS) SIEURS ET DAMES, FAITES VOS JEUX! (HE CROUCHES JUGGLING. TINY ROULETTE PLANETS FLY FROM HIS HANDS.) LES JEUX SONT FAITS! (THE PLANETS RUSH TOGETHER, UTTERING CREPITANT CRACKS) RIEN VA PLUS! (THE PLANETS, BUOYANT BALLOONS, SAIL SWOLLEN UP AND AWAY. HE SPRINGS OFF INTO VACUUM.)

FLORRY: (SINKING INTO TORPOR, CROSSING HERSELF SECRETLY) The end of the world!

(A FEMALE TEPID EFFLUVIUM LEAKS OUT FROM HER. NEBULOUS OBSCURITY OCCUPIES SPACE. THROUGH THE DRIFTING FOG WITHOUT THE GRAMOPHONE BLARES OVER COUGHS AND FEETSHUFFLING.)

THE GRAMOPHONE: Jerusalem!

Open your gates and sing

Hosanna ...

(A ROCKET RUSHES UP THE SKY AND BURSTS. A WHITE STAR FILLS FROM IT, PROCLAIMING THE CONSUMMATION OF ALL THINGS AND SECOND COMING OF ELIJAH. ALONG AN INFINITE INVISIBLE TIGHTROPE TAUT FROM ZENITH TO NADIR THE END OF THE WORLD, A TWOHEADED OCTOPUS IN GILLIE’S KILTS, BUSBY AND TARTAN FILIBEGS, WHIRLS THROUGH THE MURK, HEAD OVER HEELS, IN THE FORM OF THE THREE LEGS OF MAN.)

THE END OF THE WORLD: (WITH A SCOTCH ACCENT) Wha’ll dance the keel row, the keel row, the keel row?

(OVER THE POSSING DRIFT AND CHOKING BREATHCOUGHS, ELIJAH’S VOICE, HARSH AS A CORNCRAKE’S, JARS ON HIGH. PERSPIRING IN A LOOSE LAWN SURPLICE WITH FUNNEL SLEEVES HE IS SEEN, VERGERFACED, ABOVE A ROSTRUM ABOUT WHICH THE BANNER OF OLD GLORY IS DRAPED. HE THUMPS THE PARAPET.)

ELIJAH: No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God’s time is 12.25. Tell mother you’ll be there. Rush your order and you play a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it’s up to you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It’s a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest stuff ever was. It’s the whole pie with jam in. It’s just the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? O. K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That’s it. You call me up by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. (HE SHOUTS) Now then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! (HE SINGS) Jeru ...

THE GRAMOPHONE: (DROWNING HIS VOICE) Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh ... (THE DISC RASPS GRATINGLY AGAINST THE NEEDLE)

THE THREE WHORES: (COVERING THEIR EARS, SQUAWK) Ahhkkk!

ELIJAH: (IN ROLLEDUP SHIRTSLEEVES, BLACK IN THE FACE, SHOUTS AT THE TOP OF HIS VOICE, HIS ARMS UPLIFTED) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems to me I don’t never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. (HE WINKS AT HIS AUDIENCE) Our Mr President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing.

KITTY-KATE: I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in the brown scapular. My mother’s sister married a Montmorency. It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was pure.

ZOE-FANNY: I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.

FLORRY-TERESA: It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy’s three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the bed.

STEPHEN: In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

(THE BEATITUDES, DIXON, MADDEN, CROTTHERS, COSTELLO, LENEHAN, BANNON, MULLIGAN AND LYNCH IN WHITE SURGICAL STUDENTS’ GOWNS, FOUR ABREAST, GOOSESTEPPING, TRAMP FIST PAST IN NOISY MARCHING)

THE BEATITUDES: (INCOHERENTLY) Beer beef battledog buybull businum barnum buggerum bishop.

LYSTER: (IN QUAKERGREY KNEEBREECHES AND BROADBRIMMED HAT, SAYS DISCREETLY) He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the light.

(HE CORANTOS BY. BEST ENTERS IN HAIRDRESSER’S ATTIRE, SHINILY LAUNDERED, HIS LOCKS IN CURLPAPERS. HE LEADS JOHN EGLINTON WHO WEARS A MANDARIN’S KIMONO OF NANKEEN YELLOW, LIZARDLETTERED, AND A HIGH PAGODA HAT.)

BEST: (SMILING, LIFTS THE HAT AND DISPLAYS A SHAVEN POLL FROM THE CROWN OF WHICH BRISTLES A PIGTAIL TOUPEE TIED WITH AN ORANGE TOPKNOT) I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you know, Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says.

JOHN EGLINTON: (PRODUCES A GREENCAPPED DARK LANTERN AND FLASHES IT TOWARDS A CORNER: WITH CARPING ACCENT) Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man. Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.

(IN THE CONE OF THE SEARCHLIGHT BEHIND THE COALSCUTTLE, OLLAVE, HOLYEYED, THE BEARDED FIGURE OF MANANAUN MACLIR BROODS, CHIN ON KNEES. HE RISES SLOWLY. A COLD SEAWIND BLOWS FROM HIS DRUID MOUTH. ABOUT HIS HEAD WRITHE EELS AND ELVERS. HE IS ENCRUSTED WITH WEEDS AND SHELLS. HIS RIGHT HAND HOLDS A BICYCLE PUMP. HIS LEFT HAND GRASPS A HUGE CRAYFISH BY ITS TWO TALONS.)

MANANAUN MACLIR: (WITH A VOICE OF WAVES) Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor! Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. (WITH A VOICE OF WHISTLING SEAWIND) Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won’t have my leg pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult of Shakti. (WITH A CRY OF STORMBIRDS) Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! (HE SMITES WITH HIS BICYCLE PUMP THE CRAYFISH IN HIS LEFT HAND. ON ITS COOPERATIVE DIAL GLOW THE TWELVE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC. HE WAILS WITH THE VEHEMENCE OF THE OCEAN.) Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the homestead! I am the dreamery creamery butter.

(A SKELETON JUDASHAND STRANGLES THE LIGHT. THE GREEN LIGHT WANES TO MAUVE. THE GASJET WAILS WHISTLING.)

THE GASJET: Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii!

(zoe Runs to the Chandelier And, Crooking Her Leg, Adjusts the Mantle.)

ZOE: Who has a fag as I’m here?

LYNCH: (TOSSING A CIGARETTE ON TO THE TABLE) Here.

ZOE: (HER HEAD PERCHED ASIDE IN MOCK PRIDE) Is that the way to hand the POT to a lady? (SHE STRETCHES UP TO LIGHT THE CIGARETTE OVER THE FLAME, TWIRLING IT SLOWLY, SHOWING THE BROWN TUFTS OF HER ARMPITS. LYNCH WITH HIS POKER LIFTS BOLDLY A SIDE OF HER SLIP. BARE FROM HER GARTERS UP HER FLESH APPEARS UNDER THE SAPPHIRE A NIXIE’S GREEN. SHE PUFFS CALMLY AT HER CIGARETTE.) Can you see the beautyspot of my behind?

LYNCH: I’m not looking

ZOE: (MAKES SHEEP’S EYES) No? You wouldn’t do a less thing. Would you suck a lemon?

(SQUINTING IN MOCK SHAME SHE GLANCES WITH SIDELONG MEANING AT BLOOM, THEN TWISTS ROUND TOWARDS HIM, PULLING HER SLIP FREE OF THE POKER. BLUE FLUID AGAIN FLOWS OVER HER FLESH. BLOOM STANDS, SMILING DESIROUSLY, TWIRLING HIS THUMBS. KITTY RICKETTS LICKS HER MIDDLE FINGER WITH HER SPITTLE AND, GAZING IN THE MIRROR, SMOOTHS BOTH EYEBROWS. LIPOTI VIRAG, BASILICOGRAMMATE, CHUTES RAPIDLY DOWN THROUGH THE CHIMNEYFLUE AND STRUTS TWO STEPS TO THE LEFT ON GAWKY PINK STILTS. HE IS SAUSAGED INTO SEVERAL OVERCOATS AND WEARS A BROWN MACINTOSH UNDER WHICH HE HOLDS A ROLL OF PARCHMENT. IN HIS LEFT EYE FLASHES THE MONOCLE OF CASHEL BOYLE O’CONNOR FITZMAURICE TISDALL FARRELL. ON HIS HEAD IS PERCHED AN EGYPTIAN PSHENT. TWO QUILLS PROJECT OVER HIS EARS.)

VIRAG: (HEELS TOGETHER, BOWS) My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. (HE COUGHS THOUGHTFULLY, DRILY) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you perceived? Good.

BLOOM: Granpapachi. But ...

VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a word. Hippogriff. Am I right?

BLOOM: She is rather lean.

VIRAG: (NOT UNPLEASANTLY) Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today. Parallax! (WITH A NERVOUS TWITCH OF HIS HEAD) Did you hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax!

BLOOM: (AN ELBOW RESTING IN A HAND, A FOREFINGER AGAINST HIS CHEEK) She seems sad.

VIRAG: (CYNICALLY, HIS WEASEL TEETH BARED YELLOW, DRAWS DOWN HIS LEFT EYE WITH A FINGER AND BARKS HOARSELY) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor’s button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (MORE GENIALLY) Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel.

BLOOM: (REGRETFULLY) When you come out without your gun.

VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either ...

BLOOM: With ...?

VIRAG: (HIS TONGUE UPCURLING) Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in it. Lycopodium. (HIS THROAT TWITCHES) Slapbang! There he goes again.

BLOOM: The stye I dislike.

VIRAG: (ARCHES HIS EYEBROWS) Contact with a goldring, they say. ARGUMENTUM AD FEMINAM, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve’s sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. (HE TWITCHES) It is a funny sound. (HE COUGHS ENCOURAGINGLY) But possibly it is only a wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

BLOOM: (REFLECTING) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said ...

VIRAG: (SEVERELY, HIS NOSE HARDHUMPED, HIS SIDE EYE WINKING) Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten. Exercise your mnemotechnic. LA CAUSA E SANTA. Tara. Tara. (ASIDE) He will surely remember.

BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a deadhand cures. Mnemo?

VIRAG: (EXCITEDLY) I say so. I say so. E’en so. Technic. (HE TAPS HIS PARCHMENTROLL ENERGETICALLY) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? (WITH A DRY SNIGGER) You intended to devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? (HE CROWS DERISIVELY) Keekeereekee!

(BLOOM SURVEYS UNCERTAINLY THE THREE WHORES THEN GAZES AT THE VEILED MAUVE LIGHT, HEARING THE EVERFLYING MOTH.)

BLOOM: I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester.

VIRAG: (PROMPTS IN A PIG’S WHISPER) Insects of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! (HIS YELLOW PARROTBEAK GABBLES NASALLY) They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. Bear’s buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. (HE COUGHS AND, BENDING HIS BROW, RUBS HIS NOSE THOUGHTFULLY WITH A SCOOPING HAND) You shall find that these night insects follow the light. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L.B. says is the book sensation of the year. Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Perceive. That is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley! (he blows into Bloom’s ear) Buzz!

BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I ...

VIRAG: (HIS FACE IMPASSIVE, LAUGHS IN A RICH FEMININE KEY) Splendid! Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. (HE GOBBLES GLUTTONOUSLY WITH TURKEY WATTLES) Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! (HE UNROLLS HIS PARCHMENT RAPIDLY AND READS, HIS GLOWWORM’S NOSE RUNNING BACKWARDS OVER THE LETTERS WHICH HE CLAWS) Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. I’m the best o’cook. Those succulent bivalves may help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. (HE WAGS HIS HEAD WITH CACKLING RAILLERY) Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. (HE SNEEZES) Amen!

BLOOM: (ABSENTLY) Ocularly woman’s bivalve case is worse. Always open sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy to my idea. Serpents too are gluttons for woman’s milk. Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis.

VIRAG: (HIS MOUTH PROJECTED IN HARD WRINKLES, EYES STONILY FORLORNLY CLOSED, PSALMS IN OUTLANDISH MONOTONE) That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known ...

BLOOM: I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. (HE REPEATS) Spontaneously to seek out the saurian’s lair in order to entrust their teats to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. (PROFOUNDLY) Instinct rules the world. In life. In death.

VIRAG: (HEAD ASKEW, ARCHES HIS BACK AND HUNCHED WINGSHOULDERS, PEERS AT THE MOTH OUT OF BLEAR BULGED EYES, POINTS A HORNING CLAW AND CRIES) Who’s moth moth? Who’s dear Gerald? Dear Ger, that you? O dear, he is Gerald. O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin? (HE MEWS) Puss puss puss puss! (HE SIGHS, DRAWS BACK AND STARES SIDEWAYS DOWN WITH DROPPING UNDERJAW) Well, well. He doth rest anon. (he snaps his jaws suddenly on the air)

The Moth:

    I’m a tiny tiny thing
    Ever flying in the spring
    Round and round a ringaring.
    Long ago I was a king
    Now I do this kind of thing
    On the wing, on the wing!
    Bing!

(HE RUSHES AGAINST THE MAUVE SHADE, FLAPPING NOISILY) Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.

(FROM LEFT UPPER ENTRANCE WITH TWO GLIDING STEPS HENRY FLOWER COMES FORWARD TO LEFT FRONT CENTRE. HE WEARS A DARK MANTLE AND DROOPING PLUMED SOMBRERO. HE CARRIES A SILVERSTRINGED INLAID DULCIMER AND A LONGSTEMMED BAMBOO JACOB’S PIPE, ITS CLAY BOWL FASHIONED AS A FEMALE HEAD. HE WEARS DARK VELVET HOSE AND SILVERBUCKLED PUMPS. HE HAS THE ROMANTIC SAVIOUR’S FACE WITH FLOWING LOCKS, THIN BEARD AND MOUSTACHE. HIS SPINDLELEGS AND SPARROW FEET ARE THOSE OF THE TENOR MARIO, PRINCE OF CANDIA. HE SETTLES DOWN HIS GOFFERED RUFFS AND MOISTENS HIS LIPS WITH A PASSAGE OF HIS AMOROUS TONGUE.)

HENRY: (IN A LOW DULCET VOICE, TOUCHING THE STRINGS OF HIS GUITAR) There is a flower that bloometh.

(VIRAG TRUCULENT, HIS JOWL SET, STARES AT THE LAMP. GRAVE BLOOM REGARDS ZOE’S NECK. HENRY GALLANT TURNS WITH PENDANT DEWLAP TO THE PIANO.)

STEPHEN: (TO HIMSELF) Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my. Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I’m partially drunk, by the way. (HE TOUCHES THE KEYS AGAIN) Minor chord comes now. Yes. Not much however.

(ALMIDANO ARTIFONI HOLDS OUT A BATONROLL OF MUSIC WITH VIGOROUS MOUSTACHEWORK.)

Artifoni: Ci Rifletta. Lei Rovina Tutto.

FLORRY: Sing us something. Love’s old sweet song.

STEPHEN: No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you the letter about the lute?

FLORRY: (SMIRKING) The bird that can sing and won’t sing.

(THE SIAMESE TWINS, PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER, TWO OXFORD DONS WITH LAWNMOWERS, APPEAR IN THE WINDOW EMBRASURE. BOTH ARE MASKED WITH MATTHEW ARNOLD’S FACE.)

PHILIP SOBER: Take a fool’s advice. All is not well. Work it out with the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. Mooney’s en ville, Mooney’s sur mer, the Moira, Larchet’s, Holles street hospital, Burke’s. Eh? I am watching you.

PHILIP DRUNK: (IMPATIENTLY) Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me his name? (HIS LAWNMOWER BEGINS TO PURR) Aha, yes. ZOE MOU SAS AGAPO. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no?

FLORRY: And the song?

STEPHEN: Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth? You’re like someone I knew once.

STEPHEN: Out of it now. (TO HIMSELF) Clever.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: (THEIR LAWNMOWERS PURRING WITH A RIGADOON OF GRASSHALMS) Clever ever. Out of it out of it. By the bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes. Cleverever outofitnow. Keep in condition. Do like us.

ZOE: There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business with his coat buttoned up. You needn’t try to hide, I says to him. I know you’ve a Roman collar.

VIRAG: Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. (HARSHLY, HIS PUPILS WAXING) To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. Why I left the church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional. Penrose. Flipperty Jippert. (HE WRIGGLES) Woman, undoing with sweet pudor her belt of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man’s lingam. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the stiff one. (HE CRIES) COACTUS VOLUI. Then giddy woman will run about. Strong man grapses woman’s wrist. Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman’s fat yadgana. (HE CHASES HIS TAIL) Piffpaff! Popo! (HE STOPS, SNEEZES) Pchp! (HE WORRIES HIS BUTT) Prrrrrht!

LYNCH: I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for shooting a bishop.

ZOE: (SPOUTS WALRUS SMOKE THROUGH HER NOSTRILS) He couldn’t get a connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush.

BLOOM: Poor man!

ZOE: (LIGHTLY) Only for what happened him.

BLOOM: How?

VIRAG: (A DIABOLIC RICTUS OF BLACK LUMINOSITY CONTRACTING HIS VISAGE, CRANES HIS SCRAGGY NECK FORWARD. HE LIFTS A MOONCALF NOZZLE AND HOWLS.) VERFLUCHTE GOIM! He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig God! He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the pope’s bastard. (HE LEANS OUT ON TORTURED FOREPAWS, ELBOWS BENT RIGID, HIS EYE AGONISING IN HIS FLAT SKULLNECK AND YELPS OVER THE MUTE WORLD) A son of a whore. Apocalypse.

KITTY: And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn’t swallow and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral.

PHILIP DRUNK: (GRAVELY) QUI VOUS A MIS DANS CETTE FICHUE POSITION, PHILIPPE?

Philip Sober: (gaily) C’etait Le Sacre Pigeon, Philippe.

(KITTY UNPINS HER HAT AND SETS IT DOWN CALMLY, PATTING HER HENNA HAIR. AND A PRETTIER, A DAINTIER HEAD OF WINSOME CURLS WAS NEVER SEEN ON A WHORE’S SHOULDERS. LYNCH PUTS ON HER HAT. SHE WHIPS IT OFF.)

LYNCH: (LAUGHS) And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.

FLORRY: (NODS) Locomotor ataxy.

ZOE: (GAILY) O, my dictionary.

LYNCH: Three wise virgins.

VIRAG: (AGUESHAKEN, PROFUSE YELLOW SPAWN FOAMING OVER HIS BONY EPILEPTIC LIPS) She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. (HE STICKS OUT A FLICKERING PHOSPHORESCENT SCORPION TONGUE, HIS HAND ON HIS FORK) Messiah! He burst her tympanum. (WITH GIBBERING BABOON’S CRIES HE JERKS HIS HIPS IN THE CYNICAL SPASM) Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk!

(BEN JUMBO DOLLARD, RUBICUND, MUSCLEBOUND, HAIRYNOSTRILLED, HUGEBEARDED, CABBAGEEARED, SHAGGYCHESTED, SHOCKMANED, FAT- PAPPED, STANDS FORTH, HIS LOINS AND GENITALS TIGHTENED INTO A PAIR OF BLACK BATHING BAGSLOPS.)

BEN DOLLARD: (NAKKERING CASTANET BONES IN HIS HUGE PADDED PAWS, YODELS JOVIALLY IN BASE BARRELTONE) When love absorbs my ardent soul.

(THE VIRGINS NURSE CALLAN AND NURSE QUIGLEY BURST THROUGH THE RINGKEEPERS AND THE ROPES AND MOB HIM WITH OPEN ARMS.)

THE VIRGINS: (GUSHINGLY) Big Ben! Ben my Chree!

A VOICE: Hold that fellow with the bad breeches.

BEN DOLLARD: (SMITES HIS THIGH IN ABUNDANT LAUGHTER) Hold him now.

HENRY: (CARESSING ON HIS BREAST A SEVERED FEMALE HEAD, MURMURS) Thine heart, mine love. (HE PLUCKS HIS LUTESTRINGS) When first I saw ...

VIRAG: (SLOUGHING HIS SKINS, HIS MULTITUDINOUS PLUMAGE MOULTING) Rats! (HE YAWNS, SHOWING A COALBLACK THROAT, AND CLOSES HIS JAWS BY AN UPWARD PUSH OF HIS PARCHMENTROLL) After having said which I took my departure. Farewell. Fare thee well. DRECK!

(HENRY FLOWER COMBS HIS MOUSTACHE AND BEARD RAPIDLY WITH A POCKETCOMB AND GIVES A COW’S LICK TO HIS HAIR. STEERED BY HIS RAPIER, HE GLIDES TO THE DOOR, HIS WILD HARP SLUNG BEHIND HIM. VIRAG REACHES THE DOOR IN TWO UNGAINLY STILTHOPS, HIS TAIL COCKED, AND DEFTLY CLAPS SIDEWAYS ON THE WALL A PUSYELLOW FLYBILL, BUTTING IT WITH HIS HEAD.)

THE FLYBILL: K. II. Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks.

HENRY: All is lost now.

(virag Unscrews His Head in a Trice and Holds It Under His Arm.)

VIRAG’S HEAD: Quack!

(EXEUNT SEVERALLY.)

STEPHEN: (OVER HIS SHOULDER TO ZOE) You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The agony in the closet.

LYNCH: All one and the same God to her.

STEPHEN: (DEVOUTLY) And sovereign Lord of all things.

FLORRY: (TO STEPHEN) I’m sure you’re a spoiled priest. Or a monk.

LYNCH: He is. A cardinal’s son.

STEPHEN: Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw.

(HIS EMINENCE SIMON STEPHEN CARDINAL DEDALUS, PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND, APPEARS IN THE DOORWAY, DRESSED IN RED SOUTANE, SANDALS AND SOCKS. SEVEN DWARF SIMIAN ACOLYTES, ALSO IN RED, CARDINAL SINS, UPHOLD HIS TRAIN, PEEPING UNDER IT. HE WEARS A BATTERED SILK HAT SIDEWAYS ON HIS HEAD. HIS THUMBS ARE STUCK IN HIS ARMPITS AND HIS PALMS OUTSPREAD. ROUND HIS NECK HANGS A ROSARY OF CORKS ENDING ON HIS BREAST IN A CORKSCREW CROSS. RELEASING HIS THUMBS, HE INVOKES GRACE FROM ON HIGH WITH LARGE WAVE GESTURES AND PROCLAIMS WITH BLOATED POMP:)

The Cardinal:

    Conservio lies captured
    He lies in the lowest dungeon
    With manacles and chains around his limbs
    Weighing upwards of three tons.

(HE LOOKS AT ALL FOR A MOMENT, HIS RIGHT EYE CLOSED TIGHT, HIS LEFT CHEEK PUFFED OUT. THEN, UNABLE TO REPRESS HIS MERRIMENT, HE ROCKS TO AND FRO, ARMS AKIMBO, AND SINGS WITH BROAD ROLLICKING HUMOUR:)

    O, the poor little fellow
    Hihihihihis legs they were yellow
    He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake
    But some bloody savage
    To graize his white cabbage
    He murdered Nell Flaherty’s duckloving drake.

(A MULTITUDE OF MIDGES SWARMS WHITE OVER HIS ROBE. HE SCRATCHES HIMSELF WITH CROSSED ARMS AT HIS RIBS, GRIMACING, AND EXCLAIMS:)

I’m suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they’d walk me off the face of the bloody globe.

(HIS HEAD ASLANT HE BLESSES CURTLY WITH FORE AND MIDDLE FINGERS, IMPARTS THE EASTER KISS AND DOUBLESHUFFLES OFF COMICALLY, SWAYING HIS HAT FROM SIDE TO SIDE, SHRINKING QUICKLY TO THE SIZE OF HIS TRAINBEARERS. THE DWARF ACOLYTES, GIGGLING, PEEPING, NUDGING, OGLING, EASTERKISSING, ZIGZAG BEHIND HIM. HIS VOICE IS HEARD MELLOW FROM AFAR, MERCIFUL MALE, MELODIOUS:)

    Shall carry my heart to thee,
    Shall carry my heart to thee,
    And the breath of the balmy night
    Shall carry my heart to thee!

(the Trick Doorhandle Turns.)

THE DOORHANDLE: Theeee!

ZOE: The devil is in that door.

(A MALE FORM PASSES DOWN THE CREAKING STAIRCASE AND IS HEARD TAKING THE WATERPROOF AND HAT FROM THE RACK. BLOOM STARTS FORWARD INVOLUNTARILY AND, HALF CLOSING THE DOOR AS HE PASSES, TAKES THE CHOCOLATE FROM HIS POCKET AND OFFERS IT NERVOUSLY TO ZOE.)

ZOE: (SNIFFS HIS HAIR BRISKLY) Hmmm! Thank your mother for the rabbits. I’m very fond of what I like.

BLOOM: (HEARING A MALE VOICE IN TALK WITH THE WHORES ON THE DOORSTEP, PRICKS HIS EARS) If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double event?

ZOE: (TEARS OPEN THE SILVERFOIL) Fingers was made before forks. (SHE BREAKS OFF AND NIBBLES A PIECE GIVES A PIECE TO KITTY RICKETTS AND THEN TURNS KITTENISHLY TO LYNCH) No objection to French lozenges? (HE NODS. SHE TAUNTS HIM.) Have it now or wait till you get it? (HE OPENS HIS MOUTH, HIS HEAD COCKED. SHE WHIRLS THE PRIZE IN LEFT CIRCLE. HIS HEAD FOLLOWS. SHE WHIRLS IT BACK IN RIGHT CIRCLE. HE EYES HER.) Catch!

(SHE TOSSES A PIECE. WITH AN ADROIT SNAP HE CATCHES IT AND BITES IT THROUGH WITH A CRACK.)

KITTY: (CHEWING) The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with his lady. The gas we had on the Toft’s hobbyhorses. I’m giddy still.

BLOOM: (IN SVENGALI’S FUR OVERCOAT, WITH FOLDED ARMS AND NAPOLEONIC FORELOCK, FROWNS IN VENTRILOQUIAL EXORCISM WITH PIERCING EAGLE GLANCE TOWARDS THE DOOR. THEN RIGID WITH LEFT FOOT ADVANCED HE MAKES A SWIFT PASS WITH IMPELLING FINGERS AND GIVES THE SIGN OF PAST MASTER, DRAWING HIS RIGHT ARM DOWNWARDS FROM HIS LEFT SHOULDER.) Go, go, go, I conjure you, whoever you are!

(A MALE COUGH AND TREAD ARE HEARD PASSING THROUGH THE MIST OUTSIDE. BLOOM’S FEATURES RELAX. HE PLACES A HAND IN HIS WAISTCOAT, POSING CALMLY. ZOE OFFERS HIM CHOCOLATE.)

BLOOM: (SOLEMNLY) Thanks.

ZOE: Do as you’re bid. Here!

(a Firm Heelclacking Tread Is Heard On the Stairs.)

BLOOM: (TAKES THE CHOCOLATE) Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But I bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red influences lupus. Colours affect women’s characters, any they have. This black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. (HE EATS) Influence taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at Andrews.

(THE DOOR OPENS. BELLA COHEN, A MASSIVE WHOREMISTRESS, ENTERS. SHE IS DRESSED IN A THREEQUARTER IVORY GOWN, FRINGED ROUND THE HEM WITH TASSELLED SELVEDGE, AND COOLS HERSELF FLIRTING A BLACK HORN FAN LIKE MINNIE HAUCK IN Carmen. ON HER LEFT HAND ARE WEDDING AND KEEPER RINGS. HER EYES ARE DEEPLY CARBONED. SHE HAS A SPROUTING MOUSTACHE. HER OLIVE FACE IS HEAVY, SLIGHTLY SWEATED AND FULLNOSED WITH ORANGETAINTED NOSTRILS. SHE HAS LARGE PENDANT BERYL EARDROPS.)

BELLA: My word! I’m all of a mucksweat.

(SHE GLANCES ROUND HER AT THE COUPLES. THEN HER EYES REST ON BLOOM WITH HARD INSISTENCE. HER LARGE FAN WINNOWS WIND TOWARDS HER HEATED FACENECK AND EMBONPOINT. HER FALCON EYES GLITTER.)

THE FAN: (FLIRTING QUICKLY, THEN SLOWLY) Married, I see.

BLOOM: Yes. Partly, I have mislaid ...

THE FAN: (HALF OPENING, THEN CLOSING) And the missus is master. Petticoat government.

BLOOM: (LOOKS DOWN WITH A SHEEPISH GRIN) That is so.

THE FAN: (FOLDING TOGETHER, RESTS AGAINST HER LEFT EARDROP) Have you forgotten me?

BLOOM: Yes. Yo.

THE FAN: (FOLDED AKIMBO AGAINST HER WAIST) Is me her was you dreamed before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now we?

(bella Approaches, Gently Tapping With the Fan.)

BLOOM: (WINCING) Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which women love.

THE FAN: (TAPPING) We have met. You are mine. It is fate.

BLOOM: (COWED) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog’s spittle as you probably ... (HE WINCES) Ah!

RICHIE GOULDING: (BAGWEIGHTED, PASSES THE DOOR) Mocking is catch. Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s. Liver and kidney.

THE FAN: (TAPPING) All things end. Be mine. Now,

BLOOM: (UNDECIDED) All now? I should not have parted with my talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my time of life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause.

THE FAN: (POINTS DOWNWARDS SLOWLY) You may.

BLOOM: (LOOKS DOWNWARDS AND PERCEIVES HER UNFASTENED BOOTLACE) We are observed.

THE FAN: (POINTS DOWNWARDS QUICKLY) You must.

BLOOM: (WITH DESIRE, WITH RELUCTANCE) I can make a true black knot. Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett’s. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah!

(BELLA RAISES HER GOWN SLIGHTLY AND, STEADYING HER POSE, LIFTS TO THE EDGE OF A CHAIR A PLUMP BUSKINED HOOF AND A FULL PASTERN, SILKSOCKED. BLOOM, STIFFLEGGED, AGING, BENDS OVER HER HOOF AND WITH GENTLE FINGERS DRAWS OUT AND IN HER LACES.)

BLOOM: (MURMURS LOVINGLY) To be a shoefitter in Manfield’s was my love’s young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris.

THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.

BLOOM: (CROSSLACING) Too tight?

THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick your football for you.

BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her ... person you mentioned. That night she met ... Now!

(HE KNOTS THE LACE. BELLA PLACES HER FOOT ON THE FLOOR. BLOOM RAISES HIS HEAD. HER HEAVY FACE, HER EYES STRIKE HIM IN MIDBROW. HIS EYES GROW DULL, DARKER AND POUCHED, HIS NOSE THICKENS.)

BLOOM: (MUMBLES) Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen, ...

BELLO: (WITH A HARD BASILISK STARE, IN A BARITONE VOICE) Hound of dishonour!

BLOOM: (INFATUATED) Empress!

BELLO: (HIS HEAVY CHEEKCHOPS SAGGING) Adorer of the adulterous rump!

BLOOM: (PLAINTIVELY) Hugeness!

BELLO: Dungdevourer!

BLOOM: (WITH SINEWS SEMIFLEXED) Magmagnificence!

BELLO: Down! (HE TAPS HER ON THE SHOULDER WITH HIS FAN) Incline feet forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling. On the hands down!

BLOOM: (HER EYES UPTURNED IN THE SIGN OF ADMIRATION, CLOSING, YAPS) Truffles!

(WITH A PIERCING EPILEPTIC CRY SHE SINKS ON ALL FOURS, GRUNTING, SNUFFLING, ROOTING AT HIS FEET: THEN LIES, SHAMMING DEAD, WITH EYES SHUT TIGHT, TREMBLING EYELIDS, BOWED UPON THE GROUND IN THE ATTITUDE OF MOST EXCELLENT MASTER.)

BELLO: (WITH BOBBED HAIR, PURPLE GILLS, FIT MOUSTACHE RINGS ROUND HIS SHAVEN MOUTH, IN MOUNTAINEER’S PUTTEES, GREEN SILVERBUTTONED COAT, SPORT SKIRT AND ALPINE HAT WITH MOORCOCK’S FEATHER, HIS HANDS STUCK DEEP IN HIS BREECHES POCKETS, PLACES HIS HEEL ON HER NECK AND GRINDS IT IN) Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot’s glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness.

BLOOM: (ENTHRALLED, BLEATS) I promise never to disobey.

BELLO: (LAUGHS LOUDLY) Holy smoke! You little know what’s in store for you. I’m the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I’ll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be inflicted in gym costume.

(bloom Creeps Under the Sofa and Peers Out Through the Fringe.)

ZOE: (WIDENING HER SLIP TO SCREEN HER) She’s not here.

BLOOM: (CLOSING HER EYES) She’s not here.

FLORRY: (HIDING HER WITH HER GOWN) She didn’t mean it, Mr Bello. She’ll be good, sir.

KITTY: Don’t be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won’t, ma’amsir.

BELLO: (COAXINGLY) Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling, just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. (BLOOM PUTS OUT HER TIMID HEAD) There’s a good girly now. (BELLO GRABS HER HAIR VIOLENTLY AND DRAGS HER FORWARD) I only want to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How’s that tender behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready.

BLOOM: (FAINTING) Don’t tear my ...

BELLO: (SAVAGELY) The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging hook, the knout I’ll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old. You’re in for it this time! I’ll make you remember me for the balance of your natural life. (HIS FOREHEAD VEINS SWOLLEN, HIS FACE CONGESTED) I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson’s fat hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness’s porter. (HE BELCHES) And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the LICENSED VICTUALLER’S GAZETTE. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you. (HE TWISTS HER ARM. BLOOM SQUEALS, TURNING TURTLE.)

BLOOM: Don’t be cruel, nurse! Don’t!

BELLO: (TWISTING) Another!

BLOOM: (SCREAMS) O, it’s hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches like mad!

BELLO: (SHOUTS) Good, by the rumping jumping general! That’s the best bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don’t keep me waiting, damn you! (HE SLAPS HER FACE)

BLOOM: (WHIMPERS) You’re after hitting me. I’ll tell ...

BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.

ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will.

FLORRY: I will. Don’t be greedy.

KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me.

(THE BROTHEL COOK, MRS KEOGH, WRINKLED, GREYBEARDED, IN A GREASY BIB, MEN’S GREY AND GREEN SOCKS AND BROGUES, FLOURSMEARED, A ROLLINGPIN STUCK WITH RAW PASTRY IN HER BARE RED ARM AND HAND, APPEARS AT THE DOOR.)

MRS KEOGH: (FEROCIOUSLY) Can I help? (THEY HOLD AND PINION BLOOM.)

BELLO: (SQUATS WITH A GRUNT ON BLOOM’S UPTURNED FACE, PUFFING CIGARSMOKE, NURSING A FAT LEG) I see Keating Clay is elected vicechairman of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness’s preference shares are at sixteen three quaffers. Curse me for a fool that didn’t buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, curse it. And that Goddamned outsider THROWAWAY at twenty to one. (HE QUENCHES HIS CIGAR ANGRILY ON BLOOM’S EAR) Where’s that Goddamned cursed ashtray?

BLOOM: (GOADED, BUTTOCKSMOTHERED) O! O! Monsters! Cruel one!

BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never prayed before. (HE THRUSTS OUT A FIGGED FIST AND FOUL CIGAR) Here, kiss that. Both. Kiss. (HE THROWS A LEG ASTRIDE AND, PRESSING WITH HORSEMAN’S KNEES, CALLS IN A HARD VOICE) Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I’ll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. (HE BENDS SIDEWAYS AND SQUEEZES HIS MOUNT’S TESTICLES ROUGHLY, SHOUTING) Ho! Off we pop! I’ll nurse you in proper fashion. (HE HORSERIDES COCKHORSE, LEAPING IN THE SADDLE) The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop.

FLORRY: (PULLS AT BELLO) Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked before you.

ZOE: (PULLING AT FLORRY) Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress?

BLOOM: (STIFLING) Can’t.

BELLO: Well, I’m not. Wait. (HE HOLDS IN HIS BREATH) Curse it. Here. This bung’s about burst. (HE UNCORKS HIMSELF BEHIND: THEN, CONTORTING HIS FEATURES, FARTS LOUDLY) Take that! (HE RECORKS HIMSELF) Yes, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters.

BLOOM: (A SWEAT BREAKING OUT OVER HIM) Not man. (HE SNIFFS) Woman.

BELLO: (STANDS UP) No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling over head and shoulders. And quickly too!

BLOOM: (SHRINKS) Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I tiptouch it with my nails?

BELLO: (POINTS TO HIS WHORES) As they are now so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you ...

BLOOM: (A CHARMING SOUBRETTE WITH DAUBY CHEEKS, MUSTARD HAIR AND LARGE MALE HANDS AND NOSE, LEERING MOUTH) I tried her things on only twice, a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift.

BELLO: (JEERS) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat’s udders in various poses of surrender, eh? Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne hotel, eh?

BLOOM: Miriam. Black. Demimondaine.

BELLO: (GUFFAWS) Christ Almighty it’s too tickling, this! You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M. P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. (HE GUFFAWS AGAIN) Christ, wouldn’t it make a Siamese cat laugh?

BLOOM: (HER HANDS AND FEATURES WORKING) It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play VICE VERSA. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister’s stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful.

BELLO: (WITH WICKED GLEE) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne.

BLOOM: Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (EARNESTLY) And really it’s better the position ... because often I used to wet ...

BELLO: (STERNLY) No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn’t I? Do it standing, sir! I’ll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you’ll find I’m a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.

THE SINS OF THE PAST: (IN A MEDLEY OF VOICES) He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D’Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order?

BELLO: (WHISTLES LOUDLY) Say! What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be candid for once.

(MUTE INHUMAN FACES THRONG FORWARD, LEERING, VANISHING, GIBBERING, BOOLOOHOOM. POLDY KOCK, BOOTLACES A PENNY CASSIDY’S HAG, BLIND STRIPLING, LARRY RHINOCEROS, THE GIRL, THE WOMAN, THE WHORE, THE OTHER, THE ...)

BLOOM: Don’t ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought the half of the ... I swear on my sacred oath ...

BELLO: (PEREMPTORILY) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr ...

BLOOM: (DOCILE, GURGLES) I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant

BELLO: (IMPERIOUSLY) O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when you’re spoken to.

BLOOM: (BOWS) Master! Mistress! Mantamer!

(he Lifts His Arms. His Bangle Bracelets Fill.)

BELLO: (SATIRICALLY) By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won’t that be nice? (HE PLACES A RUBY RING ON HER FINGER) And there now! With this ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress.

BLOOM: Thank you, mistress.

BELLO: You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh’s the cook’s, a sandy one. Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I’ll lecture you on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the hairbrush. You’ll be taught the error of your ways. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights of old laid down their lives. (HE CHUCKLES) My boys will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I’ll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? (HE POINTS) For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. (HE BARES HIS ARM AND PLUNGES IT ELBOWDEEP IN BLOOM’S VULVA) There’s fine depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (HE SHOVES HIS ARM IN A BIDDER’S FACE) Here wet the deck and wipe it round!

A BIDDER: A florin.

(dillon’s Lacquey Rings His Handbell.)

THE LACQUEY: Barang!

A VOICE: One and eightpence too much.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean.

BELLO: (GIVES A RAP WITH HIS GAVEL) Two bar. Rockbottom figure and cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine his points. Handle him. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His sire’s milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! (HE BRANDS HIS INITIAL C ON BLOOM’S CROUP) So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen?

A DARKVISAGED MAN: (IN DISGUISED ACCENT) Hoondert punt sterlink.

VOICES: (SUBDUED) For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid.

BELLO: (GAILY) Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the BLASE man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.

BLOOM: (BENDS HIS BLUSHING FACE INTO HIS ARMPIT AND SIMPERS WITH FOREFINGER IN MOUTH) O, I know what you’re hinting at now!

BELLO: What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? (HE STOOPS AND, PEERING, POKES WITH HIS FAN RUDELY UNDER THE FAT SUET FOLDS OF BLOOM’S HAUNCHES) Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where’s your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It’s as limp as a boy of six’s doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. (LOUDLY) Can you do a man’s job?

BLOOM: Eccles street ...

BELLO: (SARCASTICALLY) I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world but there’s a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! He’s no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy ginger, it’s kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! That makes you wild, don’t it? Touches the spot? (HE SPITS IN CONTEMPT) Spittoon!

BLOOM: I was indecently treated, I ... Inform the police. Hundred pounds. Unmentionable. I ...

BELLO: Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want not your drizzle.

BLOOM: To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll ... We ... Still ...

BELLO: (RUTHLESSLY) No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman’s will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Return and see.

(old Sleepy Hollow Calls Over the Wold.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle!

BLOOM: (IN TATTERED MOCASSINS WITH A RUSTY FOWLINGPIECE, TIPTOEING, FINGERTIPPING, HIS HAGGARD BONY BEARDED FACE PEERING THROUGH THE DIAMOND PANES, CRIES OUT) I see her! It’s she! The first night at Mat Dillon’s! But that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he ...

BELLO: (LAUGHS MOCKINGLY) That’s your daughter, you owl, with a Mullingar student.

(MILLY BLOOM, FAIRHAIRED, GREENVESTED, SLIMSANDALLED, HER BLUE SCARF IN THE SEAWIND SIMPLY SWIRLING, BREAKS FROM THE ARMS OF HER LOVER AND CALLS, HER YOUNG EYES WONDERWIDE.)

MILLY: My! It’s Papli! But, O Papli, how old you’ve grown!

BELLO: Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty’s armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. The CUCKOOS’ REST! Why not? How many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute? Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander O.

BLOOM: They ... I ...

BELLO: (CUTTINGLY) Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren’s auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in the rain for art for art’ sake. They will violate the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom’s.

BLOOM: Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return. I will prove ...

A VOICE: Swear!

(BLOOM CLENCHES HIS FISTS AND CRAWLS FORWARD, A BOWIEKNIFE BETWEEN HIS TEETH.)

BELLO: As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You are down and out and don’t you forget it, old bean.

BLOOM: Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody ...? (HE BITES HIS THUMB)

BELLO: Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency or grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that’ll send you skipping to hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! If you have none see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We’ll bury you in our shrubbery jakes where you’ll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers’ names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. (HE EXPLODES IN A LOUD PHLEGMY LAUGH) We’ll manure you, Mr Flower! (HE PIPES SCOFFINGLY) Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli!

BLOOM: (CLASPS HIS HEAD) My willpower! Memory! I have sinned! I have suff ...

(he Weeps Tearlessly)

BELLO: (SNEERS) Crybabby! Crocodile tears!

(BLOOM, BROKEN, CLOSELY VEILED FOR THE SACRIFICE, SOBS, HIS FACE TO THE EARTH. THE PASSING BELL IS HEARD. DARKSHAWLED FIGURES OF THE CIRCUMCISED, IN SACKCLOTH AND ASHES, STAND BY THE WAILING WALL. M. SHULOMOWITZ, JOSEPH GOLDWATER, MOSES HERZOG, HARRIS ROSENBERG, M. MOISEL, J. CITRON, MINNIE WATCHMAN, P. MASTIANSKY, THE REVEREND LEOPOLD ABRAMOVITZ, CHAZEN. WITH SWAYING ARMS THEY WAIL IN PNEUMA OVER THE RECREANT BLOOM.)

THE CIRCUMCISED: (IN DARK GUTTURAL CHANT AS THEY CAST DEAD SEA FRUIT UPON HIM, NO FLOWERS) SHEMA ISRAEL ADONAI ELOHENU ADONAI ECHAD.

VOICES: (SIGHING) So he’s gone. Ah yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There’s the widow. That so? Ah, yes.

(FROM THE SUTTEE PYRE THE FLAME OF GUM CAMPHIRE ASCENDS. THE PALL OF INCENSE SMOKE SCREENS AND DISPERSES. OUT OF HER OAKFRAME A NYMPH WITH HAIR UNBOUND, LIGHTLY CLAD IN TEABROWN ARTCOLOURS, DESCENDS FROM HER GROTTO AND PASSING UNDER INTERLACING YEWS STANDS OVER BLOOM.)

THE YEWS: (THEIR LEAVES WHISPERING) Sister. Our sister. Ssh!

THE NYMPH: (SOFTLY) Mortal! (KINDLY) Nay, dost not weepest!

BLOOM: (CRAWLS JELLILY FORWARD UNDER THE BOUGHS, STREAKED BY SUNLIGHT, WITH DIGNITY) This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit.

THE NYMPH: Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman. Useful hints to the married.

BLOOM: (LIFTS A TURTLE HEAD TOWARDS HER LAP) We have met before. On another star.

THE NYMPH: (SADLY) Rubber goods. Neverrip brand as supplied to the aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann’s wonderful chest exuber. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.

BLOOM: You mean PHOTO BITS?

THE NYMPH: I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame.

BLOOM: (HUMBLY KISSES HER LONG HAIR) Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray.

THE NYMPH: During dark nights I heard your praise.

BLOOM: (QUICKLY) Yes, yes. You mean that I ... Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of bed or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent. (HE SIGHS) ’Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage.

THE NYMPH: (HER FINGERS IN HER EARS) And words. They are not in my dictionary.

BLOOM: You understood them?

THE YEWS: Ssh!

THE NYMPH: (COVERS HER FACE WITH HER HANDS) What have I not seen in that chamber? What must my eyes look down on?

BLOOM: (APOLOGETICALLY) I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago.

THE NYMPH: (BENDS HER HEAD) Worse, worse!

BLOOM: (REFLECTS PRECAUTIOUSLY) That antiquated commode. It wasn’t her weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle.

(the Sound of a Waterfall Is Heard in Bright Cascade.)

THE WATERFALL:

    Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
    Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

THE YEWS: (MINGLING THEIR BOUGHS) Listen. Whisper. She is right, our sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer days.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: (IN THE BACKGROUND, IN IRISH NATIONAL FORESTER’S UNIFORM, DOFFS HIS PLUMED HAT) Prosper! Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!

THE YEWS: (MURMURING) Who came to Poulaphouca with the High School excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?

BLOOM: (SCARED) High School of Poula? Mnemo? Not in full possession of faculties. Concussion. Run over by tram.

THE ECHO: Sham!

BLOOM: (PIGEONBREASTED, BOTTLESHOULDERED, PADDED, IN NONDESCRIPT JUVENILE GREY AND BLACK STRIPED SUIT, TOO SMALL FOR HIM, WHITE TENNIS SHOES, BORDERED STOCKINGS WITH TURNOVER TOPS AND A RED SCHOOLCAP WITH BADGE) I was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a jolting car, the mingling odours of the ladies’ cloakroom and lavatory, the throng penned tight on the old Royal stairs (for they love crushes, instinct of the herd, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice), even a pricelist of their hosiery. And then the heat. There were sunspots that summer. End of school. And tipsycake. Halcyon days.

Continue...

This eBook of “Ulysses” by James Joyce belongs to the public domain. Complete book.
Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About...