Joyce's Ulysses Concordance (2025)

15. Circe

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[19846][ 15 ]

[19847]

[19848](The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches

[19849]an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green

[19850]will-o’-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping

[19851]doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti’s halted

[19852]ice gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between

[19853]which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter

[19854]slowly. Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on

[19855]through the murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and

[19856]answer.)

[19857]

[19858]THE CALLS: Wait, my love, and I’ll be with you.

[19859]

[19860]THE ANSWERS: Round behind the stable.

[19861]

[19862](A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks

[19863]past, shaken in Saint Vitus’ dance. A chain of children ’s hands

[19864]imprisons him.)

[19865]

[19866]THE CHILDREN: Kithogue! Salute!

[19867]

[19868]THE IDIOT: (Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.) Grhahute!

[19869]

[19870]THE CHILDREN: Where’s the great light?

[19871]

[19872]THE IDIOT: (Gobbling.) Ghaghahest.

[19873]

[19874](They release him. He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung

[19875]between two railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and

[19876]muffled by its arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and

[19877]snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches

[19878]to shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky

[19879]oillamp rams her last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his

[19880]booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone

[19881]makes back for her lair, swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the

[19882]doorstep with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts,

[19883]clutches her skirt, scrambles up. A drunken navvy grips with both hands

[19884]the railings of an area, lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch

[19885]in shouldercapes, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A

[19886]plate crashes: a woman screams: a child wails. Oaths of a man roar,

[19887]mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. In a room lit by

[19888]a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the

[19889]hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey’s voice, still young, sings

[19890]shrill from a lane.)

[19891]

[19892]CISSY CAFFREY:

[19893]

[19894] I gave it to Molly

[19895] Because she was jolly,

[19896] The leg of the duck,

[19897] The leg of the duck.

[19898](Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters,

[19899]as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their

[19900]mouths a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago

[19901]retorts.)

[19902]

[19903]THE VIRAGO: Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.

[19904]

[19905]CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. (She

[19906]sings.)

[19907]

[19908] I gave it to Nelly

[19909] To stick in her belly,

[19910] The leg of the duck,

[19911] The leg of the duck.

[19912](Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics

[19913]bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped

[19914]polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the

[19915]redcoats.)

[19916]

[19917]PRIVATE COMPTON: (Jerks his finger.) Way for the parson.

[19918]

[19919]PRIVATE CARR: (Turns and calls.) What ho, parson!

[19920]

[19921]CISSY CAFFREY: (Her voice soaring higher.)

[19922]

[19923] She has it, she got it,

[19924] Wherever she put it,

[19925] The leg of the duck.

[19926](Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy the

[19927]introit for paschal time. Lynch, his jockeycap low on his brow, attends

[19928]him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)

[19929]

[19930]STEPHEN: Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia.

[19931]

[19932](The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.)

[19933]

[19934]THE BAWD: (Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst! Come here till I tell

[19935]you. Maidenhead inside. Sst!

[19936]

[19937]STEPHEN: (Altius aliquantulum.) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista.

[19938]

[19939]THE BAWD: (Spits in their trail her jet of venom.) Trinity medicals.

[19940]Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.

[19941]

[19942](Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl

[19943]across her nostrils.)

[19944]

[19945]EDY BOARDMAN: (Bickering.) And says the one: I seen you up Faithful

[19946]place with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his

[19947]cometobed hat. Did you, says I. That’s not for you to say, says I.

[19948]You never seen me in the mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The

[19949]likes of her! Stag that one is! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with

[19950]two fellows the one time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal

[19951]Oliphant.

[19952]

[19953]STEPHEN: (Triumphaliter.) Salvi facti sunt.

[19954]

[19955](He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp image, shattering light

[19956]over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him,

[19957]growling. Lynch scares it with a kick.)

[19958]

[19959]LYNCH: So that?

[19960]

[19961]STEPHEN: (Looks behind.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be

[19962]a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay

[19963]sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm.

[19964]

[19965]LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!

[19966]

[19967]STEPHEN: We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even

[19968]the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of

[19969]love.

[19970]

[19971]LYNCH: Ba!

[19972]

[19973]STEPHEN: Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug?

[19974]This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar.

[19975]Hold my stick.

[19976]

[19977]LYNCH: Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going?

[19978]

[19979]STEPHEN: Lecherous lynx, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson,

[19980]ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam.

[19981]

[19982](Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands, his

[19983]head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down turned,

[19984]in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left being

[19985]higher.)

[19986]

[19987]LYNCH: Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the

[19988]customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk.

[19989]

[19990](They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs

[19991]in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to

[19992]climb. The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the

[19993]dark. The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his

[19994]nose and ejects from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot.

[19995]Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his flaring

[19996]cresset.

[19997]

[19998]Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools,

[19999]middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south

[20000]beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward,

[20001]cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther

[20002]side under the railway bridge Bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming

[20003]bread and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen’s hairdresser’s

[20004]window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson’s image. A

[20005]concave mirror at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru

[20006]Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. He passes,

[20007]struck by the stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror

[20008]grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the

[20009]rixdix doldy.

[20010]

[20011]At Antonio Rabaiotti’s door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright

[20012]arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)

[20013]

[20014]BLOOM: Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!

[20015]

[20016](He disappears into Olhausen’s, the porkbutcher’s, under the

[20017]downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under

[20018]the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds

[20019]a parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig’s crubeen, the other a cold

[20020]sheep’s trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing

[20021]upright. Then bending to one side he presses a parcel against his ribs

[20022]and groans.)

[20023]

[20024]BLOOM: Stitch in my side. Why did I run?

[20025]

[20026](He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset

[20027]siding. The glow leaps again.)

[20028]

[20029]BLOOM: What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.

[20030]

[20031](He stands at Cormack’s corner, watching.)

[20032]

[20033]BLOOM: Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course.

[20034]South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar’s bush.

[20035]We’re safe. (He hums cheerfully.) London’s burning, London’s

[20036]burning! On fire, on fire! (He catches sight of the navvy lurching

[20037]through the crowd at the farther side of Talbot street.) I’ll miss

[20038]him. Run. Quick. Better cross here.

[20039]

[20040](He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)

[20041]

[20042]THE URCHINS: Mind out, mister!

[20043]

[20044](Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing

[20045]him, their bells rattling.)

[20046]

[20047]THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall.

[20048]

[20049]BLOOM: (Halts erect, stung by a spasm.) Ow!

[20050]

[20051](He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon

[20052]sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him,

[20053]its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The

[20054]motorman bangs his footgong.)

[20055]

[20056]THE GONG: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.

[20057]

[20058](The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman’s whitegloved

[20059]hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown

[20060]forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over

[20061]chains and keys.)

[20062]

[20063]THE MOTORMAN: Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?

[20064]

[20065](Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a

[20066]mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.)

[20067]

[20068]BLOOM: No thoroughfare. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Must take

[20069]up Sandow’s exercises again. On the hands down. Insure against street

[20070]accident too. The Providential. (He feels his trouser pocket.) Poor

[20071]mamma’s panacea. Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a cog. Day

[20072]the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard’s corner.

[20073]Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I ought to report

[20074]him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked me this

[20075]morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of him all

[20076]the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp in

[20077]Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost

[20078]cattle. Mark of the beast. (He closes his eyes an instant.) Bit light

[20079]in the head. Monthly or effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired

[20080]feeling. Too much for me now. Ow!

[20081]

[20082](A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O’Beirne’s wall,

[20083]a visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved

[20084]sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.)

[20085]

[20086]BLOOM: Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?

[20087]

[20088]THE FIGURE: (Impassive, raises a signal arm.) Password. Sraid Mabbot.

[20089]

[20090]BLOOM: Haha. Merci. Esperanto. Slan leath. (He mutters.) Gaelic league

[20091]spy, sent by that fireeater.

[20092]

[20093](He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps left,

[20094]ragsackman left.)

[20095]

[20096]BLOOM: I beg.

[20097]

[20098](He leaps right, sackragman right.)

[20099]

[20100]BLOOM: I beg.

[20101]

[20102](He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on.)

[20103]

[20104]BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted

[20105]by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who

[20106]lost my way and contributed to the columns of the Irish Cyclist the

[20107]letter headed In darkest Stepaside. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags

[20108]and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes

[20109]for. Wash off his sins of the world.

[20110]

[20111](Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.)

[20112]

[20113]BLOOM: O.

[20114]

[20115](Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.

[20116]Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoke,

[20117]sweets of sin, potato soap.)

[20118]

[20119]BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves’ dodge. Collide. Then snatch

[20120]your purse.

[20121]

[20122](The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form

[20123]sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan

[20124]of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned

[20125]spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are

[20126]on the drawn face.)

[20127]

[20128]RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with

[20129]drunken goy ever. So you catch no money.

[20130]

[20131]BLOOM: (Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen,

[20132]feels warm and cold feetmeat.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

[20133]

[20134]RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? (With feeble

[20135]vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom.) Are you not my son

[20136]Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who

[20137]left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and

[20138]Jacob?

[20139]

[20140]BLOOM: (With precaution.) I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that’s

[20141]left of him.

[20142]

[20143]RUDOLPH: (Severely.) One night they bring you home drunk as dog after

[20144]spend your good money. What you call them running chaps?

[20145]

[20146]BLOOM: (In youth’s smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips,

[20147]narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent’s sterling silver

[20148]waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one

[20149]side of him coated with stiffening mud.) Harriers, father. Only that

[20150]once.

[20151]

[20152]RUDOLPH: Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make

[20153]you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.

[20154]

[20155]BLOOM: (Weakly.) They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I

[20156]slipped.

[20157]

[20158]RUDOLPH: (With contempt.) Goim nachez! Nice spectacles for your poor

[20159]mother!

[20160]

[20161]BLOOM: Mamma!

[20162]

[20163]ELLEN BLOOM: (In pantomime dame’s stringed mobcap, widow Twankey’s

[20164]crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind,

[20165]grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net,

[20166]appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand,

[20167]and cries out in shrill alarm.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done

[20168]to him! My smelling salts! (She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks

[20169]the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a

[20170]shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out.) Sacred Heart of Mary,

[20171]where were you at all at all?

[20172]

[20173](Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in his

[20174]filled pockets but desists, muttering.)

[20175]

[20176]A VOICE: (Sharply.) Poldy!

[20177]

[20178]BLOOM: Who? (He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.) At your service.

[20179]

[20180](He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkish

[20181]costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers

[20182]and jacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. A

[20183]white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only

[20184]her large dark eyes and raven hair.)

[20185]

[20186]BLOOM: Molly!

[20187]

[20188]MARION: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to

[20189]me. (Satirically.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?

[20190]

[20191]BLOOM: (Shifts from foot to foot.) No, no. Not the least little bit.

[20192]

[20193](He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions,

[20194]hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire,

[20195]spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled

[20196]toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her

[20197]a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of

[20198]innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with

[20199]disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb

[20200]wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)

[20201]

[20202]MARION: Nebrakada! Femininum!

[20203]

[20204](The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit,

[20205]offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops his

[20206]head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops

[20207]his back for leapfrog.)

[20208]

[20209]BLOOM: I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer... Mrs

[20210]Marion... if you...

[20211]

[20212]MARION: So you notice some change? (Her hands passing slowly over her

[20213]trinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes.) O Poldy,

[20214]Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the

[20215]wide world.

[20216]

[20217]BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower

[20218]water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the

[20219]morning. (He pats divers pockets.) This moving kidney. Ah!

[20220]

[20221](He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon

[20222]soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)

[20223]

[20224]THE SOAP:

[20225]

[20226] We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I.

[20227] He brightens the earth. I polish the sky.

[20228](The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the

[20229]soapsun.)

[20230]

[20231]SWENY: Three and a penny, please.

[20232]

[20233]BLOOM: Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe.

[20234]

[20235]MARION: (Softly.) Poldy!

[20236]

[20237]BLOOM: Yes, ma’am?

[20238]

[20239]MARION: Ti trema un poco il cuore?

[20240]

[20241](In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon,

[20242]humming the duet from Don Giovanni.)

[20243]

[20244]BLOOM: Are you sure about that Voglio? I mean the pronunciati...

[20245]

[20246](He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes

[20247]his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)

[20248]

[20249]THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched.

[20250]Fifteen. There’s no-one in it only her old father that’s dead drunk.

[20251]

[20252](She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie

[20253]Kelly stands.)

[20254]

[20255]BRIDIE: Hatch street. Any good in your mind?

[20256]

[20257](With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues

[20258]with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into

[20259]gloom. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)

[20260]

[20261]THE BAWD: (Her wolfeyes shining.) He’s getting his pleasure. You

[20262]won’t get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don’t be all

[20263]night before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.

[20264]

[20265](Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind, ogling,

[20266]and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)

[20267]

[20268]GERTY: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. (She murmurs.) You did

[20269]that. I hate you.

[20270]

[20271]BLOOM: I? When? You’re dreaming. I never saw you.

[20272]

[20273]THE BAWD: Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman

[20274]false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take

[20275]the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you.

[20276]

[20277]GERTY: (To Bloom.) When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer.

[20278](She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Dirty married man! I love you for

[20279]doing that to me.

[20280]

[20281](She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man’s frieze overcoat

[20282]with loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes

[20283]wideopen, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.)

[20284]

[20285]MRS BREEN: Mr...

[20286]

[20287]BLOOM: (Coughs gravely.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter

[20288]dated the sixteenth instant...

[20289]

[20290]MRS BREEN: Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you

[20291]nicely! Scamp!

[20292]

[20293]BLOOM: (Hurriedly.) Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me?

[20294]Don’t give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It’s ages since

[20295]I. You’re looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are

[20296]having this time of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here.

[20297]Interesting quarter. Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the

[20298]secretary...

[20299]

[20300]MRS BREEN: (Holds up a finger.) Now, don’t tell a big fib! I know

[20301]somebody won’t like that. O just wait till I see Molly! (Slily.)

[20302]Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!

[20303]

[20304]BLOOM: (Looks behind.) She often said she’d like to visit. Slumming.

[20305]The exotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money.

[20306]Othello black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at

[20307]the Livermore christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter.

[20308]

[20309](Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks,

[20310]upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes,

[20311]leap out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands

[20312]jingle the twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they

[20313]rattle through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to

[20314]back, toe heel, heel toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)

[20315]

[20316]TOM AND SAM:

[20317]

[20318] There’s someone in the house with Dina

[20319] There’s someone in the house, I know,

[20320] There’s someone in the house with Dina

[20321] Playing on the old banjo.

[20322](They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling,

[20323]chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)

[20324]

[20325]BLOOM: (With a sour tenderish smile.) A little frivol, shall we, if you

[20326]are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a

[20327]fraction of a second?

[20328]

[20329]MRS BREEN: (Screams gaily.) O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!

[20330]

[20331]BLOOM: For old sake’ sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed

[20332]marriage mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a

[20333]soft corner for you. (Gloomily.) ’Twas I sent you that valentine of

[20334]the dear gazelle.

[20335]

[20336]MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. (She

[20337]puts out her hand inquisitively.) What are you hiding behind your back?

[20338]Tell us, there’s a dear.

[20339]

[20340]BLOOM: (Seizes her wrist with his free hand.) Josie Powell that was,

[20341]prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking

[20342]back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina

[20343]Simpson’s housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game,

[20344]finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this

[20345]snuffbox?

[20346]

[20347]MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic

[20348]recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the

[20349]ladies.

[20350]

[20351]BLOOM: (Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, blue

[20352]masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a

[20353]prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand.) Ladies and gentlemen, I

[20354]give you Ireland, home and beauty.

[20355]

[20356]MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love’s old sweet song.

[20357]

[20358]BLOOM: (Meaningfully dropping his voice.) I confess I’m teapot with

[20359]curiosity to find out whether some person’s something is a little

[20360]teapot at present.

[20361]

[20362]MRS BREEN: (Gushingly.) Tremendously teapot! London’s teapot and I’m

[20363]simply teapot all over me! (She rubs sides with him.) After the parlour

[20364]mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase

[20365]ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company.

[20366]

[20367]BLOOM: (Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his

[20368]fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which

[20369]she surrenders gently.) The witching hour of night. I took the splinter

[20370]out of this hand, carefully, slowly. (Tenderly, as he slips on her

[20371]finger a ruby ring.) Là ci darem la mano.

[20372]

[20373]MRS BREEN: (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a

[20374]tinsel sylph’s diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside

[20375]her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.)

[20376]Voglio e non. You’re hot! You’re scalding! The left hand nearest the

[20377]heart.

[20378]

[20379]BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and

[20380]the beast. I can never forgive you for that. (His clenched fist at his

[20381]brow.) Think what it means. All you meant to me then. (Hoarsely.) Woman,

[20382]it’s breaking me!

[20383]

[20384](Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely’s sandwichboards,

[20385]shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out,

[20386]muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of

[20387]the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)

[20388]

[20389]ALF BERGAN: (Points jeering at the sandwichboards.) U. p: up.

[20390]

[20391]MRS BREEN: (To Bloom.) High jinks below stairs. (She gives him the glad

[20392]eye.) Why didn’t you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to.

[20393]

[20394]BLOOM: (Shocked.) Molly’s best friend! Could you?

[20395]

[20396]MRS BREEN: (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.)

[20397]Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?

[20398]

[20399]BLOOM: (Offhandedly.) Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without

[20400]potted meat is incomplete. I was at Leah, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Trenchant

[20401]exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme.

[20402]Rattling good place round there for pigs’ feet. Feel.

[20403]

[20404](Richie Goulding, three ladies’ hats pinned on his head, appears

[20405]weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which

[20406]a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it

[20407]and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and

[20408]tightpacked pills.)

[20409]

[20410]RICHIE: Best value in Dub.

[20411]

[20412](Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his napkin,

[20413]waiting to wait.)

[20414]

[20415]PAT: (Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.) Steak and

[20416]kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait.

[20417]

[20418]RICHIE: Goodgod. Inev erate inall...

[20419]

[20420](With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by,

[20421]gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)

[20422]

[20423]RICHIE: (With a cry of pain, his hand to his back.) Ah! Bright’s!

[20424]Lights!

[20425]

[20426]BLOOM: (Points to the navvy.) A spy. Don’t attract attention. I hate

[20427]stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.

[20428]

[20429]MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and

[20430]bull story.

[20431]

[20432]BLOOM: I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here.

[20433]But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular

[20434]reason.

[20435]

[20436]MRS BREEN: (All agog.) O, not for worlds.

[20437]

[20438]BLOOM: Let’s walk on. Shall us?

[20439]

[20440]MRS BREEN: Let’s.

[20441]

[20442](The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The

[20443]terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)

[20444]

[20445]THE BAWD: Jewman’s melt!

[20446]

[20447]BLOOM: (In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel,

[20448]tony buff shirt, shepherd’s plaid Saint Andrew’s cross scarftie,

[20449]white spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses

[20450]in bandolier and a grey billycock hat.) Do you remember a long long

[20451]time, years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her,

[20452]was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?

[20453]

[20454]MRS BREEN: (In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider

[20455]veil.) Leopardstown.

[20456]

[20457]BLOOM: I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three

[20458]year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old

[20459]fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and

[20460]you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that

[20461]Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and

[20462]eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I’ll lay you

[20463]what you like she did it on purpose...

[20464]

[20465]MRS BREEN: She did, of course, the cat! Don’t tell me! Nice adviser!

[20466]

[20467]BLOOM: Because it didn’t suit you one quarter as well as the other

[20468]ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I

[20469]admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though

[20470]it was a pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a

[20471]thing with a heart the size of a fullstop.

[20472]

[20473]MRS BREEN: (Squeezes his arm, simpers.) Naughty cruel I was!

[20474]

[20475]BLOOM: (Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.) And Molly was eating a

[20476]sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher’s lunch basket.

[20477]Frankly, though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for

[20478]her style. She was...

[20479]

[20480]MRS BREEN: Too...

[20481]

[20482]BLOOM: Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O’Reilly

[20483]were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses,

[20484]the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses

[20485]was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I

[20486]ever heard or read or knew or came across...

[20487]

[20488]MRS BREEN: (Eagerly.) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[20489]

[20490](She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on

[20491]towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her

[20492]feet apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers

[20493]listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous

[20494]humour. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed

[20495]sodden playfight.)

[20496]

[20497]THE GAFFER: (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.) And when Cairns

[20498]came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing

[20499]it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the

[20500]shavings for Derwan’s plasterers.

[20501]

[20502]THE LOITERERS: (Guffaw with cleft palates.) O jays!

[20503]

[20504](Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their

[20505]lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)

[20506]

[20507]BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad

[20508]daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.

[20509]

[20510]THE LOITERERS: Jays, that’s a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into

[20511]the men’s porter.

[20512]

[20513](Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call

[20514]from lanes, doors, corners.)

[20515]

[20516]THE WHORES:

[20517]

[20518] Are you going far, queer fellow?

[20519] How’s your middle leg?

[20520] Got a match on you?

[20521] Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

[20522](He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From a

[20523]bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In

[20524]the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.)

[20525]

[20526]THE NAVVY: (Belching.) Where’s the bloody house?

[20527]

[20528]THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout.

[20529]Respectable woman.

[20530]

[20531]THE NAVVY: (Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them.) Come

[20532]on, you British army!

[20533]

[20534]PRIVATE CARR: (Behind his back.) He aint half balmy.

[20535]

[20536]PRIVATE COMPTON: (Laughs.) What ho!

[20537]

[20538]PRIVATE CARR: (To the navvy.) Portobello barracks canteen. You ask for

[20539]Carr. Just Carr.

[20540]

[20541]THE NAVVY: (Shouts.)

[20542]

[20543] We are the boys. Of Wexford.

[20544]PRIVATE COMPTON: Say! What price the sergeantmajor?

[20545]

[20546]PRIVATE CARR: Bennett? He’s my pal. I love old Bennett.

[20547]

[20548]THE NAVVY: (Shouts.)

[20549]

[20550] The galling chain.

[20551] And free our native land.

[20552](He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault. The

[20553]dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.)

[20554]

[20555]BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they

[20556]are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at

[20557]Westland row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far.

[20558]Train with engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding

[20559]for the night or collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose.

[20560]What am I following him for? Still, he’s the best of that lot. If

[20561]I hadn’t heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn’t have gone and

[20562]wouldn’t have met. Kismet. He’ll lose that cash. Relieving office

[20563]here. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got,

[20564]soon gone. Might have lost my life too with that

[20565]mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only for presence of mind.

[20566]Can’t always save you, though. If I had passed Truelock’s window

[20567]that day two minutes later would have been shot. Absence of body. Still

[20568]if bullet only went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred

[20569]pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff. God help his gamekeeper.

[20570]

[20571](He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream

[20572]and a phallic design.) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane

[20573]at Kingstown. What’s that like? (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted

[20574]doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The

[20575]odour of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in slow round ovalling

[20576]wreaths.)

[20577]

[20578]THE WREATHS: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin.

[20579]

[20580]BLOOM: My spine’s a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and

[20581]get all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too

[20582]much. (The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand,

[20583]wagging his tail.) Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today.

[20584]Better speak to him first. Like women they like rencontres. Stinks like

[20585]a polecat. Chacun son goût. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain in

[20586]his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! (The wolfdog

[20587]sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his long

[20588]black tongue lolling out.) Influence of his surroundings. Give and have

[20589]done with it. Provided nobody. (Calling encouraging words he shambles

[20590]back with a furtive poacher’s tread, dogged by the setter into a dark

[20591]stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the crubeen

[20592]softly but holds back and feels the trotter.) Sizeable for threepence.

[20593]But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. Why? Smaller

[20594]from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six.

[20595]

[20596](With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The

[20597]mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed,

[20598]crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant.

[20599]They murmur together.)

[20600]

[20601]THE WATCH: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom.

[20602]

[20603](Each lays hand on Bloom’s shoulder.)

[20604]

[20605]FIRST WATCH: Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance.

[20606]

[20607]BLOOM: (Stammers.) I am doing good to others.

[20608]

[20609](A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with

[20610]Banbury cakes in their beaks.)

[20611]

[20612]THE GULLS: Kaw kave kankury kake.

[20613]

[20614]BLOOM: The friend of man. Trained by kindness.

[20615]

[20616](He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over the

[20617]munching spaniel.)

[20618]

[20619]BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw.

[20620]

[20621](The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig’s knuckle

[20622]between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran

[20623]falls silently into an area.)

[20624]

[20625]SECOND WATCH: Prevention of cruelty to animals.

[20626]

[20627]BLOOM: (Enthusiastically.) A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on

[20628]Harold’s cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness

[20629]scab. Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the

[20630]last tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising.

[20631]

[20632](Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer’s costume with diamond studs

[20633]in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a curling

[20634]carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging boarhound.)

[20635]

[20636]SIGNOR MAFFEI: (With a sinister smile.) Ladies and gentlemen, my

[20637]educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my

[20638]patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted

[20639]thong. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion

[20640]to heel, no matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the Libyan

[20641]maneater. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part

[20642]produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. (He glares.) I possess

[20643]the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers.

[20644](With a bewitching smile.) I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride

[20645]of the ring.

[20646]

[20647]FIRST WATCH: Come. Name and address.

[20648]

[20649]BLOOM: I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! (He takes off his high

[20650]grade hat, saluting.) Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard

[20651]of von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. Donnerwetter! Owns half Austria.

[20652]Egypt. Cousin.

[20653]

[20654]FIRST WATCH: Proof.

[20655]

[20656](A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom’s hat.)

[20657]

[20658]BLOOM: (In red fez, cadi’s dress coat with broad green sash, wearing

[20659]a false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and

[20660]offers it.) Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors:

[20661]Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor’s Walk.

[20662]

[20663]FIRST WATCH: (Reads.) Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully watching

[20664]and besetting.

[20665]

[20666]SECOND WATCH: An alibi. You are cautioned.

[20667]

[20668]BLOOM: (Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.) This

[20669]is the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don’t know his

[20670]name. (Plausibly.) You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom. The

[20671]change of name. Virag. (He murmurs privately and confidentially.) We

[20672]are engaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement.

[20673](He shoulders the second watch gently.) Dash it all. It’s a way we

[20674]gallants have in the navy. Uniform that does it. (He turns gravely to

[20675]the first watch.) Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo sometimes.

[20676]Drop in some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. (To the second

[20677]watch gaily.) I’ll introduce you, inspector. She’s game. Do it in

[20678]the shake of a lamb’s tail.

[20679]

[20680](A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)

[20681]

[20682]THE DARK MERCURY: The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of

[20683]the army.

[20684]

[20685]MARTHA: (Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of the

[20686]Irish Times in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.) Henry! Leopold!

[20687]Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name.

[20688]

[20689]FIRST WATCH: (Sternly.) Come to the station.

[20690]

[20691]BLOOM: (Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart

[20692]and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and

[20693]dueguard of fellowcraft.) No, no, worshipful master, light of love.

[20694]Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember

[20695]the Childs fratricide case. We medical men. By striking him dead with

[20696]a hatchet. I am wrongfully accused. Better one guilty escape than

[20697]ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

[20698]

[20699]MARTHA: (Sobbing behind her veil.) Breach of promise. My real name is

[20700]Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I’ll tell my

[20701]brother, the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.

[20702]

[20703]BLOOM: (Behind his hand.) She’s drunk. The woman is inebriated. (He

[20704]murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Shitbroleeth.

[20705]

[20706]SECOND WATCH: (Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.) You ought to be thoroughly

[20707]well ashamed of yourself.

[20708]

[20709]BLOOM: Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare’s nest. I am

[20710]a man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable

[20711]married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street.

[20712]My wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant

[20713]upstanding gentleman, what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy,

[20714]one of Britain’s fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his

[20715]majority for the heroic defence of Rorke’s Drift.

[20716]

[20717]FIRST WATCH: Regiment.

[20718]

[20719]BLOOM: (Turns to the gallery.) The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the

[20720]earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms

[20721]up there among you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan police,

[20722]guardians of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men,

[20723]as physique, in the service of our sovereign.

[20724]

[20725]A VOICE: Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain?

[20726]

[20727]BLOOM: (His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.) My old dad too was

[20728]a J. P. I’m as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with the

[20729]colours for king and country in the absentminded war under general

[20730]Gough in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein,

[20731]was mentioned in dispatches. I did all a white man could. (With quiet

[20732]feeling.) Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank.

[20733]

[20734]FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade.

[20735]

[20736]BLOOM: Well, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. In fact

[20737]we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the

[20738]inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected

[20739]with the British and Irish press. If you ring up...

[20740]

[20741](Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His

[20742]scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles

[20743]a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a

[20744]telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.)

[20745]

[20746]MYLES CRAWFORD: (His cock’s wattles wagging.) Hello, seventyseven

[20747]eightfour. Hello. Freeman’s Urinal and Weekly Arsewipe here. Paralyse

[20748]Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom?

[20749]

[20750](Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate

[20751]morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing,

[20752]creased lavender trousers and patent boots. He carries a large portfolio

[20753]labelled Matcham’s Masterstrokes.)

[20754]

[20755]BEAUFOY: (Drawls.) No, you aren’t. Not by a long shot if I know it.

[20756]I don’t see it, that’s all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most

[20757]rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly

[20758]loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak

[20759]masquerading as a literateur. It’s perfectly obvious that with the

[20760]most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy,

[20761]really gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are

[20762]beneath suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions,

[20763]with which your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word

[20764]throughout the kingdom.

[20765]

[20766]BLOOM: (Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.) That bit about the laughing

[20767]witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may...

[20768]

[20769]BEAUFOY: (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.) You

[20770]funny ass, you! You’re too beastly awfully weird for words! I don’t

[20771]think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard.

[20772]My literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my

[20773]lord, we shall receive the usual witnesses’ fees, shan’t we? We are

[20774]considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw

[20775]of Rheims, who has not even been to a university.

[20776]

[20777]BLOOM: (Indistinctly.) University of life. Bad art.

[20778]

[20779]BEAUFOY: (Shouts.) It’s a damnably foul lie, showing the moral

[20780]rottenness of the man! (He extends his portfolio.) We have here damning

[20781]evidence, the corpus delicti, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work

[20782]disfigured by the hallmark of the beast.

[20783]

[20784]A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY:

[20785]

[20786] Moses, Moses, king of the jews,

[20787] Wiped his arse in the Daily News.

[20788]BLOOM: (Bravely.) Overdrawn.

[20789]

[20790]BEAUFOY: You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you

[20791]rotter! (To the court.) Why, look at the man’s private life! Leading

[20792]a quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be

[20793]mentioned in mixed society! The archconspirator of the age!

[20794]

[20795]BLOOM: (To the court.) And he, a bachelor, how...

[20796]

[20797]FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll.

[20798]

[20799]THE CRIER: Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!

[20800]

[20801](Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket on

[20802]the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)

[20803]

[20804]SECOND WATCH: Another! Are you of the unfortunate class?

[20805]

[20806]MARY DRISCOLL: (Indignantly.) I’m not a bad one. I bear a respectable

[20807]character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation,

[20808]six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave

[20809]owing to his carryings on.

[20810]

[20811]FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with?

[20812]

[20813]MARY DRISCOLL: He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself

[20814]as poor as I am.

[20815]

[20816]BLOOM: (In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless

[20817]slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled: softly.) I treated you white.

[20818]I gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station.

[20819]Incautiously I took your part when you were accused of pilfering.

[20820]There’s a medium in all things. Play cricket.

[20821]

[20822]MARY DRISCOLL: (Excitedly.) As God is looking down on me this night if

[20823]ever I laid a hand to them oylsters!

[20824]

[20825]FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of? Did something happen?

[20826]

[20827]MARY DRISCOLL: He surprised me in the rere of the premises, Your honour,

[20828]when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety

[20829]pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he

[20830]interfered twict with my clothing.

[20831]

[20832]BLOOM: She counterassaulted.

[20833]

[20834]MARY DRISCOLL: (Scornfully.) I had more respect for the scouringbrush,

[20835]so I had. I remonstrated with him, Your lord, and he remarked: keep it

[20836]quiet.

[20837]

[20838](General laughter.)

[20839]

[20840]GEORGE FOTTRELL: (Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly.) Order in

[20841]court! The accused will now make a bogus statement.

[20842]

[20843](Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a

[20844]long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in

[20845]his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though

[20846]branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to

[20847]retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to

[20848]nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths’ child, he had been

[20849]carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There

[20850]might have been lapses of an erring father but he wanted to turn over

[20851]a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the whipping post,

[20852]to lead a homely life in the evening of his days, permeated by the

[20853]affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of the family. An

[20854]acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate

[20855]of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain

[20856]refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of

[20857]loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly

[20858]rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell’s wallpaper at one

[20859]and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to

[20860]the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or

[20861]model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour

[20862]reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the

[20863]boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what

[20864]times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with

[20865]four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain

[20866]ever....

[20867]

[20868](Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that they

[20869]cannot hear.)

[20870]

[20871]LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (Without looking up from their notebooks.)

[20872]Loosen his boots.

[20873]

[20874]PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (From the presstable, coughs and calls.) Cough it up,

[20875]man. Get it out in bits.

[20876]

[20877](The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A large bucket.

[20878]Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad.

[20879]A plasterer’s bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery.

[20880]Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial

[20881]moment. He did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not

[20882]completely. A Titbits back number.)

[20883]

[20884](Uproar and catcalls. Bloom in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash,

[20885]dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of stickingplaster across

[20886]his nose, talks inaudibly.)

[20887]

[20888]J. J. O’MOLLOY: (In barrister’s grey wig and stuffgown, speaking

[20889]with a voice of pained protest.) This is no place for indecent levity

[20890]at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in

[20891]a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My

[20892]client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as

[20893]a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up

[20894]misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on

[20895]by hallucination, such familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence

[20896]being quite permitted in my client’s native place, the land of the

[20897]Pharaoh. Prima facie, I put it to you that there was no attempt at

[20898]carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of

[20899]by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. I would

[20900]deal in especial with atavism. There have been cases of shipwreck and

[20901]somnambulism in my client’s family. If the accused could speak he

[20902]could a tale unfold—one of the strangest that have ever been narrated

[20903]between the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck

[20904]from cobbler’s weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian

[20905]extraction and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact.

[20906]

[20907]BLOOM: (Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar’s vest and trousers,

[20908]apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole’s eyes and looks about

[20909]him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches

[20910]his belt sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes

[20911]the court, pointing one thumb heavenward.) Him makee velly muchee fine

[20912]night. (He begins to lilt simply.)

[20913]

[20914] Li li poo lil chile

[20915] Blingee pigfoot evly night

[20916] Payee two shilly...

[20917](He is howled down.)

[20918]

[20919]J. J. O’MOLLOY: (Hotly to the populace.) This is a lonehand fight. By

[20920]Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this

[20921]fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has

[20922]superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically,

[20923]without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused

[20924]was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered

[20925]with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very

[20926]own daughter. (Bloom takes J. J. O’Molloy’s hand and raises it to

[20927]his lips.) I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that

[20928]the hidden hand is again at its old game. When in doubt persecute Bloom.

[20929]My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world

[20930]to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or

[20931]cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard,

[20932]responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. He

[20933]wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man I know. He is down

[20934]on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his extensive property

[20935]at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be

[20936]shown. (To Bloom.) I suggest that you will do the handsome thing.

[20937]

[20938]BLOOM: A penny in the pound.

[20939]

[20940](The image of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in

[20941]silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino,

[20942]in blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an

[20943]orange citron and a pork kidney.)

[20944]

[20945]DLUGACZ: (Hoarsely.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13.

[20946]

[20947](J. J. O’Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his

[20948]coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with

[20949]sunken eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F.

[20950]Taylor. He applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the

[20951]galloping tide of rosepink blood.)

[20952]

[20953]J. J. O’MOLLOY: (Almost voicelessly.) Excuse me. I am suffering from a

[20954]severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words.

[20955](He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of

[20956]Seymour Bushe.) When the angel’s book comes to be opened if aught

[20957]that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of

[20958]soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar

[20959]the sacred benefit of the doubt.

[20960]

[20961](A paper with something written on it is handed into court.)

[20962]

[20963]BLOOM: (In court dress.) Can give best references. Messrs Callan,

[20964]Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon,

[20965]ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the

[20966]highest... Queens of Dublin society. (Carelessly.) I was just chatting

[20967]this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and

[20968]lady Ball, astronomer royal, at the levee. Sir Bob, I said...

[20969]

[20970]MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength

[20971]ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of

[20972]brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair.) Arrest him, constable. He

[20973]wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was

[20974]in the North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James

[20975]Lovebirch. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes

[20976]as I sat in a box of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La

[20977]Cigale. I deeply inflamed him, he said. He made improper overtures to me

[20978]to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the following Thursday,

[20979]Dunsink time. He offered to send me through the post a work of fiction

[20980]by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled The Girl with the Three Pairs of

[20981]Stays.

[20982]

[20983]MRS BELLINGHAM: (In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the

[20984]nose, steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell

[20985]quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff.)

[20986]Also to me. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Because

[20987]he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker’s one sleety

[20988]day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid

[20989]of the wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen.

[20990]Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights,

[20991]as he said, in my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and

[20992]elicited the information that it was a blossom of the homegrown potato

[20993]plant purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm.

[20994]

[20995]MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!

[20996]

[20997](A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward.)

[20998]

[20999]THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (Screaming.) Stop thief! Hurrah there,

[21000]Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

[21001]

[21002]SECOND WATCH: (Produces handcuffs.) Here are the darbies.

[21003]

[21004]MRS BELLINGHAM: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome

[21005]compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my

[21006]frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself

[21007]as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate

[21008]proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery

[21009]and the armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable,

[21010]a buck’s head couped or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether

[21011]extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and

[21012]eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which,

[21013]he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (Stating that he felt it

[21014]his mission in life to urge me.) to defile the marriage bed, to commit

[21015]adultery at the earliest possible opportunity.

[21016]

[21017]THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (In amazon costume, hard hat,

[21018]jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets

[21019]with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she

[21020]strikes her welt constantly.) Also me. Because he saw me on the polo

[21021]ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of

[21022]Ireland. My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger

[21023]Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob

[21024]Centaur. This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car

[21025]and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold

[21026]after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still.

[21027]It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely (his wife,

[21028]as he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit

[21029]intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me

[21030]to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He

[21031]implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise

[21032]him as he richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most

[21033]vicious horsewhipping.

[21034]

[21035]MRS BELLINGHAM: Me too.

[21036]

[21037]MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Me too.

[21038]

[21039](Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters

[21040]received from Bloom.)

[21041]

[21042]THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Stamps her jingling spurs in a

[21043]sudden paroxysm of fury.) I will, by the God above me. I’ll scourge

[21044]the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I’ll flay him

[21045]alive.

[21046]

[21047]BLOOM: (His eyes closing, quails expectantly.) Here? (He squirms.)

[21048]Again! (He pants cringing.) I love the danger.

[21049]

[21050]THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Very much so! I’ll make it hot for

[21051]you. I’ll make you dance Jack Latten for that.

[21052]

[21053]MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and

[21054]stripes on it!

[21055]

[21056]MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful! There’s no excuse for him! A married

[21057]man!

[21058]

[21059]BLOOM: All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling

[21060]glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.

[21061]

[21062]THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Laughs derisively.) O, did you, my

[21063]fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you’ll get the surprise of your

[21064]life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained

[21065]for. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury.

[21066]

[21067]MRS BELLINGHAM: (Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively.)

[21068]Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within

[21069]an inch of his life. The cat-o’-nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him.

[21070]

[21071]BLOOM: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with hangdog mien.) O

[21072]cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet.

[21073]Let me off this once. (He offers the other cheek.)

[21074]

[21075]MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Severely.) Don’t do so on any account, Mrs

[21076]Talboys! He should be soundly trounced!

[21077]

[21078]THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently.)

[21079]I’ll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since he was

[21080]pupped! To dare address me! I’ll flog him black and blue in the public

[21081]streets. I’ll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown

[21082]cuckold. (She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the air.) Take down

[21083]his trousers without loss of time. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready?

[21084]

[21085]BLOOM: (Trembling, beginning to obey.) The weather has been so warm.

[21086]

[21087](Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)

[21088]

[21089]DAVY STEPHENS: Messenger of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph with

[21090]Saint Patrick’s Day supplement. Containing the new addresses of all

[21091]the cuckolds in Dublin.

[21092]

[21093](The very reverend Canon O’Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and

[21094]exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend

[21095]John Hughes S. J. bend low.)

[21096]

[21097]THE TIMEPIECE: (Unportalling.)

[21098]

[21099] Cuckoo.

[21100] Cuckoo.

[21101] Cuckoo.

[21102](The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)

[21103]

[21104]THE QUOITS: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag.

[21105]

[21106](A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox

[21107]the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon

[21108]Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Myles Crawford,

[21109]Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M’Coy and the featureless face of

[21110]a Nameless One.)

[21111]

[21112]THE NAMELESS ONE: Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised

[21113]her.

[21114]

[21115]THE JURORS: (All their heads turned to his voice.) Really?

[21116]

[21117]THE NAMELESS ONE: (Snarls.) Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five.

[21118]

[21119]THE JURORS: (All their heads lowered in assent.) Most of us thought as

[21120]much.

[21121]

[21122]FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man. Another girl’s plait cut. Wanted:

[21123]Jack the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward.

[21124]

[21125]SECOND WATCH: (Awed, whispers.) And in black. A mormon. Anarchist.

[21126]

[21127]THE CRIER: (Loudly.) Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a

[21128]wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public

[21129]nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of

[21130]assizes the most honourable...

[21131]

[21132](His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, in judicial

[21133]garb of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his

[21134]arms an umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic

[21135]ramshorns.)

[21136]

[21137]THE RECORDER: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid

[21138]Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! (He dons the black cap.) Let him

[21139]be taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and detained

[21140]in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty’s pleasure and there

[21141]be hanged by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your

[21142]peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him. (A black

[21143]skullcap descends upon his head.)

[21144]

[21145](The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry

[21146]Clay.)

[21147]

[21148]LONG JOHN FANNING: (Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.)

[21149]Who’ll hang Judas Iscariot?

[21150]

[21151](H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner’s

[21152]apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life

[21153]preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs

[21154]grimly his grappling hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)

[21155]

[21156]RUMBOLD: (To the recorder with sinister familiarity.) Hanging Harry,

[21157]your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or

[21158]nothing.

[21159]

[21160](The bells of George’s church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)

[21161]

[21162]THE BELLS: Heigho! Heigho!

[21163]

[21164]BLOOM: (Desperately.) Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence.

[21165]Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee. (Breathlessly.) Pelvic

[21166]basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. (Overcome with emotion.) I left

[21167]the precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing.) Hynes,

[21168]may I speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If

[21169]you want a little more...

[21170]

[21171]HYNES: (Coldly.) You are a perfect stranger.

[21172]

[21173]SECOND WATCH: (Points to the corner.) The bomb is here.

[21174]

[21175]FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

[21176]

[21177]BLOOM: No, no. Pig’s feet. I was at a funeral.

[21178]

[21179]FIRST WATCH: (Draws his truncheon.) Liar!

[21180]

[21181](The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy

[21182]Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath.

[21183]He grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown

[21184]mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all

[21185]the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)

[21186]

[21187]PADDY DIGNAM: (In a hollow voice.) It is true. It was my funeral. Doctor

[21188]Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from

[21189]natural causes.

[21190]

[21191](He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)

[21192]

[21193]BLOOM: (In triumph.) You hear?

[21194]

[21195]PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam’s spirit. List, list, O list!

[21196]

[21197]BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau.

[21198]

[21199]SECOND WATCH: (Blesses himself.) How is that possible?

[21200]

[21201]FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism.

[21202]

[21203]PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks.

[21204]

[21205]A VOICE: O rocks.

[21206]

[21207]PADDY DIGNAM: (Earnestly.) Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton,

[21208]solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor’s

[21209]Walk. Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines.

[21210]The poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off

[21211]that bottle of sherry. (He looks round him.) A lamp. I must satisfy an

[21212]animal need. That buttermilk didn’t agree with me.

[21213]

[21214](The portly figure of John O’Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding

[21215]a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey,

[21216]chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap,

[21217]holding sleepily a staff of twisted poppies.)

[21218]

[21219]FATHER COFFEY: (Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak.) Namine. Jacobs.

[21220]Vobiscuits. Amen.

[21221]

[21222]JOHN O’CONNELL: (Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.) Dignam,

[21223]Patrick T, deceased.

[21224]

[21225]PADDY DIGNAM: (With pricked up ears, winces.) Overtones. (He wriggles

[21226]forward and places an ear to the ground.) My master’s voice!

[21227]

[21228]JOHN O’CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand.

[21229]Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.

[21230]

[21231](Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail

[21232]stiffpointed, his ears cocked.)

[21233]

[21234]PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.

[21235]

[21236](He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether

[21237]over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on

[21238]fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam’s voice, muffled, is

[21239]heard baying under ground: Dignam’s dead and gone below. Tom Rochford,

[21240]robinredbreasted, in cap and breeches, jumps from his twocolumned

[21241]machine.)

[21242]

[21243]TOM ROCHFORD: (A hand to his breastbone, bows.) Reuben J. A florin I

[21244]find him. (He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.) My turn now on.

[21245]Follow me up to Carlow.

[21246]

[21247](He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the

[21248]coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes.

[21249]Bloom plodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid

[21250]the rifts of fog. A piano sounds. He stands before a lighted house,

[21251]listening. The kisses, winging from their bowers, fly about him,

[21252]twittering, warbling, cooing.)

[21253]

[21254]THE KISSES: (Warbling.) Leo! (Twittering.) Icky licky micky sticky for

[21255]Leo! (Cooing.) Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! (Warbling.) Big comebig!

[21256]Pirouette! Leopopold! (Twittering.) Leeolee! (Warbling.) O Leo!

[21257]

[21258](They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks,

[21259]silvery sequins.)

[21260]

[21261]BLOOM: A man’s touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here.

[21262]

[21263](Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze

[21264]buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips down

[21265]the steps and accosts him.)

[21266]

[21267]ZOE: Are you looking for someone? He’s inside with his friend.

[21268]

[21269]BLOOM: Is this Mrs Mack’s?

[21270]

[21271]ZOE: No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen’s. You might go farther and fare worse.

[21272]Mother Slipperslapper. (Familiarly.) She’s on the job herself tonight

[21273]with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for

[21274]her son in Oxford. Working overtime but her luck’s turned today.

[21275](Suspiciously.) You’re not his father, are you?

[21276]

[21277]BLOOM: Not I!

[21278]

[21279]ZOE: You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?

[21280]

[21281](His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand glides over his

[21282]left thigh.)

[21283]

[21284]ZOE: How’s the nuts?

[21285]

[21286]BLOOM: Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier, I suppose.

[21287]One in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.

[21288]

[21289]ZOE: (In sudden alarm.) You’ve a hard chancre.

[21290]

[21291]BLOOM: Not likely.

[21292]

[21293]ZOE: I feel it.

[21294]

[21295](Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard

[21296]black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist lips.)

[21297]

[21298]BLOOM: A talisman. Heirloom.

[21299]

[21300]ZOE: For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh?

[21301]

[21302](She puts the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, cuddling

[21303]him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by note,

[21304]oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her eyes,

[21305]ringed with kohol. His smile softens.)

[21306]

[21307]ZOE: You’ll know me the next time.

[21308]

[21309]BLOOM: (Forlornly.) I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to...

[21310]

[21311](Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round

[21312]their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong

[21313]hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by

[21314]the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white,

[21315]still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth

[21316]roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes,

[21317]strangely murmuring.)

[21318]

[21319]ZOE: (Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously

[21320]smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach,

[21321]benoith Hierushaloim.

[21322]

[21323]BLOOM: (Fascinated.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent.

[21324]

[21325]ZOE: And you know what thought did?

[21326]

[21327](She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on

[21328]him a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a

[21329]sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)

[21330]

[21331]BLOOM: (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat

[21332]awkward hand.) Are you a Dublin girl?

[21333]

[21334]ZOE: (Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil.) No bloody

[21335]fear. I’m English. Have you a swaggerroot?

[21336]

[21337]BLOOM: (As before.) Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish

[21338]device. (Lewdly.) The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder

[21339]of rank weed.

[21340]

[21341]ZOE: Go on. Make a stump speech out of it.

[21342]

[21343]BLOOM: (In workman’s corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating

[21344]tie and apache cap.) Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Ralegh brought

[21345]from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of

[21346]pestilence by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart,

[21347]memory, will, understanding, all. That is to say he brought the poison

[21348]a hundred years before another person whose name I forget brought the

[21349]food. Suicide. Lies. All our habits. Why, look at our public life!

[21350]

[21351](Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)

[21352]

[21353]THE CHIMES: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin!

[21354]

[21355]BLOOM: (In alderman’s gown and chain.) Electors of Arran Quay, Inns

[21356]Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say,

[21357]from the cattlemarket to the river. That’s the music of the future.

[21358]That’s my programme. Cui bono? But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in

[21359]their phantom ship of finance...

[21360]

[21361]AN ELECTOR: Three times three for our future chief magistrate!

[21362]

[21363](The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)

[21364]

[21365]THE TORCHBEARERS: Hooray!

[21366]

[21367](Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city

[21368]shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late

[21369]thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and

[21370]white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens.

[21371]They nod vigorously in agreement.)

[21372]

[21373]LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral

[21374]chain and large white silk scarf.) That alderman sir Leo Bloom’s

[21375]speech be printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in

[21376]which he was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the

[21377]thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth

[21378]designated Boulevard Bloom.

[21379]

[21380]COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Carried unanimously.

[21381]

[21382]BLOOM: (Impassionedly.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as

[21383]they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they?

[21384]Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving

[21385]apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual

[21386]murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts

[21387]upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are

[21388]grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges

[21389]in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign is rover for

[21390]rever and ever and ev...

[21391]

[21392](Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring

[21393]up. A streamer bearing the legends Cead Mile Failte and Mah Ttob Melek

[21394]Israel spans the street. All the windows are thronged with sightseers,

[21395]chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the Royal Dublin

[21396]Fusiliers, the King’s own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron Highlanders

[21397]and the Welsh Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back the crowd.

[21398]Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles,

[21399]windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts,

[21400]whistling and cheering. The pillar of the cloud appears. A fife and

[21401]drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The beaters

[21402]approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving

[21403]oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high,

[21404]surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession

[21405]appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard

[21406]tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are

[21407]followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of

[21408]Dublin, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the

[21409]mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish

[21410]representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth

[21411]of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of the

[21412]saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishop

[21413]of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of

[21414]Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William

[21415]Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief

[21416]rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist, anabaptist,

[21417]methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society

[21418]of friends. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands

[21419]with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper

[21420]canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers,

[21421]chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers,

[21422]Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers,

[21423]undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters,

[21424]assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers,

[21425]fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository

[21426]hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers,

[21427]egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. After

[21428]them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter,

[21429]Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great chamberlain, the

[21430]earl marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint

[21431]Stephen’s iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow

[21432]a sennet. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch

[21433]of triumph Bloom appears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed

[21434]with ermine, bearing Saint Edward’s staff, the orb and sceptre with

[21435]the dove, the curtana. He is seated on a milkwhite horse with long

[21436]flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with golden headstall. Wild

[21437]excitement. The ladies from their balconies throw down rosepetals. The

[21438]air is perfumed with essences. The men cheer. Bloom’s boys run amid

[21439]the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.)

[21440]

[21441]BLOOM’S BOYS:

[21442]

[21443] The wren, the wren,

[21444] The king of all birds,

[21445] Saint Stephen’s his day

[21446] Was caught in the furze.

[21447]A BLACKSMITH: (Murmurs.) For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He

[21448]scarcely looks thirtyone.

[21449]

[21450]A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: That’s the famous Bloom now, the world’s

[21451]greatest reformer. Hats off!

[21452]

[21453](All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)

[21454]

[21455]A MILLIONAIRESS: (Richly.) Isn’t he simply wonderful?

[21456]

[21457]A NOBLEWOMAN: (Nobly.) All that man has seen!

[21458]

[21459]A FEMINIST: (Masculinely.) And done!

[21460]

[21461]A BELLHANGER: A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker.

[21462]

[21463](Bloom’s weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)

[21464]

[21465]THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: I here present your undoubted

[21466]emperor-president and king-chairman, the most serene and potent and very

[21467]puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!

[21468]

[21469]ALL: God save Leopold the First!

[21470]

[21471]BLOOM: (In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and Connor,

[21472]with dignity.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.

[21473]

[21474]WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (In purple stock and shovel hat.)

[21475]Will you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your

[21476]judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?

[21477]

[21478]BLOOM: (Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.) So may the

[21479]Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do.

[21480]

[21481]MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom’s

[21482]head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem. Leopold,

[21483]Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!

[21484]

[21485](Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He

[21486]ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put

[21487]on at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ

[21488]church, Saint Patrick’s, George’s and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar

[21489]fireworks go up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic

[21490]designs. The peers do homage, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.)

[21491]

[21492]THE PEERS: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly

[21493]worship.

[21494]

[21495](Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

[21496]His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless intercontinental and

[21497]interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.)

[21498]

[21499]BLOOM: My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix

[21500]hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated

[21501]our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess

[21502]Selene, the splendour of night.

[21503]

[21504](The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black

[21505]Maria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her

[21506]head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of

[21507]cheering.)

[21508]

[21509]JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (Raises the royal standard.) Illustrious Bloom!

[21510]Successor to my famous brother!

[21511]

[21512]BLOOM: (Embraces John Howard Parnell.) We thank you from our heart,

[21513]John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of

[21514]our common ancestors.

[21515]

[21516](The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The

[21517]keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows

[21518]all that he is wearing green socks.)

[21519]

[21520]TOM KERNAN: You deserve it, your honour.

[21521]

[21522]BLOOM: On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at

[21523]Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with

[21524]telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do

[21525]we yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the

[21526]left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering

[21527]their warcry Bonafide Sabaoth, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.

[21528]

[21529]THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Hear! Hear!

[21530]

[21531]JOHN WYSE NOLAN: There’s the man that got away James Stephens.

[21532]

[21533]A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Bravo!

[21534]

[21535]AN OLD RESIDENT: You’re a credit to your country, sir, that’s what

[21536]you are.

[21537]

[21538]AN APPLEWOMAN: He’s a man like Ireland wants.

[21539]

[21540]BLOOM: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell

[21541]you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall

[21542]ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem

[21543]in the Nova Hibernia of the future.

[21544]

[21545](Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland,

[21546]under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem.

[21547]It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a

[21548]huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its

[21549]extension several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government

[21550]offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses

[21551]are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and

[21552]boxes, all marked in red with the letters: L. B. Several paupers

[21553]fall from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal

[21554]sightseers, collapses.)

[21555]

[21556]THE SIGHTSEERS: (Dying.) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)

[21557]

[21558](A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points an

[21559]elongated finger at Bloom.)

[21560]

[21561]THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Don’t you believe a word he says. That

[21562]man is Leopold M’Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is

[21563]Higgins.

[21564]

[21565]BLOOM: Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M’Intosh!

[21566]

[21567](A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his

[21568]sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many

[21569]powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing

[21570]committees, are reported. Bloom’s bodyguard distribute Maundy money,

[21571]commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive

[21572]Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in

[21573]sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock,

[21574]billets doux in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of

[21575]toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes’ Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days’

[21576]indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes,

[21577]season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and

[21578]privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of

[21579]the World’s Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of

[21580]the Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun

[21581]Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant’s Compendium of the

[21582]Universe (cosmic), Let’s All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser’s Vade

[21583]Mecum (journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who’s Who

[21584]in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise’s

[21585]Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press

[21586]forward to touch the hem of Bloom’s robe. The lady Gwendolen Dubedat

[21587]bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both

[21588]cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is

[21589]taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)

[21590]

[21591]THE WOMEN: Little father! Little father!

[21592]

[21593]THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS:

[21594]

[21595] Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home,

[21596] Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone.

[21597](Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)

[21598]

[21599]BABY BOARDMAN: (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.) Hajajaja.

[21600]

[21601]BLOOM: (Shaking hands with a blind stripling.) My more than Brother!

[21602](Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.) Dear old

[21603]friends! (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.)

[21604]Peep! Bopeep! (He wheels twins in a perambulator.) Ticktacktwo

[21605]wouldyousetashoe? (He performs juggler’s tricks, draws red, orange,

[21606]yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his

[21607]mouth.) Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. (He consoles a widow.) Absence

[21608]makes the heart grow younger. (He dances the Highland fling with

[21609]grotesque antics.) Leg it, ye devils! (He kisses the bedsores of a

[21610]palsied veteran.) Honourable wounds! (He trips up a fat policeman.)

[21611]U. p: up. U. p: up. (He whispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and

[21612]laughs kindly.) Ah, naughty, naughty! (He eats a raw turnip offered

[21613]him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.) Fine! Splendid! (He refuses to accept

[21614]three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist.) My dear

[21615]fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar.) Please accept. (He

[21616]takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.)

[21617]Come on, boys! Wriggle it, girls!

[21618]

[21619]THE CITIZEN: (Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald

[21620]muffler.) May the good God bless him!

[21621]

[21622](The rams’ horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)

[21623]

[21624]BLOOM: (Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and

[21625]reads solemnly.) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom

[21626]Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim

[21627]Meshuggah Talith.

[21628]

[21629](An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.)

[21630]

[21631]JIMMY HENRY: The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic

[21632]Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal

[21633]advice, solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited.

[21634]Given at this our loyal city of Dublin in the year 1 of the Paradisiacal

[21635]Era.

[21636]

[21637]PADDY LEONARD: What am I to do about my rates and taxes?

[21638]

[21639]BLOOM: Pay them, my friend.

[21640]

[21641]PADDY LEONARD: Thank you.

[21642]

[21643]NOSEY FLYNN: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

[21644]

[21645]BLOOM: (Obdurately.) Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are

[21646]bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five

[21647]pounds.

[21648]

[21649]J. J. O’MOLLOY: A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O’Brien!

[21650]

[21651]NOSEY FLYNN: Where do I draw the five pounds?

[21652]

[21653]PISSER BURKE: For bladder trouble?

[21654]

[21655]BLOOM:

[21656]

[21657] Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil., 20 minims

[21658] Tinct. nux vom., 5 minims

[21659] Extr. taraxel. lig., 30 minims.

[21660] Aq. dis. ter in die.

[21661]CHRIS CALLINAN: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of

[21662]Aldebaran?

[21663]

[21664]BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. 11.

[21665]

[21666]JOE HYNES: Why aren’t you in uniform?

[21667]

[21668]BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the

[21669]Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours?

[21670]

[21671]BEN DOLLARD: Pansies?

[21672]

[21673]BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.

[21674]

[21675]BEN DOLLARD: When twins arrive?

[21676]

[21677]BLOOM: Father (pater, dad) starts thinking.

[21678]

[21679]LARRY O’ROURKE: An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember

[21680]me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I’m sending around a dozen

[21681]of stout for the missus.

[21682]

[21683]BLOOM: (Coldly.) You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no

[21684]presents.

[21685]

[21686]CROFTON: This is indeed a festivity.

[21687]

[21688]BLOOM: (Solemnly.) You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.

[21689]

[21690]ALEXANDER KEYES: When will we have our own house of keys?

[21691]

[21692]BLOOM: I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten

[21693]commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile.

[21694]Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses.

[21695]Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and

[21696]night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy

[21697]must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence,

[21698]bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal

[21699]brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors.

[21700]Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay

[21701]state.

[21702]

[21703]O’MADDEN BURKE: Free fox in a free henroost.

[21704]

[21705]DAVY BYRNE: (Yawning.) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!

[21706]

[21707]BLOOM: Mixed races and mixed marriage.

[21708]

[21709]LENEHAN: What about mixed bathing?

[21710]

[21711](Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration.

[21712]All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare street museum appears,

[21713]dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked

[21714]goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and

[21715]plaster figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce,

[21716]Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural

[21717]Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments,

[21718]Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)

[21719]

[21720]FATHER FARLEY: He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an anythingarian

[21721]seeking to overthrow our holy faith.

[21722]

[21723]MRS RIORDAN: (Tears up her will.) I’m disappointed in you! You bad

[21724]man!

[21725]

[21726]MOTHER GROGAN: (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.) You beast! You

[21727]abominable person!

[21728]

[21729]NOSEY FLYNN: Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs.

[21730]

[21731]BLOOM: (With rollicking humour.)

[21732]

[21733] I vowed that I never would leave her,

[21734] She turned out a cruel deceiver.

[21735] With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom.

[21736]HOPPY HOLOHAN: Good old Bloom! There’s nobody like him after all.

[21737]

[21738]PADDY LEONARD: Stage Irishman!

[21739]

[21740]BLOOM: What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of

[21741]Casteele.

[21742]

[21743](Laughter.)

[21744]

[21745]LENEHAN: Plagiarist! Down with Bloom!

[21746]

[21747]THE VEILED SIBYL: (Enthusiastically.) I’m a Bloomite and I glory in

[21748]it. I believe in him in spite of all. I’d give my life for him, the

[21749]funniest man on earth.

[21750]

[21751]BLOOM: (Winks at the bystanders.) I bet she’s a bonny lassie.

[21752]

[21753]THEODORE PUREFOY: (In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.) He employs a

[21754]mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature.

[21755]

[21756]THE VEILED SIBYL: (Stabs herself.) My hero god! (She dies.)

[21757]

[21758](Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by

[21759]stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening

[21760]their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers,

[21761]from the top of Nelson’s Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness’s

[21762]brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens,

[21763]hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different

[21764]storeys.)

[21765]

[21766]ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (Violently.) Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the

[21767]man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian

[21768]men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat

[21769]of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the

[21770]cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite,

[21771]bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse.

[21772]A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his

[21773]nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him.

[21774]Caliban!

[21775]

[21776]THE MOB: Lynch him! Roast him! He’s as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!

[21777]

[21778](Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper

[21779]and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial

[21780]value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread,

[21781]sheep’s tails, odd pieces of fat.)

[21782]

[21783]BLOOM: (Excitedly.) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.

[21784]By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry.

[21785]He is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin’s Barn. Slander, the

[21786]viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata

[21787]coisde gan capall. I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex

[21788]specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf.

[21789]

[21790]DR MULLIGAN: (In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his brow.) Dr Bloom

[21791]is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace’s

[21792]private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary

[21793]epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of

[21794]elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are

[21795]marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also

[21796]latent. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in

[21797]consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a

[21798]family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him

[21799]to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal

[21800]examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal,

[21801]axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be virgo intacta.

[21802]

[21803](Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)

[21804]

[21805]DR MADDEN: Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming

[21806]generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in

[21807]spirits of wine in the national teratological museum.

[21808]

[21809]DR CROTTHERS: I have examined the patient’s urine. It is albuminoid.

[21810]Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent.

[21811]

[21812]DR PUNCH COSTELLO: The fetor judaicus is most perceptible.

[21813]

[21814]DR DIXON: (Reads a bill of health.) Professor Bloom is a finished

[21815]example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable.

[21816]Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint

[21817]fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense.

[21818]He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court

[21819]missionary of the Reformed Priests’ Protection Society which clears up

[21820]everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that

[21821]he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried

[21822]grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish manufacture winter

[21823]and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I understand,

[21824]at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. Another

[21825]report states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for clemency

[21826]in the name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been

[21827]called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby.

[21828]

[21829](General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American makes

[21830]a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank cheques,

[21831]banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I. O.

[21832]U’s, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are

[21833]rapidly collected.)

[21834]

[21835]BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother.

[21836]

[21837]MRS THORNTON: (In nursetender’s gown.) Embrace me tight, dear.

[21838]You’ll be soon over it. Tight, dear.

[21839]

[21840](Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white

[21841]children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive

[21842]plants. All the octuplets are handsome, with valuable metallic faces,

[21843]wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern

[21844]languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each

[21845]has his name printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro,

[21846]Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindorée, Silversmile, Silberselber,

[21847]Vifargent, Panargyros. They are immediately appointed to positions of

[21848]high public trust in several different countries as managing directors

[21849]of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability

[21850]companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.)

[21851]

[21852]A VOICE: Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

[21853]

[21854]BLOOM: (Darkly.) You have said it.

[21855]

[21856]BROTHER BUZZ: Then perform a miracle like Father Charles.

[21857]

[21858]BANTAM LYONS: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger.

[21859]

[21860](Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes

[21861]through several walls, climbs Nelson’s Pillar, hangs from the top

[21862]ledge by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included),

[21863]heals several sufferers from king’s evil, contracts his face so as to

[21864]resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron,

[21865]Wat Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry

[21866]Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold

[21867]Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each

[21868]foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back,

[21869]eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)

[21870]

[21871]BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (In papal zouave’s uniform, steel cuirasses as

[21872]breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches

[21873]and brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio. Moses begat Noah and

[21874]Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O’Halloran and O’Halloran begat

[21875]Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and

[21876]Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat

[21877]MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz

[21878]and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat

[21879]Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy

[21880]Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat

[21881]O’Donnell Magnus and O’Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and

[21882]Christbaum begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty

[21883]Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat

[21884]Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone

[21885]begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely

[21886]begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.

[21887]

[21888]A DEADHAND: (Writes on the wall.) Bloom is a cod.

[21889]

[21890]CRAB: (In bushranger’s kit.) What did you do in the cattlecreep behind

[21891]Kilbarrack?

[21892]

[21893]A FEMALE INFANT: (Shakes a rattle.) And under Ballybough bridge?

[21894]

[21895]A HOLLYBUSH: And in the devil’s glen?

[21896]

[21897]BLOOM: (Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three tears

[21898]falling from his left eye.) Spare my past.

[21899]

[21900]THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook

[21901]fair shillelaghs.) Sjambok him!

[21902]

[21903](Bloom with asses’ ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed

[21904]arms, his feet protruding. He whistles Don Giovanni, a cenar teco.

[21905]Artane orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate

[21906]Mission, joining hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)

[21907]

[21908]THE ARTANE ORPHANS:

[21909]

[21910] You hig, you hog, you dirty dog!

[21911] You think the ladies love you!

[21912]THE PRISON GATE GIRLS:

[21913]

[21914] If you see Kay

[21915] Tell him he may

[21916] See you in tea

[21917] Tell him from me.

[21918]HORNBLOWER: (In ephod and huntingcap, announces.) And he shall carry the

[21919]sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and

[21920]to Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea,

[21921]all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham.

[21922]

[21923](All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide

[21924]travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky

[21925]and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their

[21926]beards at Bloom.)

[21927]

[21928]MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: Belial! Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah!

[21929]Abulafia! Recant!

[21930]

[21931](George R Mesias, Bloom’s tailor, appears, a tailor’s goose under

[21932]his arm, presenting a bill.)

[21933]

[21934]MESIAS: To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings.

[21935]

[21936]BLOOM: (Rubs his hands cheerfully.) Just like old times. Poor Bloom!

[21937]

[21938](Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his

[21939]shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)

[21940]

[21941]REUBEN J: (Whispers hoarsely.) The squeak is out. A split is gone for

[21942]the flatties. Nip the first rattler.

[21943]

[21944]THE FIRE BRIGADE: Pflaap!

[21945]

[21946]BROTHER BUZZ: (Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of

[21947]painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round

[21948]his neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying.) Forgive him his

[21949]trespasses.

[21950]

[21951](Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets

[21952]fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)

[21953]

[21954]THE CITIZEN: Thank heaven!

[21955]

[21956]BLOOM: (In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid

[21957]phoenix flames.) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin.

[21958]

[21959](He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of

[21960]Erin, in black garments, with large prayerbooks and long lighted candles

[21961]in their hands, kneel down and pray.)

[21962]

[21963]THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN:

[21964]

[21965] Kidney of Bloom, pray for us

[21966] Flower of the Bath, pray for us

[21967] Mentor of Menton, pray for us

[21968] Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us

[21969] Charitable Mason, pray for us

[21970] Wandering Soap, pray for us

[21971] Sweets of Sin, pray for us

[21972] Music without Words, pray for us

[21973] Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us

[21974] Friend of all Frillies, pray for us

[21975] Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us

[21976] Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.

[21977](A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O’Brien, sings

[21978]the chorus from Handel’s Messiah Alleluia for the Lord God Omnipotent

[21979]reigneth, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes mute,

[21980]shrunken, carbonised.)

[21981]

[21982]ZOE: Talk away till you’re black in the face.

[21983]

[21984]BLOOM: (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an

[21985]emigrant’s red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak

[21986]pig by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye.) Let me be going now, woman

[21987]of the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I’m after having the

[21988]father and mother of a bating. (With a tear in his eye.) All insanity.

[21989]Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not

[21990]to be. Life’s dream is o’er. End it peacefully. They can live on.

[21991](He gazes far away mournfully.) I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite.

[21992]The blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest. (He breathes softly.)

[21993]No more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell.

[21994]

[21995]ZOE: (Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.) Honest? Till the next

[21996]time. (She sneers.) Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came

[21997]too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts!

[21998]

[21999]BLOOM: (Bitterly.) Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle.

[22000]I’m sick of it. Let everything rip.

[22001]

[22002]ZOE: (In sudden sulks.) I hate a rotter that’s insincere. Give a

[22003]bleeding whore a chance.

[22004]

[22005]BLOOM: (Repentantly.) I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil.

[22006]Where are you from? London?

[22007]

[22008]ZOE: (Glibly.) Hog’s Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I’m

[22009]Yorkshire born. (She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.) I

[22010]say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a

[22011]short time? Ten shillings?

[22012]

[22013]BLOOM: (Smiles, nods slowly.) More, houri, more.

[22014]

[22015]ZOE: And more’s mother? (She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.)

[22016]Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and

[22017]I’ll peel off.

[22018]

[22019]BLOOM: (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled

[22020]embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled

[22021]pears.) Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed

[22022]monster. (Earnestly.) You know how difficult it is. I needn’t tell

[22023]you.

[22024]

[22025]ZOE: (Flattered.) What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for.

[22026](She pats him.) Come.

[22027]

[22028]BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle.

[22029]

[22030]ZOE: Babby!

[22031]

[22032]BLOOM: (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair,

[22033]fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a

[22034]chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping.) One two tlee: tlee

[22035]tlwo tlone.

[22036]

[22037]THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me.

[22038]

[22039]ZOE: Silent means consent. (With little parted talons she captures his

[22040]hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor,

[22041]luring him to doom.) Hot hands cold gizzard.

[22042]

[22043](He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards the

[22044]steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her painted

[22045]eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek

[22046]of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)

[22047]

[22048]THE MALE BRUTES: (Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their

[22049]loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro.)

[22050]Good!

[22051]

[22052](Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.

[22053]They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to

[22054]his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)

[22055]

[22056]ZOE: (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) Hoopsa! Don’t fall

[22057]upstairs.

[22058]

[22059]BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. (He stands aside at the

[22060]threshold.) After you is good manners.

[22061]

[22062]ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after.

[22063]

[22064](She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out her

[22065]hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall hang

[22066]a man’s hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them,

[22067]frowns, then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is flung

[22068]open. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with

[22069]an ape’s gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full

[22070]waterjugjar, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting his

[22071]face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel eyes

[22072]of a running fox: then, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into

[22073]the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the

[22074]chandelier. Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. The

[22075]floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar

[22076]rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel,

[22077]heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of shuffling feet

[22078]without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls

[22079]are tapestried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate

[22080]is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on

[22081]the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he

[22082]beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume,

[22083]doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in

[22084]her hand, sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and

[22085]glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag

[22086]of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates

[22087]mockingly the couple at the piano.)

[22088]

[22089]KITTY: (Coughs behind her hand.) She’s a bit imbecillic. (She signs

[22090]with a waggling forefinger.) Blemblem. (Lynch lifts up her skirt and

[22091]white petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.) Respect

[22092]yourself. (She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which

[22093]her hair glows, red with henna.) O, excuse!

[22094]

[22095]ZOE: More limelight, Charley. (She goes to the chandelier and turns the

[22096]gas full cock.)

[22097]

[22098]KITTY: (Peers at the gasjet.) What ails it tonight?

[22099]

[22100]LYNCH: (Deeply.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

[22101]

[22102]ZOE: Clap on the back for Zoe.

[22103]

[22104](The wand in Lynch’s hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at

[22105]the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he

[22106]repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond

[22107]feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry,

[22108]lolls spreadeagle in the sofacorner, her limp forearm pendent over the

[22109]bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)

[22110]

[22111]KITTY: (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.) O, excuse!

[22112]

[22113]ZOE: (Promptly.) Your boy’s thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.

[22114]

[22115](Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over

[22116]her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled

[22117]catterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances

[22118]behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)

[22119]

[22120]STEPHEN: As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto

[22121]Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet’s rest. It may be

[22122]an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Cœla enarrant gloriam Domini.

[22123]It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian

[22124]and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round

[22125]David’s that is Circe’s or what am I saying Ceres’ altar and

[22126]David’s tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the

[22127]alrightness of his almightiness. Mais nom de nom, that is another pair

[22128]of trousers. Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops,

[22129]points at Lynch’s cap, smiles, laughs.) Which side is your knowledge

[22130]bump?

[22131]

[22132]THE CAP: (With saturnine spleen.) Bah! It is because it is. Woman’s

[22133]reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form

[22134]of life. Bah!

[22135]

[22136]STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.

[22137]How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone!

[22138]

[22139]THE CAP: Bah!

[22140]

[22141]STEPHEN: Here’s another for you. (He frowns.) The reason is because

[22142]the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible

[22143]interval which...

[22144]

[22145]THE CAP: Which? Finish. You can’t.

[22146]

[22147]STEPHEN: (With an effort.) Interval which. Is the greatest possible

[22148]ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which.

[22149]

[22150]THE CAP: Which?

[22151]

[22152](Outside the gramophone begins to blare The Holy City.)

[22153]

[22154]STEPHEN: (Abruptly.) What went forth to the ends of the world to

[22155]traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller,

[22156]having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a

[22157]moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow’s noise in the street. Self

[22158]which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. Ecco!

[22159]

[22160]LYNCH: (With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe

[22161]Higgins.) What a learned speech, eh?

[22162]

[22163]ZOE: (Briskly.) God help your head, he knows more than you have

[22164]forgotten.

[22165]

[22166](With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)

[22167]

[22168]FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer.

[22169]

[22170]KITTY: No!

[22171]

[22172]ZOE: (Explodes in laughter.) Great unjust God!

[22173]

[22174]FLORRY: (Offended.) Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my

[22175]foot’s tickling.

[22176]

[22177](Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past,

[22178]yelling.)

[22179]

[22180]THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea

[22181]serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.

[22182]

[22183](Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)

[22184]

[22185]STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time.

[22186]

[22187](Reuben J Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his spine,

[22188]stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim’s wallet from

[22189]which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his

[22190]shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden

[22191]huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from

[22192]the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello,

[22193]hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead

[22194]and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering

[22195]darkness.)

[22196]

[22197]ALL: What?

[22198]

[22199]THE HOBGOBLIN: (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his

[22200]eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then

[22201]all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.) Il

[22202]vient! C’est moi! L’homme qui rit! L’homme primigène! (He whirls

[22203]round and round with dervish howls.) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux!

[22204](He crouches juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les

[22205]jeux sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks.)

[22206]Rien va plus! (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away.

[22207]He springs off into vacuum.)

[22208]

[22209]FLORRY: (Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.) The end of the

[22210]world!

[22211]

[22212](A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity

[22213]occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares

[22214]over coughs and feetshuffling.)

[22215]

[22216]THE GRAMOPHONE: Jerusalem!

[22217]

[22218]Open your gates and sing

[22219]

[22220]Hosanna...

[22221]

[22222](A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it,

[22223]proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.

[22224]Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End

[22225]of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie’s kilts, busby and tartan

[22226]filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the

[22227]Three Legs of Man.)

[22228]

[22229]THE END OF THE WORLD: (With a Scotch accent.) Wha’ll dance the keel

[22230]row, the keel row, the keel row?

[22231]

[22232](Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah’s voice,

[22233]harsh as a corncrake’s, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn

[22234]surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum

[22235]about which the banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)

[22236]

[22237]ELIJAH: No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole

[22238]Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths

[22239]shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God’s

[22240]time is 12.25. Tell mother you’ll be there. Rush your order and you

[22241]play a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction,

[22242]the nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod?

[22243]If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ,

[22244]Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ,

[22245]it’s up to you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about

[22246]the cosmos? No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that

[22247]something within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a

[22248]Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You

[22249]once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes

[22250]a back number. You got me? It’s a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest

[22251]stuff ever was. It’s the whole pie with jam in. It’s just the cutest

[22252]snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It

[22253]vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and, getting down

[22254]to bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you

[22255]got that? O. K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That’s

[22256]it. You call me up by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your

[22257]stamps. (He shouts.) Now then our glory song. All join heartily in the

[22258]singing. Encore! (He sings.) Jeru...

[22259]

[22260]THE GRAMOPHONE: (Drowning his voice.) Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh... (The

[22261]disc rasps gratingly against the needle.)

[22262]

[22263]THE THREE WHORES: (Covering their ears, squawk.) Ahhkkk!

[22264]

[22265]ELIJAH: (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top

[22266]of his voice, his arms uplifted.) Big Brother up there, Mr President,

[22267]you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of

[22268]believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss

[22269]Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems

[22270]to me I don’t never see no wusser scared female than the way you been,

[22271]Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long

[22272]and help me save our sisters dear. (He winks at his audience.) Our Mr

[22273]President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing.

[22274]

[22275]KITTY-KATE: I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did

[22276]on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in the

[22277]brown scapular. My mother’s sister married a Montmorency. It was a

[22278]working plumber was my ruination when I was pure.

[22279]

[22280]ZOE-FANNY: I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.

[22281]

[22282]FLORRY-TERESA: It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of

[22283]Hennessy’s three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into

[22284]the bed.

[22285]

[22286]STEPHEN: In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without

[22287]end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

[22288]

[22289](The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon,

[22290]Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students’ gowns, four abreast,

[22291]goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.)

[22292]

[22293]THE BEATITUDES: (Incoherently.) Beer beef battledog buybull businum

[22294]barnum buggerum bishop.

[22295]

[22296]LYSTER: (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says

[22297]discreetly.) He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the

[22298]light.

[22299]

[22300](He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser’s attire, shinily

[22301]laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a

[22302]mandarin’s kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and a high pagoda

[22303]hat.)

[22304]

[22305]BEST: (Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown

[22306]of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot.) I was

[22307]just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you

[22308]know, Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says.

[22309]

[22310]JOHN EGLINTON: (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it

[22311]towards a corner: with carping accent.) Esthetics and cosmetics are for

[22312]the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man. Tanderagee

[22313]wants the facts and means to get them.

[22314]

[22315](In the cone of the searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave,

[22316]holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun MacLir broods, chin on knees.

[22317]He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his

[22318]head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His

[22319]right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by

[22320]its two talons.)

[22321]

[22322]MANANAUN MACLIR: (With a voice of waves.) Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor!

[22323]Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

[22324](With a voice of whistling seawind.) Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won’t

[22325]have my leg pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult

[22326]of Shakti. (With a cry of stormbirds.) Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father!

[22327](He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its

[22328]cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with

[22329]the vehemence of the ocean.) Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the

[22330]homestead! I am the dreamery creamery butter.

[22331]

[22332](A skeleton judashand strangles the light. The green light wanes to

[22333]mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.)

[22334]

[22335]THE GASJET: Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii!

[22336]

[22337](Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the mantle.)

[22338]

[22339]ZOE: Who has a fag as I’m here?

[22340]

[22341]LYNCH: (Tossing a cigarette on to the table.) Here.

[22342]

[22343]ZOE: (Her head perched aside in mock pride.) Is that the way to hand the

[22344]pot to a lady? (She stretches up to light the cigarette over the flame,

[22345]twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch with

[22346]his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up her

[22347]flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie’s green. She puffs calmly at

[22348]her cigarette.) Can you see the beautyspot of my behind?

[22349]

[22350]LYNCH: I’m not looking

[22351]

[22352]ZOE: (Makes sheep’s eyes.) No? You wouldn’t do a less thing. Would

[22353]you suck a lemon?

[22354]

[22355](Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom,

[22356]then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue

[22357]fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously,

[22358]twirling his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her

[22359]spittle and, gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag,

[22360]basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts

[22361]two steps to the left on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several

[22362]overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which he holds a roll

[22363]of parchment. In his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle

[22364]O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On his head is perched an

[22365]Egyptian pshent. Two quills project over his ears.)

[22366]

[22367]VIRAG: (Heels together, bows.) My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely.

[22368](He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in

[22369]evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact

[22370]that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you

[22371]are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you

[22372]perceived? Good.

[22373]

[22374]BLOOM: Granpapachi. But...

[22375]

[22376]VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and

[22377]coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of

[22378]gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I

[22379]should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always

[22380]understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of

[22381]lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a

[22382]word. Hippogriff. Am I right?

[22383]

[22384]BLOOM: She is rather lean.

[22385]

[22386]VIRAG: (Not unpleasantly.) Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier

[22387]pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest

[22388]bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull

[22389]has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the

[22390]attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you

[22391]can wear today. Parallax! (With a nervous twitch of his head.) Did you

[22392]hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax!

[22393]

[22394]BLOOM: (An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek.) She

[22395]seems sad.

[22396]

[22397]VIRAG: (Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left

[22398]eye with a finger and barks hoarsely.) Hoax! Beware of the flapper

[22399]and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor’s button

[22400]discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon.

[22401](More genially.) Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item

[22402]number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe

[22403]the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she

[22404]bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel.

[22405]

[22406]BLOOM: (Regretfully.) When you come out without your gun.

[22407]

[22408]VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your

[22409]money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either...

[22410]

[22411]BLOOM: With...?

[22412]

[22413]VIRAG: (His tongue upcurling.) Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is

[22414]coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in

[22415]weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two

[22416]protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the

[22417]noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional

[22418]protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation,

[22419]which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts

[22420]are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers

[22421]reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and

[22422]gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their

[22423]brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That

[22424]suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in

[22425]it. Lycopodium. (His throat twitches.) Slapbang! There he goes again.

[22426]

[22427]BLOOM: The stye I dislike.

[22428]

[22429]VIRAG: (Arches his eyebrows.) Contact with a goldring, they say.

[22430]Argumentum ad feminam, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in

[22431]the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve’s

[22432]sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. (He twitches.) It

[22433]is a funny sound. (He coughs encouragingly.) But possibly it is only a

[22434]wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on

[22435]that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

[22436]

[22437]BLOOM: (Reflecting.) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This

[22438]searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of

[22439]accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said...

[22440]

[22441]VIRAG: (Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking.) Stop

[22442]twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten.

[22443]Exercise your mnemotechnic. La causa è santa. Tara. Tara. (Aside.) He

[22444]will surely remember.

[22445]

[22446]BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over

[22447]parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a

[22448]deadhand cures. Mnemo?

[22449]

[22450]VIRAG: (Excitedly.) I say so. I say so. E’en so. Technic. (He taps his

[22451]parchmentroll energetically.) This book tells you how to act with all

[22452]descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite,

[22453]melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about

[22454]amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with

[22455]horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar

[22456]and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike

[22457]women in male habiliments? (With a dry snigger.) You intended to devote

[22458]an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer

[22459]months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate!

[22460]From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say?

[22461]Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case,

[22462]those complicated combinations, camiknickers? (He crows derisively.)

[22463]Keekeereekee!

[22464]

[22465](Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled

[22466]mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.)

[22467]

[22468]BLOOM: I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence

[22469]this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is

[22470]will then morrow as now was be past yester.

[22471]

[22472]VIRAG: (Prompts in a pig’s whisper.) Insects of the day spend their

[22473]brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the

[22474]inferiorly pulchritudinous female possessing extendified pudendal nerve

[22475]in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! (His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally.)

[22476]They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand

[22477]five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will

[22478]attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt

[22479]vinegar. Bear’s buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time

[22480]we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. (He coughs and, bending

[22481]his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a scooping hand.) You shall

[22482]find that these night insects follow the light. An illusion for remember

[22483]their complex unadjustable eye. For all these knotty points see the

[22484]seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion

[22485]which Doctor L. B. says is the book sensation of the year. Some, to

[22486]example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Perceive. That

[22487]is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley!

[22488](He blows into Bloom’s ear.) Buzz!

[22489]

[22490]BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self

[22491]then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I...

[22492]

[22493]VIRAG: (His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key.) Splendid!

[22494]Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. (He gobbles

[22495]gluttonously with turkey wattles.) Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are

[22496]we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! (He unrolls his parchment rapidly and

[22497]reads, his glowworm’s nose running backwards over the letters which he

[22498]claws.) Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters will

[22499]shortly be upon us. I’m the best o’cook. Those succulent bivalves

[22500]may help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through

[22501]mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility

[22502]or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. (He wags his head

[22503]with cackling raillery.) Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. (He

[22504]sneezes.) Amen!

[22505]

[22506]BLOOM: (Absently.) Ocularly woman’s bivalve case is worse. Always open

[22507]sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve

[22508]and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy to