Back Aa

Ulysses (version 2)

(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.) BELLA: You’ll know me the next time. BLOOM: (Composed, regards her.) Passée. Mutton dressed as lamb. Long in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of your other features, that’s all. I’m not a triple screw propeller. BELLA: (Contemptuously.) You’re not game, in fact. (Her sowcunt barks.) Fbhracht! BLOOM: (Contemptuously.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully’s cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself. BELLA: I know you, canvasser! Dead cod! BLOOM: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor! BELLA: (Turns to the piano.) Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul? ZOE: Me. Mind your cornflowers. (She darts to the piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms.) The cat’s ramble through the slag. (She glances back.) Eh? Who’s making love to my sweeties? (She darts back to the table.) What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own. (Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom approaches Zoe.) BLOOM: (Gently.) Give me back that potato, will you? ZOE: Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing. BLOOM: (With feeling.) It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma. ZOE: Give a thing and take it back God’ll ask you where is that You’ll say you don’t know God’ll send you down below. BLOOM: There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it. STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the question. ZOE: Here. (She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.) Those that hides knows where to find. BELLA: (Frowns.) Here. This isn’t a musical peepshow. And don’t you smash that piano. Who’s paying here? (She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.) STEPHEN: (With exaggerated politeness.) This silken purse I made out of the sow’s ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. (He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom.) We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch. Dans ce bordel où tenons nostre état. LYNCH: (Calls from the hearth.) Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me. STEPHEN: (Hands Bella a coin.) Gold. She has it. BELLA: (Looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty.) Do you want three girls? It’s ten shillings here. STEPHEN: (Delightedly.) A hundred thousand apologies. (He fumbles again and takes out and hands her two crowns.) Permit, brevi manu, my sight is somewhat troubled. (Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over Zoe’s neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty’s waist, adds his head to the group.) FLORRY: (Strives heavily to rise.) Ow! My foot’s asleep. (She limps over to the table. Bloom approaches.) BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: (Chattering and squabbling.) The gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a moment... this gentleman pays separate... who’s touching it?... ow! ... mind who you’re pinching... are you staying the night or a short time?... who did?... you’re a liar, excuse me... the gentleman paid down like a gentleman... drink... it’s long after eleven. STEPHEN: (At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.) No bottles! What, eleven? A riddle! ZOE: (Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top of her stocking.) Hard earned on the flat of my back. LYNCH: (Lifting Kitty from the table.) Come! KITTY: Wait. (She clutches the two crowns.) FLORRY: And me? LYNCH: Hoopla! (He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa.) STEPHEN: The fox crew, the cocks flew, The bells in heaven Were striking eleven. ’Tis time for her poor soul To get out of heaven. BLOOM: (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between Bella and Florry.) So. Allow me. (He takes up the poundnote.) Three times ten. We’re square. BELLA: (Admiringly.) You’re such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss you. ZOE: (Points.) Him? Deep as a drawwell. (Lynch bends Kitty back over the sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.) BLOOM: This is yours. STEPHEN: How is that? Le distrait or absentminded beggar. (He fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object falls.) That fell. BLOOM: (Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches.) This. STEPHEN: Lucifer. Thanks. BLOOM: (Quietly.) You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more? STEPHEN: (Hands him all his coins.) Be just before you are generous. BLOOM: I will but is it wise? (He counts.) One, seven, eleven, and five. Six. Eleven. I don’t answer for what you may have lost. STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next Lessing says. Thirsty fox. (He laughs loudly.) Burying his grandmother. Probably he killed her. BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say. STEPHEN: Doesn’t matter a rambling damn. BLOOM: No, but... STEPHEN: (Comes to the table.) Cigarette, please. (Lynch tosses a cigarette from the sofa to the table.) And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. (A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it.) Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. (He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.) LYNCH: (Watching him.) You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer. STEPHEN: (Brings the match near his eye.) Lynx eye. Must get glasses. Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat. (He draws the match away. It goes out.) Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. (He frowns mysteriously.) Hm. Sphinx. The beast that has two backs at midnight. Married. ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him. FLORRY: (Nods.) Mr Lambe from London. STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world. LYNCH: (Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply.) Dona nobis pacem. (The cigarette slips from Stephen’s fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it in the grate.) BLOOM: Don’t smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. (To Zoe.) You have nothing? ZOE: Is he hungry? STEPHEN: (Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the bloodoath in the Dusk of the Gods.) Hangende Hunger, Fragende Frau, Macht uns alle kaputt. ZOE: (Tragically.) Hamlet, I am thy father’s gimlet! (She takes his hand.) Blue eyes beauty I’ll read your hand. (She points to his forehead.) No wit, no wrinkles. (She counts.) Two, three, Mars, that’s courage. (Stephen shakes his head.) No kid. LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and shake. (To Zoe.) Who taught you palmistry? ZOE: (Turns.) Ask my ballocks that I haven’t got. (To Stephen.) I see it in your face. The eye, like that. (She frowns with lowered head.) LYNCH: (Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice.) Like that. Pandybat. (Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.) FATHER DOLAN: Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little schemer. See it in your eye. (Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises from the pianola coffin.) DON JOHN CONMEE: Now, Father Dolan! Now. I’m sure that Stephen is a very good little boy! ZOE: (Examining Stephen’s palm.) Woman’s hand. STEPHEN: (Murmurs.) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. ZOE: What day were you born? STEPHEN: Thursday. Today. ZOE: Thursday’s child has far to go. (She traces lines on his hand.) Line of fate. Influential friends. FLORRY: (Pointing.) Imagination. ZOE: Mount of the moon. You’ll meet with a... (She peers at his hands abruptly.) I won’t tell you what’s not good for you. Or do you want to know? BLOOM: (Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.) More harm than good. Here. Read mine. BELLA: Show. (She turns up Bloom’s hand.) I thought so. Knobby knuckles for the women. ZOE: (Peering at Bloom’s palm.) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and marry money. BLOOM: Wrong. ZOE: (Quickly.) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That wrong? (Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, stretches her wings and clucks.) BLACK LIZ: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook. (She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.) BLOOM: (Points to his hand.) That weal there is an accident. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen. ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Tell us news. STEPHEN: See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. (He winces.) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money? (Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.) FLORRY: What? (A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.) THE BOOTS: (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.) Haw haw have you the horn? (Bronze by gold they whisper.) ZOE: (To Florry.) Whisper. (They whisper again.) (Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman’s cap and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan’s coat shoulder.) LENEHAN: Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few quims? BOYLAN: (Sated, smiles.) Plucking a turkey. LENEHAN: A good night’s work. BOYLAN: (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.) Blazes Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger.) Smell that. LENEHAN: (Smells gleefully.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah! ZOE AND FLORRY: (Laugh together.) Ha ha ha ha. BOYLAN: (Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear.) Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet? BLOOM: (In flunkey’s prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig.) I’m afraid not, sir. The last articles... BOYLAN: (Tosses him sixpence.) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash. (He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom’s antlered head.) Show me in. I have a little private business with your wife, you understand? BLOOM: Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. MARION: He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing out of the water.) Raoul darling, come and dry me. I’m in my pelt. Only my new hat and a carriage sponge. BOYLAN: (A merry twinkle in his eye.) Topping! BELLA: What? What is it? (Zoe whispers to her.) MARION: Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I’ll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt. BOYLAN: (Clasps himself.) Here, I can’t hold this little lot much longer. (He strides off on stiff cavalry legs.) BELLA: (Laughing.) Ho ho ho ho. BOYLAN: (To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times. BLOOM: Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds out an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...? KITTY: (From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What... (Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop.) MINA KENNEDY: (Her eyes upturned.) O, it must be like the scent of geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck together! Covered with kisses! LYDIA DOUCE: (Her mouth opening.) Yumyum. O, he’s carrying her round the room doing it! Ride a cockhorse. You could hear them in Paris and New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. KITTY: (Laughing.) Hee hee hee. BOYLAN’S VOICE: (Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.) Ah! Godblazeqrukbrukarchkrasht! MARION’S VOICE: (Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat.) O! Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck? BLOOM: (His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself.) Show! Hide! Show! Plough her! More! Shoot! BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee! LYNCH: (Points.) The mirror up to nature. (He laughs.) Hu hu hu hu hu! (Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.) SHAKESPEARE: (In dignified ventriloquy.) ’Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind. (To Bloom.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible. Gaze. (He crows with a black capon’s laugh.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo! BLOOM: (Smiles yellowly at the three whores.) When will I hear the joke? ZOE: Before you’re twice married and once a widower. BLOOM: Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements were taken next the skin after his death... (Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with deathtalk, tears and Tunney’s tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late husband’s everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. She holds a Scottish widow’s insurance policy and a large marquee umbrella under which her brood run with her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his collar loose, a hank of porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cod’s mouth, Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.) FREDDY: Ah, ma, you’re dragging me along! SUSY: Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over! SHAKESPEARE: (With paralytic rage.) Weda seca whokilla farst. (The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare’s beardless face. The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and kimono gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily.) MRS CUNNINGHAM: (Sings.) And they call me the jewel of Asia! MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: (Gazes on her, impassive.) Immense! Most bloody awful demirep! STEPHEN: Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Queens lay with prize bulls. Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open. BELLA: None of that here. Come to the wrong shop. LYNCH: Let him alone. He’s back from Paris. ZOE: (Runs to stephen and links him.) O go on! Give us some parleyvoo. (Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace where he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile on his face.) LYNCH: (Pommelling on the sofa.) Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmmm. STEPHEN: (Gabbles with marionette jerks.) Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion’s things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. (He clacks his tongue loudly.) Ho, là là! Ce pif qu’il a! LYNCH: Vive le vampire! THE WHORES: Bravo! Parleyvoo! STEPHEN: (Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself.) Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? (He points about him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to.) Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher’s boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the belly pièce de Shakespeare. BELLA: (Clapping her belly sinks back on the sofa, with a shout of laughter.) An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... omelette on the... STEPHEN: (Mincingly.) I love you, sir darling. Speak you englishman tongue for double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup. How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset. (He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger.) BELLA: (Laughing.) Omelette... THE WHORES: (Laughing.) Encore! Encore! STEPHEN: Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon. ZOE: Go abroad and love a foreign lady. LYNCH: Across the world for a wife. FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries. STEPHEN: (Extends his arms.) It was here. Street of harlots. In Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where’s the red carpet spread? BLOOM: (Approaching Stephen.) Look... STEPHEN: No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World without end. (He cries.) Pater! Free! BLOOM: I say, look... STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? O merde alors! (He cries, his vulture talons sharpened.) Hola! Hillyho! (Simon Dedalus’ voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.) SIMON: That’s all right. (He swoops uncertainly through the air, wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings.) Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes. Wouldn’t let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! (He makes the beagle’s call, giving tongue.) Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy! (The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, grey negroes waving torches. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.) THE CROWD: Card of the races. Racing card! Ten to one the field! Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay! Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one! Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! Ten to one bar one! Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey! I’ll give ten to one! Ten to one bar one! (A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of bucking mounts. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the Duke of Westminster’s Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beaufort’s Ceylon, prix de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockeystick at the ready. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky road.) THE ORANGE LODGES: (Jeering.) Get down and push, mister. Last lap! You’ll be home the night! GARRETT DEASY: (Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.) Per vias rectas! (A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes.) THE GREEN LODGES: Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour! (Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the windows, singing in discord.) STEPHEN: Hark! Our friend noise in the street. ZOE: (Holds up her hand.) Stop! PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY: Yet I’ve a sort of a Yorkshire relish for... ZOE: That’s me. (She claps her hands.) Dance! Dance! (She runs to the pianola.) Who has twopence? BLOOM: Who’ll...? LYNCH: (Handing her coins.) Here. STEPHEN: (Cracking his fingers impatiently.) Quick! Quick! Where’s my augur’s rod? (He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium.) ZOE: (Turns the drumhandle.) There. (She drops two pennies in the slot. Gold, pink and violet lights start forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsel’s grace, his bowknot bobbing.) ZOE: (Twirls round herself, heeltapping.) Dance. Anybody here for there? Who’ll dance? Clear the table. (The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl. Stephen throws his ashplant on the table and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to waltz her round the room. Bloom stands aside. Her sleeve falling from gracing arms, reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places a hand lightly on his breastbone, bows, and fondles his flower and buttons.) MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. No connection with Madam Legget Byrne’s or Levenston’s. Fancy dress balls arranged. Deportment. The Katty Lanner step. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean abilities. (He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee’s feet.) Tout le monde en avant! Révérence! Tout le monde en place! (The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air in firmer waltz time sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, fade gold rosy violet.) THE PIANOLA: Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, Sweethearts they’d left behind... (From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, twirling their skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms.) MAGINNI: (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Carré! Avant deux! Breathe evenly! Balance! (The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from their shoulders.) HOURS: You may touch my. CAVALIERS: May I touch your? HOURS: O, but lightly! CAVALIERS: O, so lightly! THE PIANOLA: My little shy little lass has a waist. (Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.) MAGINNI: Avant huit! Traversé! Salut! Cours de mains! Croisé! (The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils.) THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho! ZOE: (Twirling, her hand to her brow.) O! MAGINNI: Les tiroirs! Chaîne de dames! La corbeille! Dos à dos! (Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling.) ZOE: I’m giddy! (She frees herself, droops on a chair. Stephen seizes Florry and turns with her.) MAGINNI: Boulangère! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots! (Twining, receding, with interchanging hands the night hours link each each with arching arms in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.) MAGINNI: Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame! Remerciez! THE PIANOLA: Best, best of all, Baraabum! KITTY: (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus bazaar! (She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A screaming bittern’s harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft’s cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.) THE PIANOLA: My girl’s a Yorkshire girl. ZOE: Yorkshire through and through. Come on all! (She seizes Florry and waltzes her.) STEPHEN: Pas seul! (He wheels Kitty into Lynch’s arms, snatches up his ashplant from the table and takes the floor. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft’s cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.) THE PIANOLA: Though she’s a factory lass And wears no fancy clothes. (Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!) TUTTI: Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore! SIMON: Think of your mother’s people! STEPHEN: Dance of death. (Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey’s bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin steel shark stone onehandled Nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling bawling. Gum he’s a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback lumbering up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!) (The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead.) STEPHEN: Ho! (Stephen’s mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) THE CHOIR: Liliata rutilantium te confessorum... Iubilantium te virginum... (From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester’s dress of puce and yellow and clown’s cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.) BUCK MULLIGAN: She’s beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi! THE MOTHER: (With the subtle smile of death’s madness.) I was once the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead. STEPHEN: (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman’s trick is this? BUCK MULLIGAN: (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten butter fall from his eyes on to the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi oinopa ponton. THE MOTHER: (Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes.) All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the world. You too. Time will come. STEPHEN: (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) They say I killed you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny. THE MOTHER: (A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.) You sang that song to me. Love’s bitter mystery. STEPHEN: (Eagerly.) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word known to all men. THE MOTHER: Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline manual and forty days’ indulgence. Repent, Stephen. STEPHEN: The ghoul! Hyena! THE MOTHER: I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I loved you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb. ZOE: (Fanning herself with the grate fan.) I’m melting! FLORRY: (Points to Stephen.) Look! He’s white. BLOOM: (Goes to the window to open it more.) Giddy. THE MOTHER: (With smouldering eyes.) Repent! O, the fire of hell! STEPHEN: (Panting.) His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones. THE MOTHER: (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen breath.) Beware! (She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly towards Stephen’s breast with outstretched finger.) Beware God’s hand! (A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen’s heart.) STEPHEN: (Strangled with rage.) Shite! (His features grow drawn and grey and old.) BLOOM: (At the window.) What? STEPHEN: Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. Non serviam! FLORRY: Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.) THE MOTHER: (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred Heart! STEPHEN: No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I’ll bring you all to heel! THE MOTHER: (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary. STEPHEN: Nothung! (He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.) THE GASJET: Pwfungg! BLOOM: Stop! LYNCH: (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen’s hand.) Here! Hold on! Don’t run amok! BELLA: Police! (Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.) BELLA: (Screams.) After him! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.