Ulysses - James Joyce (reading an ebook TXT) 📗

the lame gardener, or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?

THE NYMPH: (With a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks) Poli...!

BLOOM: (Calls after her) As if you didn't get it on the double yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your strength our weakness. What's our studfee? What will you pay on the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read. (The fleeing nymph raises a keen) Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me. (He sniffs) Rut. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease.

(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.

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 ou 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.)

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? Les distrait or absentminded beggar. (He fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object fills.) 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 twobacks 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)

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: (Seated, 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