The galling chain.
And free our native land.
_(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault.
The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.)_
BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they
are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at
Westland row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far.
Train with engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding
for the night or collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What
am I following him for? Still, he’s the best of that lot. If I hadn’t
heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn’t have gone and wouldn’t have
met. Kismet. He’ll lose that cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for
cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have
lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only
for presence of mind. Can’t always save you, though. If I had passed
Truelock’s window that day two minutes later would have been shot.
Absence of body. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages
for shock, five hundred pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff.
God help his gamekeeper.
_(He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend_ Wet
Dream _and a phallic design._) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted
carriagepane at Kingstown. What’s that like? _(Gaudy dollwomen loll in
the lighted doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye
cigarettes. The odour of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in slow
round ovalling wreaths.)_
THE WREATHS: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin.
BLOOM: My spine’s a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get
all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too
much. _(The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand,
wagging his tail.)_ Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today.
Better speak to him first. Like women they like _rencontres._ Stinks
like a polecat. _Chacun son goût_. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain
in his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! _(The
wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his
long black tongue lolling out.)_ Influence of his surroundings. Give
and have done with it. Provided nobody. _(Calling encouraging words he
shambles back with a furtive poacher’s tread, dogged by the setter into
a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the
crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.)_ Sizeable for
threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort.
Why? Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six.
_(With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The
mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling
greed, crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent,
vigilant. They murmur together.)_
THE WATCH: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom.
_(Each lays hand on Bloom’s shoulder.)_
FIRST WATCH: Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance.
BLOOM: _(Stammers.)_ I am doing good to others.
_(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime
with Banbury cakes in their beaks.)_
THE GULLS: Kaw kave kankury kake.
BLOOM: The friend of man. Trained by kindness.
_(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over the
munching spaniel.)_
BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw.
_(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig’s knuckle
between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran
falls silently into an area.)_
SECOND WATCH: Prevention of cruelty to animals.
BLOOM: _(Enthusiastically.)_ A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on
Harold’s cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness
scab. Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the
last tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising.
_(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer’s costume with diamond studs
in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a curling
carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging
boarhound.)_
SIGNOR MAFFEI: _(With a sinister smile.)_ Ladies and gentlemen, my
educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my
patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a
knotted thong. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your
lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even _Leo ferox_ there, the
Libyan maneater. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the
burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. _(He
glares.)_ I possess the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with
these breastsparklers. _(With a bewitching smile.)_ I now introduce
Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring.
FIRST WATCH: Come. Name and address.
BLOOM: I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! _(He takes off his
high grade hat, saluting.)_ Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have
heard of von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. _Donnerwetter!_ Owns half
Austria. Egypt. Cousin.
FIRST WATCH: Proof.
_(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom’s hat.)_
BLOOM: _(In red fez, cadi’s dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a
false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and
offers it.)_ Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors:
Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor’s Walk.
FIRST WATCH: _(Reads.)_ Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully
watching and besetting.
SECOND WATCH: An alibi. You are cautioned.
BLOOM: _(Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.)_ This
is the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don’t know his
name. _(Plausibly.)_ You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom.
The change of name. Virag. _(He murmurs privately and confidentially.)_
We are engaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement.
_(He shoulders the second watch gently.)_ Dash it all. It’s a way we
gallants have in the navy. Uniform that does it. _(He turns gravely to
the first watch.)_ Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo
sometimes. Drop in some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. _(To
the second watch gaily.)_ I’ll introduce you, inspector. She’s game. Do
it in the shake of a lamb’s tail.
_(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)_
THE DARK MERCURY: The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of
the army.
MARTHA: _(Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of the_
Irish Times _in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.)_ Henry!
Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name.
FIRST WATCH: _(Sternly.)_ Come to the station.
BLOOM: _(Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart
and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and
dueguard of fellowcraft.)_ No, no, worshipful master, light of love.
Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember
the Childs fratricide case. We medical men. By striking him dead with a
hatchet. I am wrongfully accused. Better one guilty escape than
ninetynine wrongfully condemned.
MARTHA: _(Sobbing behind her veil.)_ Breach of promise. My real name is
Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I’ll tell my
brother, the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.
BLOOM: _(Behind his hand.)_ She’s drunk. The woman is inebriated. _(He
murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.)_ Shitbroleeth.
SECOND WATCH: _(Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.)_ You ought to be
thoroughly well ashamed of yourself.
BLOOM: Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare’s nest. I am
a man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable
married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street.
My wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant
upstanding gentleman, what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy,
one of Britain’s fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his
majority for the heroic defence of Rorke’s Drift.
FIRST WATCH: Regiment.
BLOOM: _(Turns to the gallery.)_ The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of
the earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in
arms up there among you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan
police, guardians of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body
of men, as physique, in the service of our sovereign.
A VOICE: Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain?
BLOOM: _(His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.)_ My old dad too
was a J. P. I’m as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with
the colours for king and country in the absentminded war under general
Gough in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was
mentioned in dispatches. I did all a white man could. _(With quiet
feeling.)_ Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank.
FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade.
BLOOM: Well, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. In fact
we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am
the inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am
connected with the British and Irish press. If you ring up...
_(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His
scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles a
hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a
telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.)_
MYLES CRAWFORD: _(His cock’s wattles wagging.)_ Hello, seventyseven
eightfour. Hello. _Freeman’s Urinal_ and _Weekly Arsewipe_ here.
Paralyse Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom?
_(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate
morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing,
creased lavender trousers and patent boots. He carries a large
portfolio labelled_ Matcham’s Masterstrokes.)
BEAUFOY: _(Drawls.)_ No, you aren’t. Not by a long shot if I know it. I
don’t see it, that’s all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most
rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly
loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak
masquerading as a literateur. It’s perfectly obvious that with the most
inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really
gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath
suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which
your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout
the kingdom.
BLOOM: _(Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.)_ That bit about the
laughing witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may...
BEAUFOY: _(His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.)_ You
funny ass, you! You’re too beastly awfully weird for words! I don’t
think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard.
My literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord,
we shall receive the usual witnesses’ fees, shan’t we? We are
considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this
jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university.
BLOOM: _(Indistinctly.)_ University of life. Bad art.
BEAUFOY: _(Shouts.)_ It’s a damnably foul lie, showing the moral
rottenness of the man! _(He extends his portfolio.)_ We have here
damning evidence, the _corpus delicti_, my lord, a specimen of my
maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast.