Conservio lies captured
He lies in the lowest dungeon
With manacles and chains around his limbs
Weighing upwards of three tons.
_(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left
cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to
and fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour:)_
O, the poor little fellow
Hihihihihis legs they were yellow
He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake
But some bloody savage
To graize his white cabbage
He murdered Nell Flaherty’s duckloving drake.
_(A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches
himself with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims:)_
I’m suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to
Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they’d
walk me off the face of the bloody globe.
_(His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers,
imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his
hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his
trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling,
Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar,
merciful male, melodious:)_
Shall carry my heart to thee,
Shall carry my heart to thee,
And the breath of the balmy night
Shall carry my heart to thee!
_(The trick doorhandle turns.)_
THE DOORHANDLE: Theeee!
ZOE: The devil is in that door.
_(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking
the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward
involuntarily and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the
chocolate from his pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.)_
ZOE: _(Sniffs his hair briskly.)_ Hmmm! Thank your mother for the
rabbits. I’m very fond of what I like.
BLOOM: _(Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep,
pricks his ears.)_ If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double
event?
ZOE: _(Tears open the silverfoil.)_ Fingers was made before forks.
_(She breaks off and nibbles a piece, gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts
and then turns kittenishly to Lynch.)_ No objection to French lozenges?
_(He nods. She taunts him.)_ Have it now or wait till you get it? _(He
opens his mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle.
His head follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.)_
Catch!
_(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it
through with a crack.)_
KITTY: _(Chewing.)_ The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have
lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with
his lady. The gas we had on the Toft’s hobbyhorses. I’m giddy still.
BLOOM: _(In Svengali’s fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic
forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance
towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift
pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing
his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.)_ Go, go, go, I conjure
you, whoever you are!
_(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside.
Bloom’s features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing
calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate.)_
BLOOM: _(Solemnly.)_ Thanks.
ZOE: Do as you’re bid. Here!
_(A firm heelclacking tread is heard on the stairs.)_
BLOOM: _(Takes the chocolate.)_ Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But
I bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory.
Red influences lupus. Colours affect women’s characters, any they have.
This black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. _(He eats.)_
Influence taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new.
Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at
Andrews.
_(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She is
dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with
tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like
Minnie Hauck in_ Carmen. _On her left hand are wedding and keeper
rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her
olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted
nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)_
BELLA: My word! I’m all of a mucksweat.
_(She glances round her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom
with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated
faceneck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)_
THE FAN: _(Flirting quickly, then slowly.)_ Married, I see.
BLOOM: Yes. Partly, I have mislaid...
THE FAN: _(Half opening, then closing.)_ And the missus is master.
Petticoat government.
BLOOM: _(Looks down with a sheepish grin.)_ That is so.
THE FAN: _(Folding together, rests against her left eardrop.)_ Have you
forgotten me?
BLOOM: Nes. Yo.
THE FAN: _(Folded akimbo against her waist.)_ Is me her was you dreamed
before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same
now we?
_(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.)_
BLOOM: _(Wincing.)_ Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which
women love.
THE FAN: _(Tapping.)_ We have met. You are mine. It is fate.
BLOOM: _(Cowed.)_ Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your
domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to
speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before
the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and
window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per
second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant
a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family.
Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed
in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the
end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with
Athos, faithful after death. A dog’s spittle as you probably... _(He
winces.)_ Ah!
RICHIE GOULDING: _(Bagweighted, passes the door.)_ Mocking is catch.
Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s. Liver and kidney.
THE FAN: _(Tapping.)_ All things end. Be mine. Now.
BLOOM: _(Undecided.)_ All now? I should not have parted with my
talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my
time of life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause.
THE FAN: _(Points downwards slowly.)_ You may.
BLOOM: _(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.)_ We
are observed.
THE FAN: _(Points downwards quickly.)_ You must.
BLOOM: _(With desire, with reluctance.)_ I can make a true black knot.
Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for
Kellett’s. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In
courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah!
_(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the
edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked.
Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers
draws out and in her laces.)_
BLOOM: _(Murmurs lovingly.)_ To be a shoefitter in Manfield’s was my
love’s young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up
crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so
incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model
Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb
toe, as worn in Paris.
THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.
BLOOM: _(Crosslacing.)_ Too tight?
THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick your football for you.
BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar
dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned.
That night she met... Now!
_(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises
his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes grow
dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)_
BLOOM: _(Mumbles.)_ Awaiting your further orders we remain,
gentlemen,...
BELLO: _(With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice.)_ Hound of
dishonour!
BLOOM: _(Infatuated.)_ Empress!
BELLO: _(His heavy cheekchops sagging.)_ Adorer of the adulterous rump!
BLOOM: _(Plaintively.)_ Hugeness!
BELLO: Dungdevourer!
BLOOM: _(With sinews semiflexed.)_ Magmagnificence!
BELLO: Down! _(He taps her on the shoulder with his fan.)_ Incline feet
forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling.
On the hands down!
BLOOM: _(Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps.)_
Truffles!
_(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting,
snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes
shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of
most excellent master.)_
BELLO: _(With bobbed hair, purple gills, fat moustache rings round his
shaven mouth, in mountaineer’s puttees, green silverbuttoned coat,
sport skirt and alpine hat with moorcock’s feather, his hands stuck
deep in his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it
in.)_ Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the
throne of your despot’s glorious heels so glistening in their proud
erectness.
BLOOM: _(Enthralled, bleats.)_ I promise never to disobey.
BELLO: _(Laughs loudly.)_ Holy smoke! You little know what’s in store
for you. I’m the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in!
I’ll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son.
Cheek me, I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel
discipline to be inflicted in gym costume.
_(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.)_
ZOE: _(Widening her slip to screen her.)_ She’s not here.
BLOOM: _(Closing her eyes.)_ She’s not here.
FLORRY: _(Hiding her with her gown.)_ She didn’t mean it, Mr Bello.
She’ll be good, sir.
KITTY: Don’t be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won’t, ma’amsir.
BELLO: _(Coaxingly.)_ Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you,
darling, just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart
talk, sweety. _(Bloom puts out her timid head.)_ There’s a good girly
now. _(Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward.)_ I only
want to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How’s that
tender behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready.
BLOOM: _(Fainting.)_ Don’t tear my...
BELLO: _(Savagely.)_ The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the
hanging hook, the knout I’ll make you kiss while the flutes play like
the Nubian slave of old. You’re in for it this time! I’ll make you
remember me for the balance of your natural life. _(His forehead veins
swollen, his face congested.)_ I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback
every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson’s fat
hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness’s porter. _(He belches.)_ And suck
my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the _Licensed
Victualler’s Gazette_. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and
skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling
from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and
lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you. _(He twists her arm. Bloom
squeals, turning turtle.)_
BLOOM: Don’t be cruel, nurse! Don’t!
BELLO: _(Twisting.)_ Another!
BLOOM: _(Screams.)_ O, it’s hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches
like mad!
BELLO: _(Shouts.)_ Good, by the rumping jumping general! That’s the
best bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don’t keep me waiting,
damn you! _(He slaps her face.)_
BLOOM: _(Whimpers.)_ You’re after hitting me. I’ll tell...
BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.
ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will.
FLORRY: I will. Don’t be greedy.
KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me.
_(The brothel cook, Mrs Keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib,
men’s grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a rollingpin
stuck with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the
door.)_