O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers
He didn’t know what to do,
To keep it up,
To keep it up.
BLOOM: _(Coldly.)_ You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there
were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy
but willing like an ass pissing.
THE YEWS: _(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms
aging and swaying.)_ Deciduously!
THE NYMPH: _(Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her
habit.)_ Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! _(A large moist stain appears
on her robe.)_ Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment
of a pure woman. _(She clutches again in her robe.)_ Wait. Satan,
you’ll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. _(She draws a
poniard and, clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine,
strikes at his loins.)_ Nekum!
BLOOM: _(Starts up, seizes her hand.)_ Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o’ nine
lives! Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is
it? What do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough?
_(He clutches her veil.)_ A holy abbot you want or Brophy, 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.