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.)_