Liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
Iubilantium te virginum...
_(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester’s
dress of puce and yellow and clown’s cap with curling bell, stands
gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)_
BUCK MULLIGAN: She’s beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the
afflicted mother. _(He upturns his eyes.)_ Mercurial Malachi!
THE MOTHER: _(With the subtle smile of death’s madness.)_ I was once
the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.
STEPHEN: _(Horrorstruck.)_ Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman’s
trick is this?
BUCK MULLIGAN: _(Shakes his curling capbell.)_ The mockery of it! Kinch
dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. _(Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes on to the scone.)_ Our great sweet mother!
_Epi oinopa ponton._
THE MOTHER: _(Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of
wetted ashes.)_ All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in
the world. You too. Time will come.
STEPHEN: _(Choking with fright, remorse and horror.)_ They say I killed
you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.
THE MOTHER: _(A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her
mouth.)_ You sang that song to me. _Love’s bitter mystery._
STEPHEN: _(Eagerly.)_ Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The
word known to all men.
THE MOTHER: Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey
with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the
strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the
Ursuline manual and forty days’ indulgence. Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN: The ghoul! Hyena!
THE MOTHER: I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you
that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I
loved you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.
ZOE: _(Fanning herself with the grate fan.)_ I’m melting!
FLORRY: _(Points to Stephen.)_ Look! He’s white.
BLOOM: _(Goes to the window to open it more.)_ Giddy.
THE MOTHER: _(With smouldering eyes.)_ Repent! O, the fire of hell!
STEPHEN: _(Panting.)_ His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw
head and bloody bones.
THE MOTHER: _(Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen
breath.)_ Beware! _(She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly
towards Stephen’s breast with outstretched finger.)_ Beware God’s hand!
_(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws
in Stephen’s heart.)_
STEPHEN: _(Strangled with rage.)_ Shite! _(His features grow drawn and
grey and old.)_
BLOOM: _(At the window.)_ What?
STEPHEN: _Ah non, par exemple!_ The intellectual imagination! With me
all or not at all. _Non serviam!_