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(The eight hours steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight
hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets
of dull bells. Weary, they curchycurchy under veils.)
THE BRACELETS Heigho! Heigho!
ZOE (Twisting, her hand to her brow.) O!
MAGINNI Los tiroirs! Chaнne de dames! La corbeille! Dos ю dos!
(Arabesquing wearily, they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twisting, simply swirling.)
ZOE I'm giddy.
(She frees herself droops on a chair, Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her.)
MAGINNI Boulangхre! Los ronds! Los ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!
(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands, the night hours link,
each with arching arms, in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn
cumbrously.)
MAGINNI Dansez avec vos dames! Changes de dames! Donnes le petit
bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez!
THE PIANOLA
Best, best of all,
Baraabum!
KITTY (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus
bazaar!
(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A
screaming bit tern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft's
cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.)
THE PIANOLA My girl's a Yorkshire girl.
ZOE Yorkshire through and through. Come on all!
(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)
STEPHEN Pas seul!
(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arm's, snatches up his ashplant from the
table and takes the floor. All wheel, whirl, waltz, twirl. Bloombella,
Kittylynch, Florryzoe, jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in
middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh,
with clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho horn blower blue green yellow flashes.
Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled,
bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)
THE PIANOLA
Though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scotlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)
TUTTI Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!
SIMON Think of your mother's people!
STEPHEN Dance of death.
(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer piglings,
Conmee on Christass lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded
ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe' through and through, Baraabum! On nags,
hogs, bellhorses, Gadarene swine, Corny in coffin. Steel shark stone one
handled Nelson, two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling
bawling. Gum, he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong love
on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no
fancy clothes. Then in last wiswitchback lumbering up and down bump mash tub
sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)
(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes
closed, he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn
roundabout. Bright midges dance on wall. He stops dead.)
STEPHEN Ho!
(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face
worn and noseless, green with grave mould. Her hair is scant and lank. She
fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless
mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing
voicelessly.)
THE CHOIR
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? What bogey man's trick is
this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch
killed her dogsbody bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes into 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 said 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 all powerful. 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 brain work. 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.) 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 fingers.) 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!
FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.)
THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O divine Sacred
Heart!
STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I'll bring
you all to heel!
THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love,
grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN Nothung!
(He hits his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.
Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all
space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET Pwfungg!
BLOOM Stop!
LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't
run amok!
BELLA Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark,
beats the ground and flees from the room past the whores at the door.)
BELLA (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up.
BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) There. You
were with him. The lamp's broken.
BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE He tore his coat.
BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for
that? Ten Shillings. You're a witness.
BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you
lifted enough off him? Didn't he...
BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A
ten shilling house.
BLOOM (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the
chimney's broken. Here is all he...
BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't!
BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's
not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY (With a glass of water enters.) Where is he?
BELLA Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a
masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You don't
want a scandal.
BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races
and paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I'll charge him.
Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I
know.
BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on.
BLOOM What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and shouts.)
That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. (He hurries out through
the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted
tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to
the right where the fog has cleared off From the left arrives a jingling
hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor
perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two
silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall uses on her
whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with
a ghostly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and
Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's
hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Baschid, he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of
bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho
cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the
scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their
tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags,
gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps,
biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, womans slipperslappers. After
him, freshfound, the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my
leader: 65 C 66 C night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon,
Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O'Dowd
Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen,
Whatdoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatslike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwith,
Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell
d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly,
Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row
postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, man in the street,
other man in the street, Footballboots, pugnosed driver rich protestant
lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher George Lidwell,
Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of
the Collector Generals, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs
Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemamedwomanrubbed againstwidebehindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of
Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus
Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmies colonel Hayes, Mastiansky,
Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E. Geraghty,
Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner old
doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever Mrs
Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.
THE HUE AND CRY (Helterskelterelterwelter) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stop him on the corner!
(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot
what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)
STEPHEN (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are
my guests. The uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of
Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you?
STEPHEN Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.
VOICES No, he didn't. The girl's telling lies. He was in Mrs Cohen's.
What's up? Soldiers and civilians.
CISSY CAFFREY I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do
- you know and the young man ran up behind me. But I'm faithful to the man
that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.
STEPHEN (Catches sight of Kitty's and Lynch's heads.) Hail, Sisyphus.
(He points to himself and the others.) Poetic. Neopoetic.
VOICES She's faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON (In Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded,
flowingbearded.) Their's not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN (To Private Compton. ) I don't know your name but you are quite
right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their
shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY (To the crowd.) No, I was with the private.
STEPHEN (Amiably.) Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every
lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR (His cap awry, advancing to Stephen.) Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN (Looks up in the sky.) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
self-pretence. Personally, I detest action. (He waves his hand) Hand hurts
me slightly. Enfin, ce sont vos oignons.
(To Cissy Caffrey.) Some trouble is on here. What is it, precisely?
DOLLY GRAY (From her balcony waves her handkerchief giving the sign of
the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly.
Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)
BLOOM (Elbowing through the crowd plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)
Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN (Turns.) Eh? (He disengages himself) Why should I not speak to
him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (He
points his finger.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye.
Retaining the perpendicular.
(He staggers a pace back.)
BLOOM (Propping him.) Retain your own.
STEPHEN (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for
life is the law of existence but modern philirenists, notably the tsar and
the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in
here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor
out of the college.
CUNTY KATE I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP He expresses himself with much marked refinement of
phraseology.
CUNTY KATE Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What's that you're
saying about my king?
(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched, with the insignia of Garter
and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinners' and Probyns'
horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of
Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect
and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left
hand he holds a plasterers bucket on which is printed: Dиfense d'uriner. A
roar of welcome greets him.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect
peace. For identification bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (He turns to his
subjects.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we
heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a back.
(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and
Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts the bucket graciously in
acknowledgement.)
PRIVATE CARR (To Stephen.) Say it again.
STEPHEN (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point
of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of
patent medicine. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point.
You die for your country, suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr's
sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me.
Up to the present it has done so. I don't want it to die. Damn death. Long
live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Levitates over heaps of slain in the garb and with
the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and
we'll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.
BLOOM (To the privates, softly.) He doesn't know what he's saying.
Taking a little more than is good for him. Absinthe, the greeneyed monster.
I know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right.
STEPHEN (Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and
judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR I don't give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON We don't
give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day
boys hat signs to Stephen.)
KEVIN EGAN H'lo. Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes.
(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbit face nibbling a quince
leaf.)
PATRICE Socialiste!
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (In medieval hauberk, two
wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand
against the privates.) Were those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of
johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM (To Stephen.) Come home. You'll get into trouble.
STEPHEN (Swaying.) I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.
THE VIRAGO Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD The red's as good as the green, and better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!
A ROUGH (Laughs.) Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)
May the God above
Send down a cove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throat
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY (The rope noose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)
I bear no hate to a living thing,
But love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with a gladstone bag which he opens.) Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered
the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the
unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing
arsenic retrieved from the body of Miss Barrow which sent Seddon to the
gallows.
(He jerks the rope, the assistants leap at the victims legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boys tongue protrudes violently.)
THE CROPPY BOY Horhot ho hray ho rhother's hest.
(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of
sperm spouting through his death clothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush
forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)
RUMBOLD I'm near it myself. (He undoes the noose.) Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time as applied to His Royal Highness. (He
plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head
again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) My painful duty has now
been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket and
sings with soft contentment.)
On coronation day, on coronation day,
O, Won't We have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He
wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish
empire of his. Money I haven't. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it
to someone.
PRIVATE CARR Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN (Tries to move off.) Will some one tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? гa se voit aussi ю Paris. Not that
I... But by Saint Patrick!...
(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)
STEPHEN Aha! I know you, grammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Rocking to and fro.) Ireland's sweetheart, the king
of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!
(She keens with banshee woe.) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She wails.)
You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR (Tugging at his belt.) I'll wring the neck of any bugger
says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN Erin go bragh! _
(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)
PRIVATE COMPTON Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer.
STEPHEN Did I? When?
BLOOM (To the redcoats.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our
monarch.
THE NAVVY (Staggering past.) O, yes. O, God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!
(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spear
points. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap
with hackle plume and accoutrements, with epaulette, gilt chevrons and
sabretache, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the
pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Growls gruffly.) Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them!
Mahal shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR I'll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger.
(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the king.)
CISSY CAFFREY They're going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE (Blushing deeply.) Nay, Madam. The gules doublet and merry
Saint George for me!
STEPHEN The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old
Ireland's windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I'll wring the neck of any
fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred
lifegiver.
CISSY CAFFREY (Alarmed seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Amn't I with you?
Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. (She cries.) Police!
STEPHEN (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)
White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
VOICES Police!
DISTANT VOICES Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire!
(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses.
Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from
marsh lands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, connorants,
vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlin, blackgrouse, sea
eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened.
The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in
white sheepskin overcoats and black goat-fell cloaks arise and appear to
many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner in athletes
singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap
and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In
wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory
lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies
lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. laughing witches
in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster
plasters blisters. It rains dragon's teeth. Armed heroes spring up from
furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and
fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith
O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin
M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond John O'Leary
against liar O'Johnny, lord Edward Fitzgerald against lord Gerald
Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The Donoghue.
On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the field altar of Saint
Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. >From the
high barbicans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled
altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies
naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi
O'Flynn, in a long petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back
to the front, celebrates camp mash. The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines love MA.
in a plain cassock and mortar board, his head and collar back to the front,
holds over the celebrants head an open umbrella.)
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN (Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host.) Corpus Meum.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE (Raises high behind the celebrant's
petticoats, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is
stuck.) My body.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rot,
Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!
(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of mange and Green factions
sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)
PRIVATE CARR (With ferocious articulation.) I'll do him in, so help me
fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking
windpipe!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) Remove him,
acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (She
prays.) O good God, take him!
BLOOM (Runs to Lynch.) Can't you get him away?
LYNCH He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (To Bloom.)
Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. (He drags Kitty away.)
STEPHEN (Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.
BLOOM (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now before worse happens.
Here's your stick.
STEPHEN Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.
CISSY CAFFREY (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you're boosed. He
insulted me but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.) I forgive him for
insulting me.
BLOOM (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he's incapable.
PRIVATE CARR (Breaks loose.) I'll insult him.
(He rushes towards Stephen, fists outstretched, and strikes him in the
face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls stunned. He lies prone, his face to
the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Loudly.) Carbine in bucket! cease fire! Salute!
THE RETRIEVER (Barking furiously.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute uteute.
THE CROWD Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The
soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! He's
fainted!
(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)
What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the
influence? Let them go and fight the Boers!
THE BAWD Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with
his girl? He gave him the coward's blow.
(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit.)
THE RETRIEVER (Barking.) Wow wow wow.
BLOOM (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back!
PRIVATE COMPTON (Tugging his comrade.) Here bugger off, Harry. There's
the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group)
FIRST WATCH What's wrong here?
PRIVATE COMPTON We were with this lady and he insulted us and assaulted
my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke?
CISSY CAFFREY (With expectation.) Is he bleeding?
A MAN (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He'll come to all right.
BLOOM (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him to me. I can easily...
SECOND WATCH Who are you? Do you know him?
PRIVATE CARR (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend.
BLOOM (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness.
Constable, take his regimental number.
SECOND WATCH I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my
duty. PRIVATE COMPTON (Pulling his comrade.) Here, bugger off, Harry. Or
Bennett'll have you in the lockup.
PRIVATE CARR (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett!
He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him.
FIRST WATCH (Taking out his notebook.) What's his name?
BLOOM (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me
a hand a second, sergeant.
FIRST WATCH Name and address.
(Corny Kelleher weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand,
appears among the bystanders.)
BLOOM (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He whispers.) Simon Dedalus' son. A
bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.
SECOND WATCH Night, Mr Kelleher.
CORNY KELLEHER (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That's all right. I
know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. (He laughs.) Twenty
to one. Do you follow me?
FIRST WATCH (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at?
Move on out of that.
(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)
CORNY KELLEHER Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. (He
laughs, shaking his head.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.
What? Eh, what?
FIRST WATCH (Laughs.) I suppose so.
CORNY KELLEHER (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off
the slate. (He lilts, wagging his head.) With my tooraloom tooraloom
tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
SECOND WATCH (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too.
CORNY KELLEHER (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I've a car round there.
SECOND WATCH All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.
CORNY KELLEHER I'll see to that.
BLOOM (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very
much gentlemen, thank you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We don't want any
scandal, you understand. Father is a well known, highly respected citizen.
Just a little wild oats, you understand.
FIRST WATCH O, I understand, sir.
SECOND WATCH That's all right, Sir.
FIRST WATCH It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have had to
report it at the station.
BLOOM (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
SECOND WATCH It's our duty.
CORNY KELLEHER Good night, men.
THE WATCH (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with
slow heavy tread.)
BLOOM (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?.
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to
the car brought up against the scaffolding.) Two commercials that were
standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on
the race. Drowning his grief and were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I
landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.
BLOOM I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.
No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs
again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the
house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!
BLOOM (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just
visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow
he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just
making my way home...
(The horse neighs.)
THE HORSE Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!
CORNY KELLEHER Sure it was Behan, our jarvey there, that told me after
we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got
off to see. (He laughs.) Sober hearsedrivers a specialty. Will I give him a
lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher asquint, drawls
at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down.)
CORNY KELLEHER (Scratches his nape.) Sandycove! (He bends down and
calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.) Eh! He's covered with shavings
anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him.
BLOOM No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
CORNY KELLEHER Ah well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll
shove along. (He laughs.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the
dead. Safe home!
THE HORSE (Neighs.) Hohohohohome.
BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few...
(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse
harness jingles.)
CORNY KELLEHER (From the car, standing.) Night.
BLOOM Night.
(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car
and horse back slowly, awkwardly and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat
sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Blooms plight. The jarvey
joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom
shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher
reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what
else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is
exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of
the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom
with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The
tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their
tooralooloolooloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephens hat festooned
with shavings and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and
shakes him by the shoulder.)
BLOOM Eh! Ho! (There is no answer he bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (There
is no answer.) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (He bends again and,
hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.) Stephen!
(There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen!
STEPHEN (Groans.) Who? Black panther vampire. (He sighs and stretches
himself then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Who... drive... Fergus
now. And pierce... wood's woven shade?...
(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)
BLOOM Poetry. Well educated. Pity. (He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen's waistcoat.) To breathe. (He brushes the wood shavings
from Stephen's clothes with light hands and fingers.) One pound seven. Not
hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What!
(Murmurs.)
... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim...
(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom
holding his hat and ashplant stands erect. A dog barks in the distance.
Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on
Stephen's face and form.)
BLOOM (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In
the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.
Some girl. Best thing could happen him... (He murmurs.)... swear that I will
always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts...
(He murmurs.) in the rough sands of the sea. a cabletow's length from the
shore... where the tide ebbs ... and flows...
(Silent, thoughtful, alert, he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton
suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his
hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)
BLOOM (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.) Rudy!
RUDY (Gazes unseeing into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing,
smiling. He has a delicate mauveface. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
howknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)
The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an
uncobbled transiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green
will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of flimsy houses with gaping
doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice
gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which are
wedged lumps of coal and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly.
Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the
murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer.
THE CALLS Wait, my love, and I'll be with you.
THE ANSWERS Round behind the stable.
(A deaf mute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling,
jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. A chain of children's hands
imprisons him.)
THE CHILDREN Kithoguel Salute.
THE IDIOT (Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.) Grhahute!
THE CHILDREN Where's the great light?
THE IDIOT (Gobbing.) Ghaghahest.
(They release him. He jerks on. A pygmy woman swings on a rope slung
between the railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and
muffled by its arm and hat moves, groans, grinding growling teeth, and
snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbish tip crouches to
shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky oil lamp
rams the last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew
his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone makes back for her lair
swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the doorstep with a
papershuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her skirt,
scrambles up. A drunken navvy ups with both hands the railings of an area,
lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch in shoulder capes, their hands
upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate crashes; a woman screams; a
child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer
from warrens. In a room lit by a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs
out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey's voice,
still young, sings shrill from a lane.)
CISSY CAFFREY
I gave it to Molly
Because she was jolly,
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters,
as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths
a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago retorts.)
THE VIRAGO Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.
CISSY CAFFREY More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.
(She sings.)
I gave it to Nelly
To stick in her belly
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics
bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond copper
polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the
redcoats.)
PRIVATE COMPTON (Jerks his finger.) Way for the parson.
PRIVATE CARR (Turns and calls.) What ho, parson!
CISSY CAFFREY (Her voice soaring higher.)
She has it, she got it,
Wherever she put it
The leg of the duck.
(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy
the introit for paschal time. Lynch, his jockey cap low on his brow, attends
him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)
STEPHEN Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia.
(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.)
THE BAWD (Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst! Come here till I tell
you. Maidenhead inside. Sst.
STEPHEN (Altius aliqantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit acqua ista.
THE BAWD (Spits in their trail her jet of venom.) Trinity medicals.
Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.
(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl
across her nostrils.)
EDY BOARDMAN (Bickering.) And say the one: I seen you up Faithful place
with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat.
Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You never seen me in the
mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that one
hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets
of dull bells. Weary, they curchycurchy under veils.)
THE BRACELETS Heigho! Heigho!
ZOE (Twisting, her hand to her brow.) O!
MAGINNI Los tiroirs! Chaнne de dames! La corbeille! Dos ю dos!
(Arabesquing wearily, they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twisting, simply swirling.)
ZOE I'm giddy.
(She frees herself droops on a chair, Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her.)
MAGINNI Boulangхre! Los ronds! Los ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!
(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands, the night hours link,
each with arching arms, in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn
cumbrously.)
MAGINNI Dansez avec vos dames! Changes de dames! Donnes le petit
bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez!
THE PIANOLA
Best, best of all,
Baraabum!
KITTY (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus
bazaar!
(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A
screaming bit tern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft's
cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.)
THE PIANOLA My girl's a Yorkshire girl.
ZOE Yorkshire through and through. Come on all!
(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)
STEPHEN Pas seul!
(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arm's, snatches up his ashplant from the
table and takes the floor. All wheel, whirl, waltz, twirl. Bloombella,
Kittylynch, Florryzoe, jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in
middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh,
with clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho horn blower blue green yellow flashes.
Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled,
bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)
THE PIANOLA
Though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scotlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)
TUTTI Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!
SIMON Think of your mother's people!
STEPHEN Dance of death.
(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer piglings,
Conmee on Christass lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded
ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe' through and through, Baraabum! On nags,
hogs, bellhorses, Gadarene swine, Corny in coffin. Steel shark stone one
handled Nelson, two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling
bawling. Gum, he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong love
on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no
fancy clothes. Then in last wiswitchback lumbering up and down bump mash tub
sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)
(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes
closed, he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn
roundabout. Bright midges dance on wall. He stops dead.)
STEPHEN Ho!
(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face
worn and noseless, green with grave mould. Her hair is scant and lank. She
fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless
mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing
voicelessly.)
THE CHOIR
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? What bogey man's trick is
this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch
killed her dogsbody bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes into 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 said 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 all powerful. 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 brain work. 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.) 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 fingers.) 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!
FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.)
THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O divine Sacred
Heart!
STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I'll bring
you all to heel!
THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love,
grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN Nothung!
(He hits his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.
Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all
space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET Pwfungg!
BLOOM Stop!
LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't
run amok!
BELLA Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark,
beats the ground and flees from the room past the whores at the door.)
BELLA (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up.
BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) There. You
were with him. The lamp's broken.
BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE He tore his coat.
BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for
that? Ten Shillings. You're a witness.
BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you
lifted enough off him? Didn't he...
BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A
ten shilling house.
BLOOM (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the
chimney's broken. Here is all he...
BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't!
BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's
not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY (With a glass of water enters.) Where is he?
BELLA Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a
masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You don't
want a scandal.
BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races
and paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I'll charge him.
Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I
know.
BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on.
BLOOM What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and shouts.)
That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. (He hurries out through
the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted
tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to
the right where the fog has cleared off From the left arrives a jingling
hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor
perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two
silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall uses on her
whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with
a ghostly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and
Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's
hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Baschid, he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of
bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho
cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the
scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their
tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags,
gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps,
biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, womans slipperslappers. After
him, freshfound, the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my
leader: 65 C 66 C night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon,
Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O'Dowd
Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen,
Whatdoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatslike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwith,
Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell
d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly,
Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row
postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, man in the street,
other man in the street, Footballboots, pugnosed driver rich protestant
lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher George Lidwell,
Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of
the Collector Generals, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs
Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemamedwomanrubbed againstwidebehindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of
Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus
Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmies colonel Hayes, Mastiansky,
Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E. Geraghty,
Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner old
doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever Mrs
Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.
THE HUE AND CRY (Helterskelterelterwelter) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stop him on the corner!
(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot
what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)
STEPHEN (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are
my guests. The uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of
Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you?
STEPHEN Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.
VOICES No, he didn't. The girl's telling lies. He was in Mrs Cohen's.
What's up? Soldiers and civilians.
CISSY CAFFREY I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do
- you know and the young man ran up behind me. But I'm faithful to the man
that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.
STEPHEN (Catches sight of Kitty's and Lynch's heads.) Hail, Sisyphus.
(He points to himself and the others.) Poetic. Neopoetic.
VOICES She's faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON (In Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded,
flowingbearded.) Their's not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN (To Private Compton. ) I don't know your name but you are quite
right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their
shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY (To the crowd.) No, I was with the private.
STEPHEN (Amiably.) Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every
lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR (His cap awry, advancing to Stephen.) Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN (Looks up in the sky.) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
self-pretence. Personally, I detest action. (He waves his hand) Hand hurts
me slightly. Enfin, ce sont vos oignons.
(To Cissy Caffrey.) Some trouble is on here. What is it, precisely?
DOLLY GRAY (From her balcony waves her handkerchief giving the sign of
the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly.
Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)
BLOOM (Elbowing through the crowd plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)
Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN (Turns.) Eh? (He disengages himself) Why should I not speak to
him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (He
points his finger.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye.
Retaining the perpendicular.
(He staggers a pace back.)
BLOOM (Propping him.) Retain your own.
STEPHEN (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for
life is the law of existence but modern philirenists, notably the tsar and
the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in
here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor
out of the college.
CUNTY KATE I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP He expresses himself with much marked refinement of
phraseology.
CUNTY KATE Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What's that you're
saying about my king?
(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched, with the insignia of Garter
and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinners' and Probyns'
horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of
Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect
and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left
hand he holds a plasterers bucket on which is printed: Dиfense d'uriner. A
roar of welcome greets him.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect
peace. For identification bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (He turns to his
subjects.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we
heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a back.
(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and
Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts the bucket graciously in
acknowledgement.)
PRIVATE CARR (To Stephen.) Say it again.
STEPHEN (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point
of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of
patent medicine. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point.
You die for your country, suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr's
sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me.
Up to the present it has done so. I don't want it to die. Damn death. Long
live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Levitates over heaps of slain in the garb and with
the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and
we'll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.
BLOOM (To the privates, softly.) He doesn't know what he's saying.
Taking a little more than is good for him. Absinthe, the greeneyed monster.
I know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right.
STEPHEN (Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and
judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR I don't give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON We don't
give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day
boys hat signs to Stephen.)
KEVIN EGAN H'lo. Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes.
(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbit face nibbling a quince
leaf.)
PATRICE Socialiste!
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (In medieval hauberk, two
wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand
against the privates.) Were those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of
johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM (To Stephen.) Come home. You'll get into trouble.
STEPHEN (Swaying.) I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.
THE VIRAGO Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD The red's as good as the green, and better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!
A ROUGH (Laughs.) Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)
May the God above
Send down a cove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throat
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY (The rope noose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)
I bear no hate to a living thing,
But love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with a gladstone bag which he opens.) Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered
the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the
unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing
arsenic retrieved from the body of Miss Barrow which sent Seddon to the
gallows.
(He jerks the rope, the assistants leap at the victims legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boys tongue protrudes violently.)
THE CROPPY BOY Horhot ho hray ho rhother's hest.
(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of
sperm spouting through his death clothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush
forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)
RUMBOLD I'm near it myself. (He undoes the noose.) Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time as applied to His Royal Highness. (He
plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head
again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) My painful duty has now
been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket and
sings with soft contentment.)
On coronation day, on coronation day,
O, Won't We have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He
wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish
empire of his. Money I haven't. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it
to someone.
PRIVATE CARR Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN (Tries to move off.) Will some one tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? гa se voit aussi ю Paris. Not that
I... But by Saint Patrick!...
(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)
STEPHEN Aha! I know you, grammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Rocking to and fro.) Ireland's sweetheart, the king
of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!
(She keens with banshee woe.) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She wails.)
You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR (Tugging at his belt.) I'll wring the neck of any bugger
says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN Erin go bragh! _
(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)
PRIVATE COMPTON Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer.
STEPHEN Did I? When?
BLOOM (To the redcoats.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our
monarch.
THE NAVVY (Staggering past.) O, yes. O, God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!
(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spear
points. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap
with hackle plume and accoutrements, with epaulette, gilt chevrons and
sabretache, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the
pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Growls gruffly.) Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them!
Mahal shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR I'll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger.
(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the king.)
CISSY CAFFREY They're going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE (Blushing deeply.) Nay, Madam. The gules doublet and merry
Saint George for me!
STEPHEN The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old
Ireland's windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I'll wring the neck of any
fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred
lifegiver.
CISSY CAFFREY (Alarmed seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Amn't I with you?
Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. (She cries.) Police!
STEPHEN (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)
White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
VOICES Police!
DISTANT VOICES Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire!
(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses.
Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from
marsh lands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, connorants,
vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlin, blackgrouse, sea
eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened.
The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in
white sheepskin overcoats and black goat-fell cloaks arise and appear to
many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner in athletes
singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap
and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In
wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory
lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies
lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. laughing witches
in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster
plasters blisters. It rains dragon's teeth. Armed heroes spring up from
furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and
fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith
O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin
M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond John O'Leary
against liar O'Johnny, lord Edward Fitzgerald against lord Gerald
Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The Donoghue.
On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the field altar of Saint
Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. >From the
high barbicans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled
altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies
naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi
O'Flynn, in a long petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back
to the front, celebrates camp mash. The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines love MA.
in a plain cassock and mortar board, his head and collar back to the front,
holds over the celebrants head an open umbrella.)
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN (Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host.) Corpus Meum.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE (Raises high behind the celebrant's
petticoats, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is
stuck.) My body.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rot,
Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!
(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of mange and Green factions
sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)
PRIVATE CARR (With ferocious articulation.) I'll do him in, so help me
fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking
windpipe!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) Remove him,
acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (She
prays.) O good God, take him!
BLOOM (Runs to Lynch.) Can't you get him away?
LYNCH He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (To Bloom.)
Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. (He drags Kitty away.)
STEPHEN (Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.
BLOOM (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now before worse happens.
Here's your stick.
STEPHEN Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.
CISSY CAFFREY (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you're boosed. He
insulted me but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.) I forgive him for
insulting me.
BLOOM (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he's incapable.
PRIVATE CARR (Breaks loose.) I'll insult him.
(He rushes towards Stephen, fists outstretched, and strikes him in the
face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls stunned. He lies prone, his face to
the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Loudly.) Carbine in bucket! cease fire! Salute!
THE RETRIEVER (Barking furiously.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute uteute.
THE CROWD Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The
soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! He's
fainted!
(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)
What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the
influence? Let them go and fight the Boers!
THE BAWD Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with
his girl? He gave him the coward's blow.
(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit.)
THE RETRIEVER (Barking.) Wow wow wow.
BLOOM (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back!
PRIVATE COMPTON (Tugging his comrade.) Here bugger off, Harry. There's
the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group)
FIRST WATCH What's wrong here?
PRIVATE COMPTON We were with this lady and he insulted us and assaulted
my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke?
CISSY CAFFREY (With expectation.) Is he bleeding?
A MAN (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He'll come to all right.
BLOOM (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him to me. I can easily...
SECOND WATCH Who are you? Do you know him?
PRIVATE CARR (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend.
BLOOM (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness.
Constable, take his regimental number.
SECOND WATCH I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my
duty. PRIVATE COMPTON (Pulling his comrade.) Here, bugger off, Harry. Or
Bennett'll have you in the lockup.
PRIVATE CARR (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett!
He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him.
FIRST WATCH (Taking out his notebook.) What's his name?
BLOOM (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me
a hand a second, sergeant.
FIRST WATCH Name and address.
(Corny Kelleher weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand,
appears among the bystanders.)
BLOOM (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He whispers.) Simon Dedalus' son. A
bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.
SECOND WATCH Night, Mr Kelleher.
CORNY KELLEHER (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That's all right. I
know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. (He laughs.) Twenty
to one. Do you follow me?
FIRST WATCH (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at?
Move on out of that.
(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)
CORNY KELLEHER Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. (He
laughs, shaking his head.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.
What? Eh, what?
FIRST WATCH (Laughs.) I suppose so.
CORNY KELLEHER (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off
the slate. (He lilts, wagging his head.) With my tooraloom tooraloom
tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
SECOND WATCH (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too.
CORNY KELLEHER (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I've a car round there.
SECOND WATCH All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.
CORNY KELLEHER I'll see to that.
BLOOM (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very
much gentlemen, thank you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We don't want any
scandal, you understand. Father is a well known, highly respected citizen.
Just a little wild oats, you understand.
FIRST WATCH O, I understand, sir.
SECOND WATCH That's all right, Sir.
FIRST WATCH It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have had to
report it at the station.
BLOOM (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
SECOND WATCH It's our duty.
CORNY KELLEHER Good night, men.
THE WATCH (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with
slow heavy tread.)
BLOOM (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?.
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to
the car brought up against the scaffolding.) Two commercials that were
standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on
the race. Drowning his grief and were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I
landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.
BLOOM I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.
No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs
again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the
house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!
BLOOM (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just
visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow
he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just
making my way home...
(The horse neighs.)
THE HORSE Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!
CORNY KELLEHER Sure it was Behan, our jarvey there, that told me after
we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got
off to see. (He laughs.) Sober hearsedrivers a specialty. Will I give him a
lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher asquint, drawls
at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down.)
CORNY KELLEHER (Scratches his nape.) Sandycove! (He bends down and
calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.) Eh! He's covered with shavings
anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him.
BLOOM No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
CORNY KELLEHER Ah well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll
shove along. (He laughs.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the
dead. Safe home!
THE HORSE (Neighs.) Hohohohohome.
BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few...
(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse
harness jingles.)
CORNY KELLEHER (From the car, standing.) Night.
BLOOM Night.
(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car
and horse back slowly, awkwardly and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat
sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Blooms plight. The jarvey
joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom
shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher
reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what
else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is
exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of
the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom
with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The
tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their
tooralooloolooloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephens hat festooned
with shavings and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and
shakes him by the shoulder.)
BLOOM Eh! Ho! (There is no answer he bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (There
is no answer.) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (He bends again and,
hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.) Stephen!
(There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen!
STEPHEN (Groans.) Who? Black panther vampire. (He sighs and stretches
himself then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Who... drive... Fergus
now. And pierce... wood's woven shade?...
(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)
BLOOM Poetry. Well educated. Pity. (He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen's waistcoat.) To breathe. (He brushes the wood shavings
from Stephen's clothes with light hands and fingers.) One pound seven. Not
hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What!
(Murmurs.)
... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim...
(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom
holding his hat and ashplant stands erect. A dog barks in the distance.
Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on
Stephen's face and form.)
BLOOM (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In
the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.
Some girl. Best thing could happen him... (He murmurs.)... swear that I will
always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts...
(He murmurs.) in the rough sands of the sea. a cabletow's length from the
shore... where the tide ebbs ... and flows...
(Silent, thoughtful, alert, he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton
suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his
hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)
BLOOM (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.) Rudy!
RUDY (Gazes unseeing into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing,
smiling. He has a delicate mauveface. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
howknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)
The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an
uncobbled transiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green
will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of flimsy houses with gaping
doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice
gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which are
wedged lumps of coal and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly.
Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the
murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer.
THE CALLS Wait, my love, and I'll be with you.
THE ANSWERS Round behind the stable.
(A deaf mute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling,
jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. A chain of children's hands
imprisons him.)
THE CHILDREN Kithoguel Salute.
THE IDIOT (Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.) Grhahute!
THE CHILDREN Where's the great light?
THE IDIOT (Gobbing.) Ghaghahest.
(They release him. He jerks on. A pygmy woman swings on a rope slung
between the railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and
muffled by its arm and hat moves, groans, grinding growling teeth, and
snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbish tip crouches to
shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky oil lamp
rams the last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew
his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone makes back for her lair
swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the doorstep with a
papershuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her skirt,
scrambles up. A drunken navvy ups with both hands the railings of an area,
lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch in shoulder capes, their hands
upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate crashes; a woman screams; a
child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer
from warrens. In a room lit by a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs
out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey's voice,
still young, sings shrill from a lane.)
CISSY CAFFREY
I gave it to Molly
Because she was jolly,
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters,
as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths
a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago retorts.)
THE VIRAGO Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.
CISSY CAFFREY More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.
(She sings.)
I gave it to Nelly
To stick in her belly
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics
bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond copper
polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the
redcoats.)
PRIVATE COMPTON (Jerks his finger.) Way for the parson.
PRIVATE CARR (Turns and calls.) What ho, parson!
CISSY CAFFREY (Her voice soaring higher.)
She has it, she got it,
Wherever she put it
The leg of the duck.
(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy
the introit for paschal time. Lynch, his jockey cap low on his brow, attends
him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)
STEPHEN Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia.
(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.)
THE BAWD (Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst! Come here till I tell
you. Maidenhead inside. Sst.
STEPHEN (Altius aliqantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit acqua ista.
THE BAWD (Spits in their trail her jet of venom.) Trinity medicals.
Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.
(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl
across her nostrils.)
EDY BOARDMAN (Bickering.) And say the one: I seen you up Faithful place
with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat.
Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You never seen me in the
mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that one