Complete Works of James Joyce (117 page)

BLOOM: Done. Prff!

THE NYMPH:
(Loftily)
We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat electric light.
(She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in her mouth)
Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then could you...?

BLOOM:
(Pawing the heather abjectly)
O, I have been a perfect pig. Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long’s syringe, the ladies’ friend.

THE NYMPH: In my presence. The powderpuff.
(She blushes and makes a knee)
And the rest!

BLOOM:
(Dejected)
Yes.
Peccavi!
I have paid homage on that living altar where the back changes name.
(With sudden fervour)
For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules...?

(Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems, cooeeing)

THE VOICE OF KITTY:
(In the thicket)
Show us one of them cushions.

THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Here.

(A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.)

THE VOICE OF LYNCH:
(In the thicket)
Whew! Piping hot!

THE VOICE OF ZOE:
(From the thicket)
Came from a hot place.

THE VOICE OF VIRAG:
(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns)
Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull!

BLOOM: It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. So womanly, full. It fills me full.

THE WATERFALL:

    
Phillaphulla Poulaphouca

    
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

THE YEWS: Ssh! Sister, speak!

THE NYMPH:
(Eyeless, in nun’s white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, with remote eyes)
Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha. Mount Carmel. The apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire.
(She reclines her head, sighing)
Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o’er the waters dull.

(Bloom half rises. His back trouserbutton snaps.)

THE BUTTON: Bip!

(Two sluts of the coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)

THE SLUTS:

    
O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers

    
He didn’t know what to do,

 
   
To keep it up,

    
To keep it up.

BLOOM:
(Coldly)
You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy but willing like an ass pissing.

THE YEWS:
(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms aging and swaying)
Deciduously!

THE NYMPH:
(Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit)
Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue!
(A large moist stain appears on her robe)
Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman.
(She clutches again in her robe)
Wait. Satan, you’ll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
(She draws a poniard and, clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins)
Nekum!

BLOOM:
(Starts up, seizes her hand)
Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o’ nine lives! Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough?
(He clutches her veil)
A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?

THE NYMPH:
(With a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks)
Poli...!

BLOOM:
(Calls after her)
As if you didn’t get it on the double yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your strength our weakness. What’s our studfee? What will you pay on the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read.
(The fleeing nymph raises a keen)
Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me.
(He sniffs)
Rut. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease.

(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)

BELLA: You’ll know me the next time.

BLOOM:
(Composed, regards her) Passée.
Mutton dressed as lamb. Long in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of your other features, that’s all. I’m not a triple screw propeller.

BELLA:
(Contemptuously)
You’re not game, in fact.
(Her sowcunt barks)
Fbhracht!

BLOOM:
(Contemptuously)
Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully’s cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself.

BELLA: I know you, canvasser! Dead cod!

BLOOM: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!

BELLA:
(Turns to the piano)
Which of you was playing the dead march from
Saul?

ZOE: Me. Mind your cornflowers.
(She darts to the piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms)
The cat’s ramble through the slag.
(She glances back)
Eh? Who’s making love to my sweeties?
(She darts back to the table)
What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own.

(Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom approaches Zoe.)

BLOOM:
(Gently)
Give me back that potato, will you?

ZOE: Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing.

BLOOM:
(With feeling)
It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma.

ZOE:

    
Give a thing and take it back

    
God’ll ask you where is that

    
You’ll say you don’t know

    
God’ll send you down below.

BLOOM: There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it.

STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the question.

ZOE: Here.
(She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking)
Those that hides knows where to find.

BELLA:
(Frowns)
Here. This isn’t a musical peepshow. And don’t you smash that piano. Who’s paying here?

(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)

STEPHEN:
(With exaggerated politeness)
This silken purse I made out of the sow’s ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me.
(He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom)
We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch.
Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état
.

LYNCH:
(Calls from the hearth)
Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me.

STEPHEN:
(Hands Bella a coin)
Gold. She has it.

BELLA:
(Looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty)
Do you want three girls? It’s ten shillings here.

STEPHEN:
(Delightedly)
A hundred thousand apologies.
(He fumbles again and takes out and hands her two crowns)
Permit,
brevi manu
, my sight is somewhat troubled.

(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over Zoe’s neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty’s waist, adds his head to the group.)

FLORRY:
(Strives heavily to rise)
Ow! My foot’s asleep.
(She limps over to the table. Bloom approaches.)

BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM:
(Chattering and squabbling)
The gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a moment... this gentleman pays separate... who’s touching it?... ow! ... mind who you’re pinching... are you staying the night or a short time?... who did?... you’re a liar, excuse me... the gentleman paid down like a gentleman... drink... it’s long after eleven.

STEPHEN:
(At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence)
No bottles! What, eleven? A riddle!

ZOE:
(Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top of her stocking)
Hard earned on the flat of my back.

LYNCH:
(Lifting Kitty from the table)
Come!

KITTY: Wait.
(She clutches the two crowns)

FLORRY: And me?

LYNCH: Hoopla!
(He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa.)

STEPHEN:

    
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?
Les distrait
or absentminded beggar.
(He fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object fills.)
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 twobacks at midnight. Married.