re they wanted me to join in with the mots.
No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (<i>He laughs
again and leers with  lacklustre eye</i>.) Thanks be to  God we have it  in  the
house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!
     BLOOM  (<i>Tries to laugh</i>.)  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...
     (<i>The horse neighs</i>.)
     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. (<i>He laughs</i>.) 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.
     (<i>Stephen, prone, breathes to the  stars. Corny Kelleher asquint, drawls
at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down</i>.)
     CORNY KELLEHER  (<i>Scratches his  nape</i>.)  Sandycove!  (<i>He bends  down and
calls to  Stephen</i>.)  Eh! (<i>He calls again</i>.)  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. (<i>He  laughs</i>.)  I've a  rendezvous  in the morning. Burying the
dead. Safe home!
     THE HORSE (<i>Neighs</i>.) Hohohohohome.
     BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few...
     (<i>Corny Kelleher returns  to the  outside car  and mounts it.  The horse
harness jingles</i>.)
     CORNY KELLEHER (<i>From the car, standing</i>.) Night.
     BLOOM Night.
     (<i>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</i>.)
     BLOOM  Eh! Ho! (<i>There is no answer he bends  again</i>.) Mr Dedalus! (<i>There
is no answer</i>.) The  name  if you  call.  Somnambulist.  (<i>He bends again and,
hesitating, brings his mouth  near the face of the prostrate form</i>.) Stephen!
(<i>There is no answer. He calls again</i>.) Stephen!
     STEPHEN (<i>Groans</i>.) Who? Black  panther  vampire. (<i>He sighs and stretches
himself  then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.)</i> Who... drive... Fergus
now. And pierce... wood's woven shade?...
     (<i>He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together</i>.)
     BLOOM Poetry.  Well educated.  Pity.  (<i>He  bends again  and undoes  the
buttons  of Stephen's waistcoat</i>.) To breathe.  (<i>He brushes the wood shavings
from Stephen's clothes with light hands  and fingers</i>.) One  pound seven. Not
hurt anyhow. (<i>He listens</i>.) What!
     (<i>Murmurs</i>.)
     ... shadows... the woods
     ... white breast... dim...
     (<i>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</i>.)
     BLOOM (<i>Communes with the night</i>.) 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... (<i>He murmurs</i>.)... swear that I will
always hail, ever conceal,  never reveal,  any part or parts, art or arts...
(<i>He murmurs</i>.)  in the  rough sands of the sea. a cabletow's  length from the
shore... where the tide ebbs ... and flows...
     (<i>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</i>.)
     BLOOM (<i>Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly</i>.) 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.)


        Ulysses 15: Circe

     <i>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</i>.
     THE CALLS Wait, my love, and I'll be with you.
     THE ANSWERS Round behind the stable.
     (<i>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</i>.)
     THE CHILDREN Kithoguel Salute.
     THE IDIOT (<i>Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.</i>) Grhahute!
     THE CHILDREN Where's the great light?
     THE IDIOT (<i>Gobbing.</i>) Ghaghahest.
     (<i>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</i>.)
     CISSY CAFFREY
     I gave it to Molly
     Because she was jolly,
     The leg of the duck
     The leg of the duck.
     (<i>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</i>.)
     THE VIRAGO Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.
     CISSY CAFFREY More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.
     (<i>She sings</i>.)
     I gave it to Nelly
     To stick in her belly
     The leg of the duck
     The leg of the duck.
     (<i>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</i>.)
     PRIVATE COMPTON (<i>Jerks his finger.</i>) Way for the parson.
     PRIVATE CARR (<i>Turns and calls.</i>) What ho, parson!
     CISSY CAFFREY (<i>Her voice soaring higher</i>.)
     She has it, she got it,
     Wherever she put it
     The leg of the duck.
     (<i>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</i>.)
     STEPHEN <i>Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia.</i>
     (<i>The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway</i>.)
     THE BAWD  (<i>Her  voice  whispering huskily.</i>) Sst! Come here till  I tell
you. Maidenhead inside. Sst.
     STEPHEN (<i>Altius aliqantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit acqua ista</i>.
     THE BAWD (<i>Spits in  their  trail her jet of  venom.</i>)  Trinity medicals.
Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.
     (<i>Edy Boardman, sniffling,  crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl
across her nostrils</i>.)
     EDY BOARDMAN (<i>Bickering.</i>) 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
is. Stubborn as a mule!  And her  walking with  two fellows  the  one  time,
Kildbride the enginedriver and lancecorporal Oliphant.
     STEPHEN (<i>Triumphaliter</i>.) <i>Salvi facti i sunt</i>.
     (<i>He flourishes his ashplant shivering the  lamp image, shattering light
over  the world. A liver and  white  spaniel on the  prowl slinks after him,
growling. Lynch scar's it with a kick.</i>)
     LYNCH So that?
     STEPHEN  (<i>Looks behind</i>.) So that  gesture, not music, not odours, would
be a universal  language, the gift of  tongues rendering visible not the lay
sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm.
     LYNCH Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburg street!
     STEPHEN We have  shrewridden Shakespeare  and  henpecked Socrates. Even
the allwisest stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love.
     LYNCH Ba!
     STEPHEN Anyway, who wants  two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug?
This movement illustrates the loaf  and jug of  bread and wine in Omar. Hold
my stick.
     LYNCH Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going?
     STEPHEN Lecherous lynx, to <i>la belle dame sans  merci</i>, Georgina Johnson,
<i>ad deam qui laetificat juventutem meam</i>.
     (<i>Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds  out  his  hands,
his head going back till both  hands are a span from his breast, down turned
in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left being higher</i>.)
     LYNCH  Which  is  the  jug  of  bread?  It  skills  not.  That  or  the
customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk.
     (<i>They pass.  Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs
in  spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb.
The navvy  lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark.  The
navvy, swaying,  presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and  ejects
from the farther nostril  a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he
staggers away through the crowd with his flaring cresset.
     Snakes  of  river fog creep slowly.  From  drains,  clefts,  cesspools,
middens arise on all sides stagnant  fumes. A glow leaps in the south beyond
the seaward  reaches  of the river. The navvy staggering forward cleaves the
crowd and lurches towards  the tramsiding. On  the farther  side  under  the
railway bridge Bloom appears flushed, panting, cramming  bread and chocolate
into  a side pocket. From Gillens hairdressers window a  composite  portrait
shows  him gallant Nelson's image. A  concave mirror at the side presents to
him  lovelorn longlost  lugubru  Booloohoom.  Grave Gladstone sees him level
Bloom for Bloom. He passes, struck by  the stare of truculent Wellington but
in the con vex mirror grin  unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops
of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.
     At  Antonio  Babaiotti's  door Bloom  halts,  sweated under  the bright
arclamps. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on</i>.)
     BLOOM Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!
     (<i>He  disappears   into   Olhousen's,  the  pork  butcher's,  under  the
downcoming  rollshutter.  A few moments  later he  emerges  from  under  the
shutter puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one
containing  a  lukewarm pig's crubeen,  the  other  a  cold  sheep's trotter
sprinkled with wholepepper He gasps, standing  upright. Then  bending to one
side he presses a parcel against his rib and groans</i>.)
     BLOOM Stitch in my side. Why did I run?
     (<i>He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly  towards the lampset
siding. The glow leaps again</i>.)
     BLOOM What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.
     (<i>He stands at Cormack's corner watching</i>.)
     BLOOM <i>Aurora  borealis</i> or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade,  of course.
South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar's bush. We're safe.
(<i>He hums cheerfully</i>.) London's burning,  London's burning! On fire, on fire!
(<i>He  catches  sight  of the navvy lurching through the crowd at the  farther
side of Talbot street</i>.) I'll miss him. Run. Quick. Better cross here.
     (<i>He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout</i>.)
     THE  URCHINS  Mind  out,  mister!  (<i>Two  cyclists,  with  lighted paper
lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling</i>.)
     THE BELLS Haltyaltyaltyall.
     BLOOM (<i>Halts erect stung by a spasm</i>.) Ow.
     (<i>He looks round, darts  forward  suddenly.  Through rising fog a dragon
sandstrewer, travelling at  caution, slews  heavily down  upon him, its huge
red headlight winking, its trolley  hissing on the wire.  The motorman bangs
his footgong</i>.)
     THE GONG Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.
     (<i>The brake cracks violently. Bloom,  raising  a policeman's whitegloved
hand,  blunders stifflegged, out of  the track. The motorman thrown forward,
pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys</i>.)
     THE MOTORMAN Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hattrick?
     BLOOM (<i>Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He  brushes a
mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand</i>.) No thoroughfare. Close shave
that but cured  the stitch. Must take up  Sandow's exercises  again.  On the
hands down.  Insure against street accident too. The Providential. (<i>He feels
his trouser  pocket</i>.)  Poor mamma's panacea.  Heel easily catch in tracks or
bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled  off my  shoe  at
Leonard's  corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe  trick.  Insolent driver. I
ought to  report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked
me this  morning with that horsey woman. Same style  of beauty. Quick of him
all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp  in
Lad  lane. Something poisonous I  ate.  Emblem of  luck. Why?  Probably lost
cattle. Mark of the beast. (<i>He closes his eyes an instant</i>.) Bit light in the
head.  Monthly or  effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too
much for me now. Ow!
     (<i>A sinister  figure leans on plaited legs  against  O'Beirnes  wall,  a
visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero
the figure regards him with evil eye</i>.)
     BLOOM <i>Buenos noches, seyaorita Blanca, que calle es esta?</i>
     THE FIGURE (<i>Impassive, raises a signal arm</i>.) Password. <i>Sraid Mabbot</i>.
     BLOOM  Haha. <i>Merci</i>.  Esperanto. <i>Slan leath. (He mutters</i>.) Gaelic league
spy, sent by that fireeater.
     (<i>He steps forward.  A  sackshouldered ragman  bars  his path.  He steps
left, ragsackman left</i>.)
     BLOOM I beg. (<i>He swerves, sidles, stepsaside, slips past and on</i>.)
     BLOOM Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a fingerpost planted
by the Touring Club at Stepaside  who procured that public boon? I  who lost
my way  and  contributed  to  the columns of  the <i>Irish  Cyclist</i> the  letter
headed, In <i>darkest Stepaside</i>. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones,
at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer  makes for.  Wash off
his sins of the world.
     (<i>Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom</i>.)
     BLOOM O!
     (<i>Shocked, on  weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.
Bloom  pats  with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepocket,
sweets of sin, potato soap</i>.)
     BLOOM Beware of pickpockets.  Old thieves'  dodge. Collide. Then snatch
your purse.
     (<i>The  retriever  approaches sniffling, nose to  the ground.  A sprawled
form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan  of
an elder in Zion and a smoking cap  with magenta tassels.  Horned spectacles
hang  down at the  wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn
face</i>.)
     RUDOLPH  Second halfcrown  waste money  today. I told you  not  go with
drunken goy ever. So. You catch no money.
     BLOOM (<i>Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and,  crestfallen,
feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi</i>.
     RUDOLPH What you making down this place? Have you no soul? (<i>With feeble
vulture talons  he  feels the  silent face  of  Bloom</i>) Are  you  not my  son
Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not  my dear son Leopold  who left
the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?
     BLOOM (<i>With precaution</i>.)  I suppose  so, father. Mosenthal. All  that's
left of him.
     RUDOLPH  (<i>Severely</i>.) One night they bring you  home drunk  as dog after
spend your good money. What you call them running chaps?
     BLOOM  (<i>In  youth's  smart  blue  Oxford  suit  with  white  vestslips,
narrowshouldered,  in  brown Alpine  hat,  wearing  gent's  sterling  silver
waterbury keyless watch and double curb  Albert with seal attached, one side
of him coated with stiffening mud</i>.) Harriers, father. Only that once.
     RUDOLPH Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw.  They make
you kaput, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.
     BLOOM  (<i>Weakly</i>.)  They challenged  me to  a  sprint.  It  was muddy.  I
slipped.
     RUDOLPH  (<i>With contempt)  Ooim nachez</i>. Nice  spectacles for  your  poor
mother!
     BLOOM Mamma!
     ELLEN BLOOM (<i>In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, crinoline and bustle,
widow Twankey's blouse with  muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens
and  cameo brooch,  her  hairplaited  in a  crisping  net,  appears over the
staircase  banisters,  a slanted candlestick  in  her hand and cries out  in
shrill  alarm</i>.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done  to him! My smelling
salts! (<i>She hauls up a  reef of  skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped
blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus  Dei, a shrivelled  potato and a celluloid
doll fall out</i>.) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all, at all?
     (<i>Bloom, mumbling, his  eyes downcast, begins to  bestow his  parcels in
his filled pockets but desists, muttering</i>.)
     A VOICE (<i>Sharply</i>.) Poldy!
     BLOOM Who? (<i>He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily</i>.) At your service.
     (<i>He  looks  up.  Beside  her  mirage of datepalms  a  handsome woman in
Turkish  costume  stands  before him.  Opulent  curves fill out her  scarlet
trousers and jacket slashed with  gold. A wide yells cummerbund girdles her.
A white yashmak violet in  the night, covers her face, leaving free only her
lace dark eyes and raven hair</i>.)
     BLOOM Molly!
     MARION Welly? Mrs  Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to
me. (<i>Satirically</i>.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?
     BLOOM (<i>Shifts from foot to foot</i>.) No, no. Not the least little bit.
     (<i>He breathes in deep  agitation,  swallowing gulps  of  air  questions,
hopes,  crubeens  for  her  supper  things  to  tell  her  excuses,  desire,
spellbound.  A coin  gleams  on  her  forehead. On  her  feet  are  jewelled
toerings.  Her  ankles are  linked by a slender fetterchain.  Beside  her  a
camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits.  A silk ladder  of innumerable
rungs  climbs  to  his  bobbing  howdah.  He  ambles  near with  disgruntled
hindquarters. Fiercely she  slaps  his  haunch,  her  goldcurb  wristbangles
angriling, scolding him in Moorish</i>.)
     MARION Nebrakada! Feminimum.
     (<i>The  camel, lifting a  foreleg, plucks from a tree a lace mango fruit,
offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof then droops his head
and, grunting, with uplifted neck,  fumbles  to kneel. Bloom stoops his back
for leapfrog</i>.)
     BLOOM I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer Mrs Marion...
if you...
     MARION So  you  notice some  change? (<i>Her hands passing slowly over her
trinketed  stomacher. A  slow friendly mockery in her eyes</i>.) O Poldy, Poldy,
you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the wide world.
     BLOOM  I  was just  going back for that lotion  whitewax,  orangeflower
water. Shop closes  early on Thursday.  But the first thing in  the morning.
(<i>He pats divers pockets</i>.) This moving kidney. Ah!
     (<i>He points  to the south,  then  to the east. A cake of new clean lemon
soap arises, diffusing light and perfume</i>.)
     THE SOAP
     We're a capital couple are Bloom and I;
     He brightens the earth, I polish the sky.
     (<i>The freckled face of  Sweny, the druggist, appeals  in the disc of the
soapsun</i>.)
     SWENY Three and a penny, please.
     BLOOM Yes. For my wife, Mrs Marion. Special recipe.
     MARION (<i>Softly</i>.) Poldy!
     BLOOM Yes, ma'am?
     MARION <i>Ti trema un poco il cuore?</i>
     (<i>In disdain she  saunters  away, plump  as  a  pampered pouter  pigeon,
humming the duet from Don Giovanni</i>)
     BLOOM Are you sure about that <i>Voglio?</i> I mean the pronunciati...
     (<i>He follows, followed  by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes
his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering</i>.)
     THE BAWD Ten shillings a maidenhead.  Fresh  thing  was never  touched.
Fifteen. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.
     (<i>She points. In the  gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled Bridie
Kelly stands</i>.)
     BRIDIE Hatch street. Any good in your mind?
     (<i>With a squeak she  flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues
with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.
Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker</i>.)
     THE BAWD (<i>Her  wolfeyes shining</i>.) He's getting  his pleasure. You won't
get  a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don't  be all night before
the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.
     (<i>Leering  Gerty MacDowell limps forward. She  draws from behind ogling,
and shows coyly her bloodied clout</i>.)
     GERTY With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. (<i>She murmurs</i>.) You did
that. I hate you.
     BLOOM I? When? You're dreaming. I never saw you.
     THE BAWD Leave the gentleman  alone, you cheat. Writing  the  gentleman
false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take the
strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you.
     GERTY (<i>To Bloom</i>.)  When you saw all  the  secrets of my  bottom drawer.
(<i>She  paws his sleeve, slobbering</i>.) Dirty married man! I  love you for doing
that to me.
     (<i>She slides  away crookedly. Mrs Breen  in  man's  frieze overcoat with
loose  bellows pockets, stands in the causeway,  her roguish  eyes wideopen,
smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth</i>.)
     MRS BREEN Mr.
     BLOOM (<i>Coughs gravely</i>.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter
dated the sixteenth instant .
     MRS BREEN  Mr Bloom!  You down here in  the haunts of sin! I caught you
nicely! Scamp!
     BLOOM (<i>Hurriedly</i>.) Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think me? Don't
give  me away. Walls have hears. How  do  you do? It's ages since I.  You're
looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having this  time
of  year. Black  refracts heat. Short  cut  home here. Interesting  quarter.
Rescue of fallen women Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary...
     MRS  BREEN (<i>Holds up  a  finger</i>.) Now  don't tell  a  big  fib!  I know
somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! (<i>Slily</i>.) Account for
yourself this very minute or woe betide you!
     BLOOM (<i>Looks behind</i>.) She often said she'd like to visit. Slumming. The
exotic, you  see. Negro servants too  in  livery  if  she had money. Othello
black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even  the bones and cornerman at the Livermore
christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter.
     (<i>Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in  white duck suits, scarlet socks,
upstarched Sambo chokers and  lace  scarlet asters in their buttonholes leap
out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands  jingle the
twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they rattle through a
breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing,  back  to back, toe heel, heel
toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips</i>.)
     There's someone in the house with Dina
     There's someone in the house, I know,
     There's someone in the house with Dina
     Playing on the old banjo.
     (<i>They  whisk  black  masks  from  raw  babby  faces:  then,  chuckling,
chortling, trumming, twanging they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away</i>.)
     BLOOM (<i>With a sour  tenderish smile</i>.) A little frivol, shall we, if you
are so inclined? Would  you like  me  perhaps  to  embrace  you  just  for a
fraction of a second?
     MRS BREEN (<i>Screams gaily</i>.) O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!
     BLOOM For old sake'sake. I  only meant a square party, a mixed marriage
mingling of our different little conjugials.  You  know I  had a soft corner
for you. (<i>Gloomily</i>.) 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear gazelle.
     MRS  BREEN  Glory Alice, you do look a holy show!  Killing simply. (<i>She
puts out her hand inquisitively</i>.) What are you hiding behind your back? Tell
us, there's a dear.
     BLOOM (<i>Seizes  her wrist  with his free hand</i>.)  Josie Powell that  was,
prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking back in
a  retrospective  arrangement,  Old   Christmas  night   Georgina  Simpson's
housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin
blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this snuff box?
     MRS  BREEN  You  were  the  lion  of  the  night with  your  seriocomic
recitation  and you looked the  part. You  were  always a favourite with the
ladies.
     BLOOM  (<i>Squire  of dames, in  dinner jacket, with watered-silk facings,
blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a
prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand</i>.)  Ladies and gentlemen, I give
you Ireland, home and beauty.
     MRS BREEN The dear dead days beyond recall. Love's old sweet song.
     BLOOM  (<i>Meaningfully  dropping  his voice</i>.)  I confess I'm  teapot with
curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little  teapot at
present.
     MRS  BREEN  (<i>Gushingly</i>.) Tremendously teapot!  London's tea pot and I'm
simply teapot all  over  me.  (<i>She rubs sides  with  him</i>.) After the parlour
mystery games  and  the  crackers from  the  tree we  sat  on  the staircase
ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company.
     BLOOM  (<i>Wearing a  purple  Napoleon  hat  with an amber  halfmoon,  his
fingers and thumbs passing slowly  down to  her  soft moist meaty palm which
she surrenders gently</i>.) The witching hour of night. I took the  splinter out
of this hand, carefully, slowly. (<i>Tenderly, as he slips on her finger a ruby
ring.) Lyu ci darem la mano</i>.
     MRS  BREEN  (<i>In a onepiece  eveningfrock executed  in moonlight blue, a
tinsel  sylph's  diadem on  her  brow with her dancecard fallen  beside  her
moonblue satin slipper curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.)  Voglio e
non</i>. You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the heart.
     BLOOM When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the
beast.  I can never forgive you for  that. (<i>His clenched  fist at his brow</i>.)
Think what  it  means. All you meant  to  me then.  (<i>Hoarsely</i>.) Woman,  it's
breaking me!  (<i>Dennis Breen, whitetallhatted, with  Wisdom  Hely's  sandwich
board, shuffles  past them in cadet  slippers,  his  dull beard thrust  out,
muttering  to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall  of the
ace of spaces, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter</i>.)
     ALF BERGAN (<i>Points jeering at the sandwich boards</i>.) U.p.: Up.
     MRS BREEN (<i>To Bloom</i>.) High jinks below  stairs. (<i>She gives him the glad
eye</i>.) Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to.
     BLOOM (<i>Shocked</i>.) Molly's best friend! Could you?
     MRS BREEN  (<i>Her  pulpy tongue between her lips, offers  a pigeon kiss</i>.)
Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?
     BLOOM  (<i>Off  handedly</i>.)  Kosher.  A snack for  supper. The home without
potted  meat is  incomplete. I  was  at <i>Leah</i>. Mrs Bandman Palmer.  Trenchant
exponent  of  Shakespeare.  Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling
good place round there for pig's feet. Feel.
     (<i>Richie  Goulding, three  ladies'  hats pinned  on  his  head,  appears
weighted  to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and  Ward on which  a
skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He ins it  and  shows it
full of polonies, kippered, herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills</i>.)
     RICHIE Best value in Dub.
     (<i>Bald Pat,  bothered  beetle,  stands  on  the curbstone,  folding  his
napkin, waiting to wait</i>.)
     PAT  (<i>Advances with a tilted  dish of spillspilling  gravy</i>.) Steak  and
kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait.
     RICHIE Goodgod. Inev erate inall...
     (<i>With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by,
gores him with his flaming pronghorn</i>.)
     RICHIE (<i>With a cry of pain, his hand to his back</i>) Ah! Bright's! Lights!
     BLOOM  (<i>Points to the navvy</i>.) A  spy.  Don't  attract attention. I hate
stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.
     MRS BREEN  Humbugging and delutbering as  per usual with your  cock and
bull story.
     BLOOM I  want to tell you a little secret  about how I came to be here.
But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular reason.
     MRS BREEN (<i>All agog</i>.) O, not for worlds.
     BLOOM Let's walk on. Shall us?
     MRS BREEN Let's.
     (<i>The  bawd makes an unheeded sign.  Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen.  The
terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail</i>.)
     THE BAWD Jewman's melt!
     BLOOM (<i>In an oatmeal  sporting suit, a  sprig of woodbine in the lapel,
tony buff shirt,  shepherd's  plaid  Saint Andrew's  cross  scarftie,  white
spats,  fawn  dustcoat  on  his arm,  tawny  red  brogues,  fieldglasses  in
bandolier and a grey billycock hat</i>.) Do you remember a long long time, years
and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called  her, was  weaned when
we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?
     MRS BREEN (<i>In smart Saxe  tailormade,  white  velours  hat  and  spider
veil</i>.) Leopardstown.
     BLOOM I mean, Leopardstown. And  Molly won seven  shillings on  a three
year  old named Nevertell  and  coming home  along  by  Foxrock  in that old
fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in  your heyday then and you
had on that new  hat  of white  velours with a surround  of molefur that Mrs
Hayes advised you to buy because  it was marked down to nineteen and eleven,
a  bit of wire and  an old rag of velveteen,  and I'll lay you what you like
she did it on purpose...
     MRS BREEN She did, of course, the cat! Don't tell me! Nice adviser!
     BLOOM Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky
little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it  that  I admired  on
you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was  a pity to
kill it, you cruel creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of
a fullstop.
     MRS BREEN (<i>Squeezes his arm, simpers</i>.) Naughty cruel I was.
     BLOOM  (<i>Low, secretly, ever  more  rapidly</i>.)  And  Molly  was eating  a
sandwich  of spiced  beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's  lunch basket.  Frankly,
though she had her advisers  or admirers, I never cared  much for her style.
She was .
     MRS BREEN Too.
     BLOOM Yes.  And Molly was laughing because  Rogers  and Maggot O'Reilly
were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the
tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her
name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked  me if I ever heard
or read or knew or came across .
     MRS BREEN (<i>Eagerly</i>.) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
     (<i>She  fades  from  his side. Followed by the  whining  dog  he walks on
towards hellsgates. In an  archway a  standing woman, bent forward, her feet
apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to
a tale  which their  broken snouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. An
armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed sodden playfight</i>.)
     THE GAFFER (<i>Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout</i>.)  And when Cairns
came down from the scaffolding  in Beaver Street what was  he after doing it
into only into the bucket of  porter that was there waiting  on the shavings
for Derwan's plasterers.
     THE LOITERERS (<i>Guffaw with cleft palates</i>.) O jays!
     (<i>Their paintspeckled hats  wag. Spattered with size and lime  of  their
lodges they frisk limblessly about him</i>.)
     BLOOM  Coincidence too.  They think it funny. Anything but  that. Broad
daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.
     THE LOITERERS Jays, that's a good  one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the
men's porter.
     (<i>Bloom  passes. Cheap  whores, singly,  coupled, shawled,  dishevelled,
call from lanes, doors, corners</i>.)
     THE WHORES Are  you going far, queer fellow? How's your middle leg? Got
a match on you? Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.
     (<i>He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. >From
a  bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a  battered brazen trunk.  In
the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats</i>.)
     THE NAVVY (<i>Belching</i>.) Where's the bloody house?
     THE  SHEBEENKEEPER  Purdon  street.  Shilling  a   bottle   of   stout.
Respectable woman.
     THE NAVVY (<i>Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them</i>.) Come
on, you British army!
     PRIVATE CARR (<i>Behind his back</i>.) He aint half balmy.
     PRIVATE COMPTON (<i>LAughs</i>.) What ho!
     PRIVATE CARR (<i>To the  navvy</i>.) Portobello barracks canteen.  You ask for
Carr. Just Carr.
     THE NAVVY (<i>Shouts</i>.)
     We are the boys. Of Wexford.
     PRIVATE COMPTON Say! What price the sergeantmajor?
     PRIVATE CARR Bennett? He's my pal. I love old Bennett.
     THENAVVY (<i>Shouts</i>.)
     The galling chain.
     And free our native land.
     (<i>He staggers forward, dragging  them with him. Bloom stops,  at  fault.
The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting</i>.)
     BLOOM  Wildgoose  chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows  where they
are  gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at Westland
row. Then  jump in  first class with third  ticket. Then too far. Train with
engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or  a siding for the night or
collision. Second drink  does  it. Once is a  dose. What am  I following him
for? Still, he's  the best  of that lot. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy
Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have  met. Kismet. He'll lose that
cash. Relieving office here. Good  biz for  cheapjacks,  organs. What do  ye
lack?  Soon  got,  soon  gone.  Might  have  lost  my  life  too  with  that
mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only  for  presence of  mind.  Can't
always  save  you, though. If I  had  passed Truelock's  window that day two
minutes  later would have been  shot. Absence of body. Still if  bullet only
went  through my  coat  get damages for shock, five hundred pounds. What was
he? Kildare street club toff. God help his gamekeeper.
     (<i>He gazes ahead  reading on the wall a  scrawled chalk legend</i> Wet Dream
and <i>a phallic design</i>.)
     Odd! Molly  drawing  on  the frosted  carriagepane at Kingstown. What's
that  like?  (<i>Gaudy  dollwomen  loll  in  the  lighted  doorways, in  window
embrasures, smoking birdseye  cigarettes.  The odour  of the sicksweet  weed
floats towards him in slow round ovalling wreaths</i>.)
     THE WREATHS Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin.
     BLOOM My spine's a bit limp. Go or turn?  And this food? Eat it and get
all pigsticky. Absurd  I  am. Waste of money. One  and eightpence too  much.
(<i>The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his
tail</i>.) Strange  how they take to me. Even that brute today. Better  speak to
him first. Like women they like <i>rencontres</i>.  Stinks  like a  polecat. <i>Chacun
son gosht</i>. He might be mad.  Fido. Uncertain in his  movements.  Good fellow!
Garryowen!  (<i>The  wolfdog  sprawls  on his  back,  wriggling  obscenely with
begging  paws,  his  long  black  tongue  lolling  out</i>.)  Influence  of  his
surroundings.  Give  and  have  done  with  it.  Provided  nobody.  (<i>Calling
encouraging words he shambles back with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by
the setter into a dark stalestunk  corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to
dump the crubeen softly but holds back and feels the  trotter</i>.) Sizeable for
threepence. But then I have  it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. Why?
Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six.
     (<i>With  regret he lets  unrolled crubeen and  trotter slide. The mastiff
mauls the bundle  clumsily and  gluts himself with growling greed, crunching
the  bones. Two  raincaped  watch  approach, silent,  vigilant.  They murmur
together</i>.)
     THE WATCH Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom.
     (<i>Each lays a hand on Blooms shoulder</i>.)
     FIRST WATCH Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance.
     BLOOM (<i>Stammers</i>.) I am doing good to others.
     (<i>A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with
Banbury cakes in their beaks</i>.)
     THE GULLS Kaw kave kankury kake.
     BLOOM The friend of man. Trained by kindness.
     (<i>He points.  Bob Doran,  toppling from a high bars tool, sways over the
munching spaniel</i>.)
     BOB DORAN Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw.
     (<i>The bulldog growls,  his  scruff standing,  a gobbet  of pigs  knuckle
between  his  molars through which  rabid scrumspittle  dribbles.  Bob Doran
falls silently into an area</i>.)
     SECOND WATCH Prevention of cruelty to animals.
     BLOOM (<i>Enthusiastically</i>.) A  noble work! I  scolded  that tramdriver on
Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Bad
French I  got for my pains. Of course  it was frosty and  the last tram. All
tales of circus life are highly demoralising.
     (<i>Signor Maffei, passion pale, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs
in his shirtfront, steps forward,  holding a  circus paper hoop,  a  curling
carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the going boarhound</i>.)
     SIGNOR  MAFFEI  (<i>With  a  sinister  smile</i>.)  Ladies and  gentlemen,  my
educated  greyhound.  It was  I broke in  the bucking  broncho  Ajax with my
patent spiked  saddle for carnivores. Lash  under the  belly with a  knotted
thong.  Block tackle and a strangling pully will bring your lion to heel, no
matter  how  fractious,  even <i>Leo ferox</i> there, th