ULYSSES

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 aliquantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua 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 says 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, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal Oliphant.

STEPHEN

(triumphaliter) Salvi facti sunt.

(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 scares it with a kick.)

LYNCH

So that?

STEPHEN

(looks behind) So that gesture, not music not odour, 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 Mecklenburgh 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 or wine in Omar. Hold my stick.

LYNCH

Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going?

STEPHEN

Lecherous lynx, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson, ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam.

(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.)

LYNCH

Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk.

(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 sidepocket. From Gillen’s hairdresser’s 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 convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.

At Antonio Rabaiotti’s door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)

BLOOM

Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!

(He disappears into Olhausen’s, the porkbutcher’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 ribs and groans.)

BLOOM

Stitch in my side. Why did I run?

(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset siding. The glow leaps again.)

BLOOM

What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.

(He stands at Cormack’s corner, watching.)

BLOOM

Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course. South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar’s bush. We’re safe. (he hums cheerfully) London’s burning, London’s burning! On fire, on fire! (he catches sight of the navvy lurching through the crowd at the farther side of Talbot street) I’ll miss him. Run. Quick. Better cross here.

(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)

THE URCHINS

Mind out, mister!

(Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling)

THE BELLS

Haltyaltyaltyall.

BLOOM

(halts erect, stung by a spasm) Ow!

(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.)

THE GONG

Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.