Ulysses

voice. Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I’ll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. He bends sideways and squeezes his mount’s testicles roughly, shouting. Ho! off we pop! I’ll nurse you in proper fashion. He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the, in the saddle. The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop. Florry Pulls at Bello. Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked before you. Zoe Pulling at Florry. Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress? Bloom Stifling. Can’t. Bello Well, I’m not. Wait. He holds in his breath. Curse it. Here. This bung’s about burst. He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting his features, farts loudly. Take that! He recorks himself. Yes, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters. Bloom A sweat breaking out over him. Not man. He sniffs. Woman. Bello Stands up. No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling over head and shoulders and quickly too. Bloom Shrinks. Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I tiptouch it with my nails? Bello Points to his whores. As they are now, so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille, with whalebone busk, to the diamond trimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you⁠ ⁠… Bloom A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and lace male hands and nose, leering mouth. I tried her things on only once, a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hardup I washed them to save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift. Bello Jeers. Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh! and showed off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat’s udders, in various poses of surrender, eh? Ho! Ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunk leg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne Hotel, eh? Bloom Miriam. Black. Demimondaine. Bello Guffaws. Christ Almighty, it’s too tickling, this! You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade, about to be violated by Lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell, M. P., Signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henry Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Crœsus, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. He guffaws again. Christ, wouldn’t it make a Siamese cat laugh? Bloom Her hands and features working. It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play Vice Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister’s stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful. Bello With wicked glee. Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne. Bloom Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. Earnestly. And really it’s better the position⁠ ⁠… because often I used to wet⁠ ⁠… Bello Sternly. No insubordination. The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn’t I? Do it standing, sir! I’ll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans’ you’ll find I’m a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds. The Sins of the Past In a medley of voices. He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black Church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in d’Olier Street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order? Bello Whistles loudly. Say! What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out. Be candid for once. Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny, Cassidy’s hag, blind stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other, the⁠ ⁠… Bloom Don’t ask me: Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought the half of the⁠ ⁠… I swear on my sacred oath⁠ ⁠… Bello Peremptorily. Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good