Ulysses

seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and calls, her young eyes wonderwide. Milly My! It’s Papli! But, O Papli, how old you’ve grown! Bello Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writing table where we never wrote, Aunt Hegarty’s armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. The Cuckoos’ Rest! Why not? How many women had you, say? Following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts. What, you male prostitute? Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander, O. Bloom They⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… Bello Cuttingly. Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren’s auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in the rain for art for art’s sake. They will violate the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom’s. Bloom Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return. I will prove⁠ ⁠… A Voice Swear! Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowie knife between his teeth. Bello As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You are down and out and don’t you forget it, old bean. Bloom Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody⁠ ⁠… ? He bites his thumb. Bello Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency or grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that’ll send you skipping to hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have. If you have none see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We’ll bury you in our shrubbery jakes where you’ll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers’ names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. He explodes in a loud phlegmy laugh. We’ll manure you, Mr Flower! He pipes scoffingly. Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli! Bloom Clasps his head. My will power! Memory! I have sinned! I have suff⁠ ⁠… He weeps tearlessly. Bello Sneers. Crybabby! Crocodile tears! Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to the earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, O. Mastiansky, the Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom. The Circumcised In a dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, no flowers. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. Voices Sighing. So he’s gone. Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There’s the widow. That so? Ah, yes. From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oak frame a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown art colours, descends from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews, stands over Bloom. The Yews Their leaves whispering. Sister. Our sister. Ssh. The Nymph Softly. Mortal! Kindly. Nay, dost not weepest! Bloom Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with dignity. This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit. The Nymph Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnic makers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in flesh tights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman. Useful hints to the married. Bloom Lifts a turtle head towards her lap. We have met before. On another star. The Nymph Sadly. Rubber goods. Neverrip. Brand as supplied to the aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann’s wonderful chest exuber. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. Bloom You mean Photo Bits? The Nymph I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame. Bloom Humbly kisses her long hair. Your classic curves, beautiful immortal. I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray. The Nymph During dark nights I heard your praise. Bloom Quickly. Yes, yes. You mean that I⁠ ⁠… Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of my bed or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless inoffensive vent. He sighs. ’Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage. The Nymph Her fingers in her ears. And words. They are not in my dictionary. Bloom You understood them? The Yews Ssh. The Nymph Covers her face with her hand. What have I not seen in that chamber? What must my eyes look down on? Bloom Apologetically. I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea, long ago.