JAMES JOYCE - ULYSSES

(Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, rolled in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the Lion’s Head cliff into the purple waiting waters.)

THE DUMMYMUMMY

Bbbbblllllblblblblobschb!

(Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the Erin’s King sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the land.)

COUNCILLOR NANNETII

( alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims ) When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have …

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

( in 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 ) Passйe . 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 oщ tenons nostre йtat.

LYNCH

( calls from the hearth ) Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me.

STEPHEN

( hands Bella a coin ) Gold. She has it.