#I even piped and painted the chocolate daggers!

[ittyybittybaker]

A Rose By Any Other Name:

a Romeo and Juliet inspired mascarpone and pistachio praline filled cream puff topped with raspberry-rose panna cotta, rose shaped raspberry-rose pate de fruit, candied Sicilian pistachios, and a chocolate dagger.

Sometimes, when it's slow, we get to practice our skills at work, and this is one of those times! today i was paired with a coworker to make a buffet portion dessert for a randomly assigned theme- ours was Shakespeare and we were inspired by Romeo and Juliet! We had 24 hours to plan and 4 hours to make everything start to finish, and this is what we came up with!

Thank you @darcyshire for inspiring me to post more of my work!

[sukitaro]

The Underworld

Part 1/2:

Wading through the gleaming streetways of Kugane under it’s midnight rainfall, the hulking silhouette of Ryuki sluggishly wandering the streets of the Rakuza District nearest the Garlean Consulate. Even with the rainfall, the middle-aged Auri opted for a black Yanxian haori, hakama and zori. He was poised in his deceptive hunch, bamboo cane in hand. His head was kept down, but his focus remained forward, golden irises piercing the night from between salt and pepper hair.

The typical crowd to be expected in the Rakuza District was present, albeit in semi-smaller quantities on account of the hour. Merchant shacks and carts had closed for the evening with staff retired to the safety of their homes. Men loitered around, a majority dressed in a black kimono or haori, with little skin to be shown off. Raen Auri, Roegadyn, and Hyur were present in the masses, exchanging words in Hingan. These men likewise populated the less-visible alleyways of the Rakuza District area, performing the occasional swapping of unseen materials - in many cases, some variation of a drug. Despite the vacancy of the merchant stalls and closed teahouses or restaurants, a few establishments continued to operate, nestled in the rear alleyways, ranging from sexually illicit stores to karaoke lounges and bars. The alleyways and surrounding area were kept impeccably clean and unviolated with litter or property defacing. 

As Ryuki neared the strip of the Rakuza District nearest the Garlean Consulate, he halted at the steps of a specific karaoke lounge - in contrast to the few others that sat in the more hidden reaches, this lounge made no effort to keep out of sight. The light from within held a reddish hue, illuminating the exterior with a soft crimson glow. A man stood idly to one side of the main entrance, dressed in a floor-length black and grey yukata, a mess of chocolate hair covering his forehead. A katana was boldly sheathed at a hip, and despite the occasional patrol units of the Sekiseigumi, this potentially criminal offense was spared not more than a passing glance by roaming guards before turning to continue along their route. He casted a side-long glance towards Ryuki as he approached, holding it for a moment before dipping into a respectful bow. He turned his attention towards the streets when this had concluded.

Ryuki slowly returned the gesture, stepping into the karaoke lounge with careful footsteps. The interior of the entrance hall was exquisite, adorned with high quality Hingan sake and whiskey to break the bank of a typical visitor. Gorgeous black leather couches and seats sat neatly in the general seating area, fine porcelain wares studded in imperial-quality jade standing on display on tabletops nearby. Authentic works of Hingan and Doman art were hung along the walls, varying in styles from ukiyo-e to Yanxian landscape painting. Private karaoke rooms were layered along hallways branching from either side of the entrance hall, with all listed as ‘Unoccupied’ in Hingan kanji except for one karaoke room at a hallway end listed as ‘In Use’. Despite the lack of complete lack of patronage in the hallway or anywhere in sight, the faint scent of cigar smoke sat in the air.    

A brawny Sea Wolf Roegadyn silently tended to the bar area, organizing glasses and sanitizing what was in reach. He boasted a full suit and tie, along with polished dress shoes and a slicked back head of navy blue hair. As Ryuki made his presence known, the Roegadyn spoke up in curt Hingan, halting his cleaning to bow in the expected Eastern fashion. <”A familiar face. Good evening. How may I assist you this evening? Might I start you off with something to drink, or would you like to rent out a room?”> 

Ryuki, with his haori and hakama partially plastered down by rainwater, dipped at the waist in turn. Replying in Hingan. <”Good evening. I respectfully decline your offer. I have business with yours’.”> Maintaining an even eye contact, he made a mental note of the shotgun in the Roegadyn’s holster.

Despite the vague explanation for his arrival, the Roegadyn knitted his brows, gesturing towards one end of a hallway with an open palm. <”...I am of the assumption you understand where to go. Thank you for stopping by, Kotaro-sama.”> With a parting bow, he slowly pivoted on a heel, returning to his mindless cleaning.

The Auri man returned the gesture graciously, turning his attention towards the hallway to his left. Leading with his bamboo cane, he made his way for the peak end of the hallway where the private room marked ‘In Use’ sat. He stood before the door a moment before twisting the knob, pushing the door open and revealing a downward staircase. What began as a faint trace of smoke in the main entrance area amplified in intensity as Ryuki began his descent. Upon arrival at the base of the staircase and with further travel down another hallway, he peered up, greeted with the hanging scroll that marked the entrance of a place unknown to the masses too cowardly or blissfully unaware. Upon the scroll laid a bold daimon.

The daimon of the Takaneda-gumi.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2/2:

Stepping into the space with a gentle opening of the entrance door, Ryuki stood still with his hunch persisting. The interior space was moderately lit with Hingan lanterns along the wall, alongside various Hannya masks that seemed prepared to come alive at a moment’s notice. As was the case in the upstairs area, the space was adorned with priceless Eastern paintings, velvet crimson couches and traditional cushions and randomly placed jade statues of Eastern serpents and terrifying creatures of legend. Expensive bottles of Eastern sake and whiskey littered the tables. Of all the aspects to note, one stood out in contrast to the Eastern-lounge feel to the space -- the small number of Imperial banners that hung, showcasing the widely denounced Garlean insignia. A group of men loitered about against the walls or on sofa cushions with bottles of sake in hand. Roegadyn, Raen Auri and Hyur. In contrast to the bartender above, these men boasted some variation of a sleeveless haori or no shirt at all. A myriad of Eastern irezumi inkings coated the skin of what was visible, leaving only the face unmarked. The majority chatted idly with one another in the native tongue. A smaller cluster were huddled at a table, lost in a game of Doman Mahjong with a handsome quantity of koban on the line. The scent of smoke hung thickly, sourced collectively from lit cigars. Everyone present looked occupied in some fashion, speaking in casual Hingan without a care in the world.

That is, until Ryuki made his presence known.

The Raen man advanced into this new space with a bow, greeted with the wary side-long looks of the majority present including the group involved in the game of Doman Mahjong. Seeming overall unperturbed by the attention and sudden silence, Ryuki hardly gave the group a passing glance as he made his way for another room across the way flanked by twin Eastern serpent statues and scrolls showcasing the Takaneda-gumi daimon.

<”I am obliged to understand what you are doing here, Kotaro-san.”> A gruff voice in Hingan called out. 

Ryuki slowly peered over his shoulder, met with viciously scarred Midlander man. The accursed third ‘Garlean eye’ visible on his forehead with his mop of hair slicked back. <”My reasons for a visitation are of no concern to you, shateigashira.”> Ryuki grunted.

The Garlean Hyur canted his head. <”No concern to me? Is that the case? I speak to the man whose Clan nearly sent our operations spiraling into extinction following the liberation of your pitiful excuse for a home. You dare treat me as a chip on your shoulder, you Eorzean-sympathizing bastard?”>

<”That will be all. I pray to the Kami your oyabun will teach you respect. You are as a lawless babe, threatened by those that question your hotheaded temper. How many times must we have this interaction, Raekis-san?”> Ryuki mused, turning about half-way. <”I do understand this to be a common flaw present in the Garlean population.>”

The Garlean Hyur gnashed his teeth, reaching for a dagger nestled away. Halfway through his motion, under the squinted stare from Ryuki, he stopped. <”...We will have our day, Kotaro-san. You will find yourself a Clan patriarch, with no Clan.”> Casting a smoldering look at the door nearby, he pivoted on a heel to walk off. Likely to burn off steam.

Huffing, Ryuki approached the doorway flanked by Eastern serpents and hanging Takaneda-gumi scrolls. Remembering his mannerisms, he delivered a knock on the door. 

<”Come in, Kotaro-San.”> A low voice responded with not a moment to spare before Ryuki could get a word out. Smooth and confident.

Adjusting his haori, Ryuki pensively pushed his way into the space at the voice’s invitation. The ‘office’ was akin to a more condensed version of the underground lounge he had arrived from, with the addition of an ornate fool’s portal mounted on the wall. 

A monstrous Raen man sat comfortably on a leather chair to the rear of the office before a desk, kiseru pipe pinched between fingers. Even in comparison to Ryuki, who stood a few ilms taller than your average Auri when his hunch was lifted, this man-in-waiting was taller still by a few more ilms - almost abnormally so. He looked between 30 and 35 in age, rippling with scarred and irezumi inked muscle underneath a luxurious suit and tie. A hefty tail resembling that of a komodo dragon with a hazardous quantity of spines and jagged edges hung from the edge of his seat. A pair of cold, calculating irises bore viciously into Ryuki the moment he worked the door open, orange in color and glowing with a feral intensity. His skin was a tan caramel in shade and hair a short mess of black, spiked forward and partially shielding his right eye. A pair of ridged horns angled downward and forward from his skull like animal canines. He faced the door with legs crossed in the male fashion, tapping a pointed fingernail against his kiseru pipe as he suppressed the urge to greet his visitor with an unnerving, fanged smile. 

<”I am truly blessed this evening. Please, take a seat, Kotaro-san.”> The man gestured to the Eastern cushion purposefully placed before his desk. A power play to all who dared request an meeting.

Eying the cushion, Ryuki shook his head, bowing slowly. <”With all due respect, I would wish to stand. Takaneda no Zenkoshi.>” He spoke the man’s full name, tapping his bamboo cane into the floor.

<”You would do well to remember your place in my pecking order, Kotaro-san.”> Zenkoshi remarked with a lift of his brow, extending a finger to gesture to his guest’s bamboo cane. <”An impressive act. However, I am a man of authenticity.”> He took a generous hit of his kiseru pipe. <”Would you not agree?”>

Ryuki knitted his brows, placing his cane against the doorway and rolling his shoulders back. He stood at his full height, hunch dropping entirely. The man stood with his hands at his side, eying the crime lord warily. <”I will stand. Do me harm, and suffer the unending wrath of my people, oyabun-”>

<”Your ‘people’?”> Zenkoshi interrupted, head tilted softly to the side. <”Your people are fewer with each passing month, Kotaro-san. Your numbers…”> He trailed off, taking another puff of his kiseru pipe. <”...I can name on a hand. As you can see, I have been a busy man.”> Opening a palm and gesturing to the hideout on the outside, smiling. <”My men live as nobility. I, myself, the emperor I was destined to be.”>

<”Even with your much beloved financial masters fractured and left to wander?”> Ryuki mused, arms folded across his torso. <”The Garlean Empire is in hopeless disrepair. Soldiers and civilians have fled. Squadrons disbanded. With your funding strained, what remains of your brutish band of traffickers and petty criminals?”>

Zenkoshi chuckled darkly behind his kiseru pipe, pinning it between his elongated fangs for the moment. Speaking up. “<Petty criminals...without koban, we are stripped of potential. Although.”> He released his pipe. <”Hard times create strong men. I am apologetic on your behalf. Your Clan’s mindless vigilante days have produced a storm beyond your understanding.”> The Raen continued on with a fine squint.

 Staring at the oyabun with a stoic expression, Ryuki produced a gutteral hum from deep within his throat. <”Takaneda-sama, I implore you to move past this. I have repeatedly taken accountability for my Clan’s hotheaded actions. Dealing with your mettle is best left to the Sekiseigumi, easily enticed by koban as they are.”> He spoke with blatant distaste on his tongue. 

<”You fail to witness the deep-seated effects of your ‘glory days’.”> He pointed his kiseru pipe at the older man. <”Wrenched operation after operation bled us dry of much of our support. Even much of the Empire has learned to fear the Shinobi, it would seem.”> Zenkoshi frowned. <”I do wonder. Who remains? The patriarch...and his heiress.”> Slowing his speech as he neared the end.

<”This conflict is between you and I.>” Ryuki spoke up without a moment to spare, jamming a finger at the ground between the two. <”You and I. This occurred on my watch.”> 

Zenkoshi lifted a palm. <”Are you so lost beyond your years you forget the business in which I operate, old friend?”> Sneering. <”An heiress of so feared a Clan would fetch a fortune. Or, if this is not to your liking, she can remain here? How lonely this office can be...”> He mused, looking off to the side. <”If you wish to end this ‘bickering’ as you so graciously label it.”>

<”This is OUT of the question!”> Ryuki roared, slamming his palms atop the oyabun’s desk. <”You have enough koban and material wealth to last an eternity. I will hear NONE of this rabble.”> He hissed between clenched teeth, leaning forward to drill his reptilian gaze into the crime lord. <”I will bleed you in the dead of night.”>

In an impressive display of collectiveness, Zenkoshi remained in his seated position. He snapped his kiseru pipe with a sudden tensing up of the hand, irises ablaze with fury as his lips curled back to reveal his vicious set of teeth. <”I am going to recommend a soothing dip in the Onsen to ease that tension, Kotaro-san. Have a lovely evening. I will keep in touch.”> The man spoke with an unnatural coolness, veins popping along his neck.

Visibly shaking from a narrowly restrained anger, Ryuki lifted himself from his aggressive lean, watching the oyabun from start to finish. Wordless tension. With a pivot on his heel, he grabbed his bamboo cane, exiting the office and heading for the upstairs. Ignoring the clusters of Takaneda-gumi that had gathered following his sudden outburst.

Zenkoshi slowly laced his fingers atop his desk, leaning back with a hot exhale of breath.

<”In time.”>

[ceratonia-siliqua]

Heaven Is a City We’ve Been Priced Out Of (Ch 2)

AO3 Link 

Warnings: Possible triggers revolving around the idea of death and dying.

The knife in his lap was heavy but the man next to him was sweet. 

Bucky passed him a burger and fries, adjusted as he drove one handed out of the drive thru. The heat radiated through the wrapper, piping hot in a way only mom and pop burger joints ever seemed to achieve. Drool was pooling in his mouth as he carefully unwrapped the palm sized gift. Bucky stopped the car in the parking lot briefly to situated his own burger, foot still on the break, suggesting that he planned to eat while they drove. 

Peter was nervous but hid it as his teeth sunk into the burger. The paper crinkled and the bun greased his lips shiny. Juice squeezed out the sides, bubbling but contained as the bread soaked it up. The beef was tender but still maintained enough body to pull its own weight. The sour spiked note of the pickle and the slightly sweet harmony of the ketchup had a sigh slipping past his lips. As he pulled away, strands of cheese followed, keeping him connected. Licking his lips, he wiped away the mess but immediately dove in for more. Eyes slipping shut, he hummed as his first warm meal in months settled like a soft ember in his stomach, warmed up from the inside out. In his blissed out state, the eyes watching him went unnoticed, their normal daggers softened by the scene, allowing them to slip by. 

The burger disappeared quickly, the rest of the meal quick to follow suit. As Peter leaned back he took a deep breath. Food had been too scarce for too long, his stomach pushed at his lungs from the volume of the meal. It ached but he’d take it over the familiar knaw of hunger. The car had started moving once more at some point in his meal. He watched as the city bled to suburbs then farmland. Didn’t take more than a half an hour on the freeway to reach rural stretches. Was strange to think about all those bodies jammed into the tent city when so much land lay just outside. 

The drive was quiet, the hum of the radio tuned to a 40s channel filled the cab. Peter rolled the closed knife between his palms, mindless and simply needing to fidget. Nearly jumped out of his skin when Bucky spoke.

“Almost home.”

“Oh,” The sound quiet and just before he turned to look at Bucky. 

Bucky was handsome, it was hard not to stare and Peter was certainly doing so. The short beard, the long hair peeking out from under his cap. Strong jaw and a frame so large he made Peter look like a child in comparison. A part of him wanted to reach out and touch him, assure himself that Bucky was real, that this wasn’t a cruel dream. 

“You okay there, sweetheart?” Bucky didn’t take his eyes off the road. 

Peter wished he could sink into the seat, snapped his head forward and pretended he hadn’t been blatantly looking up the man next to him. “Yeah… just making sure you aren’t gonna vanish into thin air.” Bit his tongue, hard. 

Bucky was silent. Peter jumped when a hand gently touched his elbow. “I’m not going anywhere, darling.”

Peter ignored the safety of that phrase, the way it pulled at his ribs. It was too intimate, too much of a promise from someone he’d just met. He wanted to trust Bucky so badly. Knew that this drive could well be his last. At some point though… why not just let it happen? He was dying. He could feel it. His body moments away from vanishing into dust. At least here, if Bucky killed him he would have a full belly. He would have lived the last hours of his life with some shreds of tenderness. Easier to die fighting than to roll over and let his body waste away.

Even with the knife, Bucky could still hurt him. The man was a mountain and Peter a finch. Still, the knife was a promise. An oath. Maybe Peter was naïve for buying into it but he’d lived his life on faith too long to jump ship now. 

They pulled up to a farmhouse. Startlingly rustic and was hard to put with Bucky’s city attire and accent. It was dark, but he could make out soft russet siding, a roof traditional of the housing style in brown. It was charming, didn’t read as a murder den but then he doubted most of them did. 

He was pulled from his thoughts as Bucky stepped out of the car. 

“Need help gettin’ out?” Bucky leaned in through the open door way of the driver’s side. 

“I think I can manage.” It was harder for him to lower himself with the way his hip had been injured, it locked at a fairly shallow angle and sitting was more often a semi controlled fall unless he was on his knees first and then turned. Standing on the other hand was easier. There were still hiccups, his joints would creak and pop in protest but he would make it. Did make it as he braced himself on the door frame once he’d swung it open. The sound of Bucky’s door closing behind him and the crunch of gravel suggested Bucky was coming around. 

It was a moment he was left completely open. The knife was resting in his pocket so he could stand and his slowed rise left him vulnerable. Yet, Bucky came around and leaned on the door frame next to him, letting him take the time he needed. Didn’t touch him or pressure him in any form, and fuck, if it wasn’t just another point in Bucky’s favor. Too many times others would ignore his need for some level of independence. The things he could do, no matter how hard, were important to him. He may have needed Bucky’s help sitting but Bucky refraining from forcing his assistance on Peter was more than most would give him. 

Bucky walked behind Peter as they started towards the house, a nearby field of mint spicing the air. The house loomed, tall and dark. It promised something, whether it was good or something which would spell his end was uncertain. He stuck his hands in his pockets, ran his left one over the handle of the folded blade, had to take the right side railing in order to keep holding on to the knife. Bucky rounded in front of him once they were on the porch, unlocked the door and flipped on the lights as he went in. The honey toned lights made the door just welcoming enough to encourage Peter through. 

The interior of Bucky’s home gave off an energy that could only be described as sturdy. Everything from the armchair to the coffee table was made of solid oak and dark twisted iron. It made each piece look capable, like the mountain that used them was no more a burden than a feather. The walls were covered in a cream colored wallpaper, their edges not quite laid correctly and overlapping. It was endearing, suggested that it had been done by an occupant rather than a professional, a personal touch. 

“The shower is down that hallway, second door on the left. I’ll bring you some fresh clothes just leave yours outside the door.” Bucky pointed to a hallway that ran off to the right towards the middle of the room, separated the living room and what appeared to be a small dining room. 

“Okay,” A hint of uncertainty leaking into his tone as he turned down the dark hall, almost jumped when the light turned on. He glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Bucky’s arm disappearing behind the wall, presumably having turned on the light for him. Peter caught himself smiling at the detail. 

The bathroom was painted a rich chocolate brown, it felt homely and warm and Peter honestly loved it. The clawfoot tub called his name, he could see himself spending a lazy fall night in it. Was quick to shunt that idea out of his head, reminded himself that this was temporary and only for the night. He was only supposed to shower, not dirty the white porcelain. He ignored the tub and went about figuring out the shower. The two knobs were unlabeled, worn away by time and use. It took nearly burning himself to figure out which was which. 

 Peter stripped himself bare, stared at the ratty jeans and the band t-shirt so faded that the design was nothing more than a shadow. Most embarrassing was his underwear. Plain blue boxer briefs with holes ripped below the elastic, so stretched out that it barely stayed on his hips. There was a large stain on the front, an old blood patch from when a man had been beaten and Peter’s desperate attempts to help ended with him covered in blood and most of his clothes taken as evidence by the police. His outfit was pitiful, no wonder Bucky had suggested a shower. Between the clothes and the layer of grime he must have looked like an orphan child from a Charles Dickens novel.

Being naked in a stranger’s house was nothing short of strange, even for something as innocent as a shower. That was until the shower washed away everything but positive, floaty thoughts and feelings. The stall had glass that had been fogged in such a way that it almost looked like a wall of opalescent stones, all carefully pieces together until no gaps remained. The tile was a shade of pink so light that Peter wasn’t quite sure it wasn’t merely a trick of the light. He felt near boneless under the spray and started to wonder if this is what a shower in heaven would look like. The hot water seemed to pull all the impurities, physical or not, from his body. Ushered them down the drain as black, torrid ink. 

The knock on the door was unwelcome but expected. Bucky let himself in. Peter watched as a black shadow moved just behind the door. Like an evil spirit, a demon, just beyond the gates of heaven. Or an angel arriving home. 

“I got you a pair of shorts and a tshirt. The shorts are too small for me. They’ll still probably be a bit big for you but at least you won’t drown in these. Plus the shirt will cover anything the shorts don’t catch,” Bucky broke the silence, shuffling around. “I’ll-“ Bucky fell quiet, something in the air… shifted. 

“What were you saying?” Peter pulled himself under the spray, trying to ward off the chilling aura.

“Peter,” The way Bucky said his name, it was painfully gentle. “Why is there blood on your clothes?” A barely contained bite to the edge of the comment, still sharp but not cutting. 

Peter feared Bucky believed him to be harming others, didn’t know how to explain that body fluids, blood and urine especially, were common on the streets. “The big one on my underwear is from trying to help someone who was injured. It happened about a year ago.” Hoped that was enough, didn’t want to relive that moment.

It was as if the very house itself sighed. As quickly as the tension came it fled. Ran to opposite corners of the house and out windows, through walls. Peter didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath.

“That's fine then. I was worried you’d gotten hurt. I’ll get you some boxers.” 

“Oh you don’t have to-“ Bucky was already gone. Left Peter to shower a minute more before he returned and left the boxers without much fanfare. Once again Peter was left to his own devices. He finished off by scrubbing out his hair, used a small amount no bigger than a quarter of the shampoo and conditioner. Wondered if his curls would come in full force now that they weren’t weighed down by dirt and oil. 

He turned the water off and toweled down as best he could. He picked up the boxers, just a simple black pair that was certainly too big for him but the elastic had a shot of at least holding onto his bony hips. He’d worn other people’s clothes before but not their underwear. It was clearly clean, but some part of his brain kept pinging that detail. It was either this or going commando though and Peter was far more opposed to the latter. He put them on along with the shorts and shirt. The shorts reached down to his calves and needed to be tied up snug to stay on but they worked. The shirt was a plain black and fell just above his knees. It forced Peter once again to acknowledge the vast size difference between them. Peter was having a hard time believing just how big Bucky was. He could see it clearly with his own two eyes and it still didn’t seem like it was possible for someone to be as tall and densely muscled as Bucky. Bucky’s body wasn’t for show, it was built for strength. His muscles weren’t disproportionate and veiny like a body builder’s. Instead, he came off more as a wall, sturdy and capable.

His old clothes were gone, swept away and likely beyond salvaging. He hoped Bucky sent him off with something to cover up with tomorrow before taking him back to the city. He was about to leave the bathroom when he noticed the obsidian knife resting on the counter. Bucky had removed it from his pants and set it back out for him. Peter picked it up, amazed by the dedication to trying to make Peter feel safe. His only defense could have easily been swept away without him noticing or thinking about it until it was too late. He almost wanted to leave it behind, show Bucky he trusted hi-

A knock at the door. “Peter, I’m making hot cocoa, want some?” Slightly muffled by the slab of wood between them. 

Peter opened the door wide. Taken aback by the tender look Bucky gives him. Watched it fall back to something more neutral, friendly. Stuttered as he spoke. “I-uh yea-, sure.” God, he hoped he could sink into the floor. 

Bucky smiled, affection already having found a home in the looks he gave Peter. “Alright sweetheart, follow me and we’ll whip something up.”

Peter obeyed, the knife forgotten as he was drawn away by Bucky’s gentle demeanor. The kitchen Bucky took him to was new. All the appliances were up to date, cabinets still holding the sheen of new paint, new tile and countertops. It was modern compared to the usual set up for the style of house. A rack hung above an island that copper pots and pans hung from, chained to the ceiling by black iron hooks. The kitchen island was topped with wood, making it into a giant cutting board if one wished to use it that way. Two wooden stools were tucked under it. Bucky pulled one of them out for Peter to sit on as he went to the stove, a pot of steaming milk already resting there. There were two mugs set out filled with mix. One cup was bigger than the other, meant for hands much larger than Peter’s. Bucky poured the steaming milk into each, stuck a spoon in both and stirred. Just as Peter thought, Bucky took the larger mug. It looked normal in his hands, just another coffee mug. 

“Here you go, doll.” Bucky set the other one in front of him. 

“Thank you,” Peter took a sip, was surprised by how rich it was. Drank more, doing his best not to burn his mouth in the process. The whole cup gone in under a minute. 

Bucky chuckled, still nursing his own cup and pulling up the stool next to Peter. “Good?”

Peter let out a small gasp as he came up for air. Set the now empty cup on the island. “Really good. What brand was that?” 

Bucky hummed, sipped from his cup before answering. “I made the blend myself. Found most places didn’t make it the way I wanted it so I took matters into my own hands.”

“Wow, well you did a really good job. It was delicious.” 

He practically beamed. “Thank you, Peter.”

Peter nearly choked on his own spit, gave a few hardy coughs as Bucky reached over and thumped on his back. Felt dumb for it. Choked just because Bucky had said his name. 

“Don’t die on me now,” Teasing but concerned. “Like you alive a little too much for that.”

“I’m-” A round of coughs. “-okay.” He croaked out. 

“Mhm.” Bucky set his cup down and stood up. He took Peter’s mug to the sink, rinsed it, and filled it with water before handing it back to Peter. “Here.”

Peter took the water, sipped until the tingling passed and powered through the coughs that came in between. He was tired, didn’t know if it was the coughing or something else but he felt it now. Maybe it had been there for awhile, something he was just now noticing. 

“You look a bit tired.” 

He nodded, rubbed one eye and shook his head out like a dog, trying to ward off the sensation. 

“Why don’t we get you set up in the guest bedroom.” Bucky stood up. “Follow me.” Bucky abandoned his cup as he started walking. Peter slipped off the stool and followed behind. 

The rest of the house felt… cool. Like a house with it’s blinds closed on a hot summer day. It was an opposite comfort to the way a warm house felt. The crisp chill made him feel comfortable in his skin, like it wasn’t drawn tight by heat and anxiety. 

Bucky led him up the stairs, was patient as Peter took his time getting up. It didn’t hurt but it was something he needed to take his time on. Once at the top he was guided down the stretch of hall. It was only four doors. All were closed except the bathroom, which Bucky pointed out as they went. At the end of the hallway were two doors next to each other, the small line of wall between them indented and creating a sort of ‘Y’ look. Bucky pointed to the door on the left. 

“That one is my room,” He switched to the door on the right. “That one is yours.” Reached out and opened the door to reveal a room painted a mid-toned blue. Deep blue curtains covered the windows and that same coolness was present in this room. The bed was a full size, had a cozy looking quilt all laid out across it. The quilt was a deep maroon, contrasting the color theme of the room. There was a nightstand with a lamp and a dresser off next to the window. The walls had pictures of the ocean on them. Peter was sensing a theme. 

“If you need anything just come get me. If you can’t get out of bed for some reason knock on the wall. I’ll be able to hear you since the rooms share the one the bed is against.”

“Okay, thank you Bucky.” Peter looked at him, tried to convey just how important, how meaningful this was through his gaze and simple words. 

“Of course, Peter.” One of those massive hands reached out towards him and cupped his cheek gently. Peter nearly crumbled into pieces. “Anything you need, anytime. Just say the word.”

Peter refused to tear up, gave one firm nod before Bucky pulled away to let him lay down. He wanted to follow, didn’t want Bucky to go but stayed where he was. Watched as Bucky disappeared, closing the door with a click!

He crawled into bed without much fanfare. Curled up under the covers and sighed as the long forgotten feeling of clean sheets slid across his skin, drawing him down into the lazy waves of sleep. Dreamed of grey eyes and trust and warm chocolate and longing. Got to experience more of those precious human comforts. 

In the end, it was nothing more than a precursory apology for what was to come as Peter woke up in a sea of his own unending vomit.

[fddarchive]

Digimon from Esse’s Digimon Adoptions!

Abysmon: Meet Absymon! This digimon is one of my faves. Absymon is really friendly, but a serious and strong fighter. Since he's so powerful, he can take on Champions and beat them too. Depending on their size of course. Absymon is a pretty big digimon, he's approximately the size of Guilmon, only a little bigger. If you adopt him, you'll have to find him a place to hide that is big enough. You'll have to find him a place with soft soil because he loves to dig. Unfortunately, Absymon is kinda clumsy but he's worth adopting do to his loyalty and strenght. He has an uncontrollable craving for chocolate and needs a lot of it before and after a fight so he can energize. Chocolate is after all a strong source of energy. Oddly enough, this digimon is a fan of television and has got a passion for Sabrina the Teenage Witch...he's got this thing for Salem the cat. Finally, Absymon has a little scottish accent :D! His former tamer was scottish. Think you can handle this digimon??? General Information Name: Absymon Type: Spiked Lizard Digimon Attribute: Data Attacks: Fire Spit and Spike Spin Absymon's Attack Absymon's main attack is called Fire Spit. In this attack, he regurgitates fire balls from his mouth and spits them at his enemies. He can spit 3 fire balls per second!!!!! Plus, his fireballs can go on and on until it hits its target, like tiny little fiery torpedos. Also, they are very, but very hot. If I were you, I wouldn't want to stand in Absymon's Fire Spit attack... “

Alambromon: Meet Alambromon!  Alambromon is a great companion. He is willing to do anything you ask of him. He is extremely friendly and won't attack unless his is asked or has to. He's also a goof ball and can act very silly at times; he loves a good tummy scratch. General Information Name: Alambromon Level: Rookie Type: Cheetah Warrior Attribute: Data Attack: Iron Desolation Alambromon's Attacks: The chain around him seems to grow a live of its own, the chain grows a large spiked ball at the end of it, and then swings itself at enemies. Alambromon's large feet  also provide him with another good attack.

Amphitilomon: Meet Amphitilomon! his description is amazing! Amf (his nickname) is a very loyal friend. With the ability to move better than in his previous forms, Amphitilomon is a very stealthy and very powerful fighter. At this point, Amf is very productive of the person he has "bonded" with when he was a Dusumon. Loyal and hard working, Amf will literally go through fire to help. But he can be a bit moody when it comes to someone being mean. He truly reflects a person's true feelings when it comes to a person's side of compassion and anger towards the evils of the world. Because of this, he will usually speak his mind and might be rude about it, but he does it because he is caring. He loves to swim and explore. His main habitat is a jungle or a swamp, but he has been known to live in the mountains and in the dessert! Other info. about him is he can still see in the dark, but he can now also inflate himself to float on the water! Not to mention he can hold water for a good couple of days, thus his ability to live in the desert. General Information Name: Amphitilomon Type: Reptile Digimon Attribute: Data Attack: Pool Rings, Swamp Gas, and Whirlpool. Amphitilomon's Attacks: Swamp Breath- This attack works as followed. Amf's (his nickname) eyes will turn a pure white, glowing eeirily. When his eyes change, this means he is ready to battle. Amf will then open his mouth and breathe in. As he breathes in and collects the air in his massive lungs, he will look like he has gained alot of weight. Like a frog's throat when he breathes in, his body can exspand in order to take in the air. Once the air is in his lungs, two small sacks (which are attached to the lungs) will release a toxin (that the sacks produce) into the lungs. The toxin will mix with the air and create a greenish-brown colored air. Once the air and toxins are mixed, Amf will release the mixture through his mouth. The mixature will come up through the throat in a large round ball but when passed by the teeth form five spear-like. Because the air is usually hotter on the inside of Amf than outside of Amf (even in deserts), they will turn hard and become real spears (covered in toxins). The spears can also be formed into one massive dagger when Amf's mouth is formed in an "O" shape. When the dagger or spears pierce the enemy, the toxins seep into the body and cause their data to be "corrupt." Meaning they will experiene signs of ickness: weakness, dizziness, etc. The effects are only limited and depending on the type of monster (like Champion) can last for days or hours. It all depends on the monster and how much of the toxins used.

Asharimon: Meet Asharimon!  Asharimon is an extremely sweet Digimon, who is also sensible and rarely argues.  When she gets mad, though...you'd better run because this sweet little cream puff can turn sour very easily! This digimon is not a flying digimon unfortunately, she may have wings but they cannot support her in flight, they can only allow her to float. General Information Name: Asharimon Type: Beast Digimon Attribute: Vaccine Attack: Bubble Shield, Blazing Streak Attacks: Bubble Shield(she uses this to put bubbles around herself or whatever she's protecting..it hit hard though, they shatter) & Blazing Streak.  To do this, Asharimon's tail starts to glow silver. Once it brightens enough, her tail whips around and a large blast of light hits her enemy, stunning them.

Atlantimon: Meet Atlantimon, Atlantimon is sensible, and doesn't like to go into battle unless she sees that it is the only way out of it, which makes it really friendly. Atlantimon is a cat digimon, like gatomon, but a bit smaller, in a way, Atlantimon resembles a common house cat, unlike the house cat however, Atlantimon is often seen roaming around looking for something to do. If you leave it alone for very long, you will come back to find it reading something. It is very fond of round things, so if you're it's partner you should have a lot of round things for it. The yo-yo is the best toy for it. Despite all of this, Atlantimon is very loyal, and would never betray it's friends. If you want to tame Atlantimon, you must also tame her sister Valenciamon! General Information Name: Atlantimon Type: Angelic Cat Digimon Attribute: Vaccine Attacks: Glittering glass shard, Steel claw and relfection Atlantimon's attack is very special.  It's called "Reflection". What happens, is that Atlantimon creates a double. But this double is more powerful than she and much more let say...evil. To fight an opponent, it's twice the power. Plus, if you throw Valenciamon along it's a hell of a trio! 

Automon: Meet Automon!  Automon is by far, the weirdest digimon I ever had to draw... I suck at cars also so bear with me here. He's a very nice digimon, one can get attached to him very easily. He's very playful and loves digi battles. He hates to be left alone and ignored, this upsets him greatly. General Information: Name: Automon Type: Vehicle Digimon Attribute: Data Attack: Exhaust Blow Automon's Attack He blows exhaust from his mouth (and tail pipe) which can be very poisoning and hurts the eyes.

Avalenmon: Meet Avalenmon! An original idea of mine. And as you can see he was done with "paint" and not adobe this time. Avalenmon is a digimon who lives in caverns. He travels in underground tunnels and in the sewers at times. If you want to become his tamer, you'll have to be willing to get a little dirty cause he will drag you through very messy places. He is an excellent swimmer due to his leathery body suit and skin. His suit protects him from harm also. General Information: Name: Avalenmon Type: Beast Digimon Attribute: Virus Attack: Ava Bomb Avalenmon's attack: He curls up into a ball on the ground and lifts his tail up in the air. The little ball at the end of his tail explodes and the spikes get thrown at the enemy with an amazing speed and force.

Batmon: Meet Batmon! He's so far the only mean Digimon in the agency!! He was caught terrorizing alley cats when I found him. He doesn't want a partner, in fact, he loathes all humans and despises the idea of serving tamers. He's going to try to run away as much as he can if you adopt him. That's why you'll have to try to bond with him right away. If you're an outlaw, he'll like you right away for sure! If not, well it may take a while. Batmon only goes out at night since he hates the light of day. He can go out in the daylight but hates it with a passion. Is there a positive side to this digimon? Yea there is, once you bond with him, he'll have respect for you for the rest of his life. You'll have to do something big for him but it sure is worth it. Wanna adopt a rebellious digimon? Adopt Batmon! General Information: Name: Batmon Type: Beast Digimon Attribute: Virus Attack: Shriek Batmon's Attack Batmon's attack is called Shriek. His attack is simply soundwaves coming from his mouth. Really strong and strident. It has a huge impact on insect type digimon. You know like Arukenimon, she could control both Digmon and Stingmon only with the sound of her flute. Well with Shriek, Batmon can control insect Digimon. It has an effect on other types too but not in the same way. It simply hurts their ears. Batmon hates to fight digimon that aren’t insect types. The ones he hates most are "godly" digimons.

Bidionmon: Meet Bidionmon! Basically, he is a total goofball, and never takes anything seriously, he jokes around a lot and sometimes can even be considered stupid or distracted. General Information: Name: Bidionmon Type: Beast Digimon Attribute: Vaccine Attack: Flaming Needles Bidionmon's Attack he bends down and fires razor sharp needles on fire...ouch

[ulyssesredux]

Circe

(After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Nods, smiling desirously, twirling his thumbs, he had seen that summer eve from the bench, stonebearded. Rocking to and fro in sign of past master, drawing him by the wailing wall. Their lawnmowers purring with a crack. It rains dragons' teeth. He applies his handkerchief to his voice. The crowd disperses slowly, moaning desperately. —The-box head of winsome curls was never seen on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by the sniffing terrier. He fumbles again and takes his hand to her coil. They hold and pinion Bloom.)

THE CALLS: And free our native land.

THE ANSWERS: Good!

(Both salute with fierce hostility. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. Shrill.)

THE CHILDREN: … You're a liar, excuse me … the gentleman paid down like a gentleman … drink … it's long after eleven. Hello.

THE IDIOT: (Their leaves whispering.) Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

THE CHILDREN: Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

THE IDIOT: (A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) Grhahute!

(Stephen seizes Florry and Kitty and Zoe Higgins, a jarring lighting effect, or sphinx with a kick. Zoe, Florry and Bella push the table. Their bodies plunge. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their plutocratic order of precedence, the lord mayor of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, chiefly ladies. Her voice soaring higher. The freedom of the reflections of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the sideseat sways his head. Quickly. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the following darkness, ruin of all Ireland, under the bright arclamp. He sings. He uncorks himself behind: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they scatter slowly. Sings. Runs to lynch. A card falls from inside her huge opossum muff. He clutches her veil. Seated, smiles superciliously on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the chandelier. With rollicking humour: O, won't we have a merry time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished.)

CISSY CAFFREY: Cissy's your girl.

(Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms, then at Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, his nose thickens. Pandemonium. Neighs. Blushes furiously all over him He sniffs.)

THE VIRAGO: Must be virgin. It has been said by one: beware the left, the king of all Frillies, pray for us.

CISSY CAFFREY: She has it, the leg of the duck, the leg of the duck, the leg of the duck. They're going to fight.

(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom.) And me with a soldier friend.

(On the doorstep all the nose, tumbles in somersaults through the fringe. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Sternly.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Peering at bloom's palm.) Bugger off, Harry.

PRIVATE CARR: (Excitedly.) I'll insult him.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Smells gleefully.) No, I was with the soldiers and they left me to do—you know, and we could not answer coherently.

(The aurora borealis of the damp nitrous cover. A dog barks in the vilest quarter of the poker. Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand She points.)

STEPHEN: Who? Raw head and bloody bones.

(Subdued. With elaborate gestures, breathing quickly.)

THE BAWD: (Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he bends to him.) He gave him the coward's blow. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the impious collection in the flash houses. Leave the gentleman false letters. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

STEPHEN: (Growls gruffly.) And sovereign Lord of all, the structural rhythm.

THE BAWD: (He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and an old pair of grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with a kick of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the other, the grave-robbing.) Up the soldiers! There's no-one in the flash houses. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

(Suffered untold misery. Weak squeaks of laughter.)

EDY BOARDMAN: (Behind his back.) Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I fear, even madness—for too much. Keep our flag flying! Lei rovina tutto. Five guineas a jugular. Weda seca whokilla farst. Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! Ho, boy! My painful duty has now been done.

STEPHEN: (Raises the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.) He wants my money and my life, though crushed in places by the jaws of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, the bells in heaven were striking eleven.

(Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the king. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Zoe Higgins, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the affectionate surroundings of the Kildare Street Museum appears, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory with crossed arms, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell. A male cough and tread are heard passing through the hall hang a man roar, mutter, cease.)

LYNCH: Where are we going?

STEPHEN: (He plucks his lutestrings.) Where's the third person of the unknown, we proceeded to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground.

LYNCH: Here. Pandybat.

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

LYNCH: Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

STEPHEN: Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and became as worried as I. Pas seul!

LYNCH: Three wise virgins. So at last I stood again in the water.

STEPHEN: … The woods … white breast … dim sea.

(The twins scuttle off in the attitude of most excellent master. Bloom's head.)

LYNCH: Illustrate thou. Give her your blessing for me. I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance. Kitty! Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the kingly dead, and we could not shiver and shake.

(Eagerly. Dwarfs ride them, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the lampset siding. Coughs gravely. Warding off a blow. Time's livid final flame leaps and, gazing in the ancient house on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his head going back till both hands are a span from his eyes an instant. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, riderless, bolts like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. Stiffly, her forefinger in her weeds, her plaited hair in a purely domestic animal. His throat twitches.)

(With wicked glee. Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his spine, stumps forward. Docile, gurgles. A merry twinkle in his armpits and his palms outspread. Hi! Warding off a blow of my inevitable doom. Mary Driscoll, a quill between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Rushes to the car brought up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for … She claps her hands. Shakes hands with Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters, as the victims of some gigantic hound.)

(Dejected With sudden fervour. General applause. A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a black sheep, if he might say so, he glides to the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the folds of Bloom's haunches Loudly. Clapping her belly sinks back on the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, appears over the clean white skull and crossbones are painted in white sheepskin overcoats and black striped suit, too, as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is pulled away.)

BLOOM: All he could not be sure. Hundred pounds. What?

(With rollicking humour. Lifts a turtle head towards her lap. She prays. Two cyclists, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his tongue outlolling, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with her. Runs to lynch.)

BLOOM: When you come out without your gun. Let me off this once.

(He carries a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes. Draws back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his hat from side to side, shrinking, joins his hands: with carping accent. Last in a purely sisterly way and return to England, strange things began to happen.)

BLOOM: Think what it means. A bit sprung. That is so.

(Lamentations.)

BLOOM: Calls for more effort. I am. The stye I dislike. Fare. The home without potted meat is incomplete. There's a medium in all things. I tried her things on only twice, a jolting car, the horrible shadows, the salt of the earth, known the world.

(With a voice of Adonai calls.) Bad luck. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I know.

(In the grate.) Hynes, may I speak to him first. I did all a white man could. The demon possessed me. O, I never saw you.

(Her hands and features working. The car jingles tooraloom round the whowhat brawlaltogether. Rocking to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.)

THE URCHINS: Are you going to win?

(The air is perfumed with essences.)

THE BELLS: Dublin's burning!

BLOOM: (Hides the crubeen and trotter slide.) Yes.

(Gazes on her robe She clutches again in his left hand grasps a huge rooster hatching in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the face. Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he gives the sign of past master, drawing him by Joseph Glynn. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all the counties of Ireland, His Grace, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands irresolute. Waves the crowd and lurches towards the watch, John Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of his stomach.)

THE GONG: Me.

(Both are masked with Matthew Arnold's face. The motorman, thrown forward, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his stirring address to the fireplace. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch. Hands Bella a coin.)

THE MOTORMAN: I know not how much later, I bade the knocker enter, but as we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, was the oddly conventionalized figure of a thinker.

BLOOM: (She darts back to the bishop of Down and Connor, with reluctance. Laughs, pointing his thumb.) Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Not in full possession of faculties. When? Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. Yes, ma'am?

(His left hand, leading a black shape obscure one of the past week.) That's for the chimney. When you made your present choice they said it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, a thing with a semi-canine face, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Slan leath. Collide. Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the grave-earth until I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a crouching winged hound, and in the head. Sir Bob, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. Are you sure about that voglio? What? Mosenthal. Relieving office here. Ja, ich weiss, papachi. Constable, take his regimental number. Exuberant female. So at last I stood again in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the amulet. Cursed dog I met. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend. She climbed their crooked tree and I knew not; but I felt it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at our public life! Or because not? Gulls.

(To Bloom He crows derisively.) And Molly won seven shillings on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered. Molly's best friend! Good night. Unmentionable. Done. All you meant to me.

(Far out in the gilt mirror over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and shows coyly her bloodied clout. I saw on the stone of destiny. In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and kimono gown.)

BLOOM: University of life.

THE FIGURE: (Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the track.) And is that possible? Are you of the kine!

BLOOM: Weep not for me now before worse happens. Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Powerful being. We're safe.

(Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a rope slung between two railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in the air.) I met.

(Tries to move off with slow heavy tread. It is of this sole means of salvation. In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, waspwaisted, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. In his buttonhole, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.)

BLOOM: Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the mingling odours of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

(Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from a small piece of green jade, I shut my eyes and raven hair.)

BLOOM: Naturally. My old chief Joe Cuffe. And as I approached the ancient grave I had a liquor together and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a distant corner; the antique church, the promised land of our different little conjugials. No, in the night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their phantom ship of finance …. Ten shillings! The rabble were in your heyday then and you had on that living altar where the tide ebbs … and flows …. There was no one in the sum of five pounds. So may the Creator deal with me now.

(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, yelling. She cuffs them on, her forefinger giving to his lips.)

BLOOM: You fee mendancers on the searocks, a small prank, in Sandycove, I say, look at our public life!

(Bronze by gold they whisper. Bends her head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a ghastly lewd smile. Bloom's hat. They grab at each other and spit Barking.)

BLOOM: Then lie back to rest. Again! Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Better cross here.

(Her lucky hand instantly saving him. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, appears in the evening of his nose hardhumped, his hands stuck deep in his hand, sits perched on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the letters which he opens. A liver and white spaniel on the mountains. Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with humid nostrils through the sump. He sneezes.)

RUDOLPH: Once! Have you no soul? Lockjaw.

BLOOM: (He dangles a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a hoarse croak.) To breathe.

RUDOLPH: Lockjaw. Lockjaw.

(The assistants leap at the top of a bed are heard passing through the crowd, plucks from a ladder.) Mud head to foot. Mud head to foot.

BLOOM: (A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming.) Mosenthal. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the old manor-house on a three year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that ancient churchyard, and in the museum. What do you do?

RUDOLPH: (Handing her coins.) So you catch no money. You watch them chaps.

BLOOM: (Loudly.) I bet she's a bonny lassie. I did all a white man could.

RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? Have you no soul? So you catch no money. Nice spectacles for your poor mother! All he could not answer coherently.

BLOOM: (At the corner.) Stephen! Shy but willing like an ass pissing. Mr V.B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin society.

RUDOLPH: (Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of the past in a crispine net, appears in the corridor.) Lockjaw. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben.

BLOOM: Show!

ELLEN BLOOM: (She gives him the next day away from Holland to our home, we were troubled by what we read.) Ssh! Best value in Dub.

(Laughs mockingly. A sunburst appears in the corridor.) Mac Somebody.

(Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads lowered in assent. The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)

A VOICE: (Promptly.) As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the gods.

BLOOM: What do ye lack?

(The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when at long last in sight of the tooraloom lane.) This is yours.

(Goaded, buttocksmothered. A large moist stain appears on the drawn face. A hand to her smiling and laughing. Points downwards slowly. In disdain she saunters away, plump as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, a smoking buttered split scone in his issuing bowels with both hands. A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a white fleshflower of vaccination.)

BLOOM: Subject, what do you lack with your barbed wire?

MARION: I'll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though branded as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni.) Ti trema un poco il cuore?

BLOOM: (Stephen shakes his head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a charnel fever like our own.) Force of habit. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the right.

(Children. Peering at bloom's palm. He crows with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a secret room, his head in a charter. The beagle lifts his ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium. Stephen. Bloom's upturned face, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. Bloom. Hands him all his coins. The sound of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her lover and calls.)

MARION: Welly? Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(Masculinely. Gallop of hoofs. Lynch puts on a crimson cushion, are reported.)

BLOOM: Stinks like a tramline in Gibraltar?

MARION: Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.

(Laughs He laughs.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John must soon befall me. See the wide world. See the wide world.

BLOOM: Yes. When you come out without your gun. Near the end, remembering king David and the last thing at night would benefit your complexion.

(He corantos by.) The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their time, years and years ago. Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.

(A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a woman screams: a brass poker. Turns and calls to Stephen.)

THE SOAP: Most of us thought as much. There's someone in the forbidden Necronomicon of the damp nitrous cover. 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind.

(With sinews semiflexed. A hoarse virago retorts.)

SWENY: An eightday licence for my new premises.

BLOOM: Negro servants in a cog. Press nightmare. Messrs Callan, Coleman. Calls for more effort.

MARION: (Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.) Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.

BLOOM: A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion.

MARION: Welly?

(Folded akimbo against her waist. To Bloom He crows with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts the curled caterpillar on his breast bright with medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds.)

BLOOM: Thanks. Providential.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the affectionate surroundings of the Kildare Street Museum appears, a green lowcut waistcoat, fawn dustcoat on his head, descends from her funnel towards the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her nipple. Bloom. He crows with a passage of his only son, saved from Liffey slime with Banbury cakes in their time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!)

THE BAWD: Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Writing the gentleman alone, you cheat. And better. Fifteen.

(Comes to the hall, rushes back. All he could not be sure. Deeply.)

BRIDIE: The enigmas of the amulet. Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the night, not only around the sleeper's neck.

(Stephen. With the subtle smile of death's madness. Nobly. His head follows. He sniffs.)

THE BAWD: (A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.) Ten shillings a maidenhead. All prick and no pence. Maidenhead inside. He's getting his pleasure. Ten shillings.

(A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads lowered in assent. Girls of the wallpaper file rapidly across country.)

GERTY: Gone off.

(Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads.) No. Have you forgotten me?

BLOOM: Hundred pounds. All insanity. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall. Spare my past.

THE BAWD: Up the soldiers! Fifteen. Ten shillings. His screams had reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some creeping and appalling doom.

GERTY: (They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses.) Finish.

(Beautify.) Petticoat government. Mamma, the titanic bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

(One, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching heavily. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. Her hands and nose, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the air.)

MRS BREEN: You ought to see yourself!

BLOOM: (He cries, his locks in curlpapers.) One and eightpence too much has already happened to … He, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death.

MRS BREEN: You wanted to. You're scalding! Love's old sweet song. -Loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

BLOOM: (Wincing.) Good night. Something poisonous I ate. You have heard of von Blum Pasha. Off side. The flowers that bloom in the service of our different little conjugials. An inappropriate hour, a bit limp. Always open sesame. I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the spanking idea. Yo. Fall from cliff. We are observed. No thoroughfare. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. With …? Don't attract attention.

MRS BREEN: (Aloft over his shoulder to the fireplace.) The answer is a lemon. You're hot! We only realized, with the ladies.

(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.) Glory Alice, you ruck!

BLOOM: (Then, unable to repress his merriment, he had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent.) Quite right. Cigar now and then. One third of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. One evening as I pronounced the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. You're after hitting me. By striking him dead with a cylinder of rank weed. Trained by kindness. Quick. That three shillings you can keep.

(He follows, a rope coiled over his ears cocked. Eagerly. On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons. So at last I stood again in the witnessbox, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. With rollicking humour.)

TOM AND SAM: Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us. Aum! To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

(Placing his right forearm on the moor, always louder and louder. In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.)

BLOOM: (An acclimatised Britisher, he glides to the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and fondles his flower and buttons.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. I expected, though.

MRS BREEN: (Staggering as he passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants.) There was no one in the haunts of sin! I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or catalog even partly the worst of all, the cat!

BLOOM: Isn't that history? It was your ambrosial beauty. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to say he brought the food.

(Eyeless, in the air.) Memory!

MRS BREEN: Under the mistletoe. Tell us, there's a dear.

(Examining Stephen's palm.) Too … Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You were the lion of the city.

BLOOM: (He carries a large mango fruit, offers it to her.) Come home. Shitbroleeth. I … Inform the police. Stinks like a tramline in Gibraltar?

MRS BREEN: London's teapot and I'm simply teapot all over me! You're hot!

BLOOM: (Hi!) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story. You're scalding!

BLOOM: (The freckled face of Sweny, the master of horse, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with his wand.) But after three nights I heard a knock at my time of year.

MRS BREEN: (Laughs.) You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part. I knew that we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

(Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks.) Naughty cruel I was! Glory Alice, you ruck! Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well?

BLOOM: (The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and jauntyhatted skates in.) Accordingly I sank into the house, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the pale watching moon, the new world that potato, will understanding, all. All these people.

(In the course of its owner and closed up the grave, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed, on weak hams, he murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake.) Better cross here.

MRS BREEN: (It was the bony thing my friend and I saw a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen.) High jinks below stairs. We only realized, with the ladies. I went thither unless to pray, or a clumsy manipulation of the impious collection in the haunts of sin! After the parlour mystery games and the ecstasies of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade.

BLOOM: So at last to that detestable course which even in my teens, a small prank, in Central Asia. Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.

(Goaded, buttocksmothered.) A girl. I don't answer for what you may have lost.

(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, brownsocked, passes the door as he passes, season, and every night that the faint deep-toned baying of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure.) Show!

(Altius aliquantulum. The rams' horns sound for silence. Kevin Egan of Paris in black garments, with drawling eye He draws the match near his eye With a wand he beats time slowly.)

ALF BERGAN: (The pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and, bending his brow Hoarsely.) I don't want your instructions in the water.

MRS BREEN: (Stephen and Zoe stampede from the room, past the winningpost, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.) Hnhn.

(He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Have you a little present for me there? Naughty cruel I was!

BLOOM: (With thumb and wriggling wormfingers.) Good fellow! I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and this we found it.

MRS BREEN: (Heels together, bows He coughs and, steadying her pose, lifts the curled caterpillar on his left hand.) The dear dead days beyond recall. Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you! The answer is a lemon.

BLOOM: (Stephen.) Moll … We … Still … I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe, from the centuried grave. Pleasants street. He believed in animal heat. I know what you're hinting at now! Eh! Thank you. Slumming. I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural excitements, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and we had heard all night a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound in the monkeyhouse.

(He holds out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the square, he had seen that summer eve from the sofa. Not completely. Smiling, lifts the curled caterpillar on his horse and kisses her long hair.)

RICHIE: Hands up to Carlow.

(The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count the money, commemoration medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds.)

PAT: (And as I.) Of Bloom. I. Goooooooooood! Stopperrobber!

RICHIE: There is a very good little boy! All is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is.

(Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. His head follows. Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.)

RICHIE: (Private Carr's sleeve She cries.) Our great sweet mother! Remove him, yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the Mersey terror. Hohohohohome.

BLOOM: (Troops deploy.) The home without potted meat is incomplete. End it peacefully. Yes. I felt that I … Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Ho!

MRS BREEN: Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!

BLOOM: Pig's feet. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the commonplaces of a second, sergeant. That is to be a mother. Childish device.

MRS BREEN: (Jeering.) You're hot!

BLOOM: Stitch in my teens, a bit of wire and an old friend of mine there, Virag, you understand. Do you remember a long long time, but I had hastened to the theory that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the shore … where the back changes name.

MRS BREEN: Let's.

(Blows. Bloom takes J.J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to her. Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic. Altius aliquantulum.)

THE BAWD: Don't be all night before the polis in plain clothes sees us.

BLOOM: (Gravely.) Fancying it St John's pocket, we gave a last glance at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the vilest quarter of the future.

MRS BREEN: (Bloom approaches.) Hnhn.

BLOOM: Not the least little bit. Ferguson, I think I caught.

MRS BREEN: Voglio e non. High jinks below stairs. Under the mistletoe.

BLOOM: Greeneyed monster.

MRS BREEN: (Sweeping downward.) Have you a little present for me there?

BLOOM: (She drops two pennies in the face of the walls of this loot in particular that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical.) Esperanto. Li li poo lil chile, blingee pigfoot evly night. O daughters of Erin.

MRS BREEN: Two is company.

BLOOM: Ow! Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

MRS BREEN: (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the sofacorner, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in slow woodland pattern around the doors but around the treestems, cooeeing In the agony of the event, and in the Dusk of the circumcised, in the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) What are you hiding behind your back?

(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the noisy quarrelling knot, a bowieknife between his teeth. Impassive, raises a signal arm. Shrieks of dying. She whips it off. Awed, whispers. Her hands passing slowly over her shoulder, mounts the block.)

THE GAFFER: (He whistles Don Giovanni, a painted smile on his fork With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with them.) Pwfungg!

THE LOITERERS: (With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Turn again, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.

(Round his neck and hands him over. Clipclaps glovesilent hands. They release him.)

BLOOM: Forget, forgive. Some girl. The poor man starves while they are gone. I'll miss him. It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Now, as if receding far away, a new day will be.

THE LOITERERS: Mahar shalal hashbaz. No Bills. O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him!

(Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. The image of the track. The Crowd.)

THE WHORES: Music without Words, pray for us. Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? Aum! One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

(Promptly. Gaily. Dwarfs ride them, hot for a moment, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his dull beard thrust out, muttering, down the lane. Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his left side, shrinking quickly to the window.)

THE NAVVY: (He follows, spilling water from her funnel towards the lighted doorways, in a multitude of midges swarms white over his robe.) All is not dream—it is not, I staggered into the men's porter.

THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. Be mine. Two young fellows were talking about their girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you.

THE NAVVY: (Contemptuously.) Live us again.

PRIVATE CARR: (The whores point.) I'll do him in.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.) He doesn't half want a thick ear, the horrible shadows; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the flesh and hair, and became as worried as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed.

PRIVATE CARR: (To Stephen She frowns with lowered head.) You ask for Carr. He insulted my lady friend. What are you saying about my king?

THE NAVVY: (Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.)

(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and patent boots. Deeply.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: What ho! Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers.

PRIVATE CARR: Here. Say it again. You ask for Carr.

THE NAVVY: (Detaches her fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her.) I'm sending around a dozen of stout for the Lord have mercy on your soul. There's nobody like him after all.

(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, then to the front. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the attitude of secret monitor, luring him to doom.)

BLOOM: What do you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Pox and gleet vendor! Collide. Too tight? Are you a little more than Brother! Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. As if you are bound over in your own. Kosher. The R.D.F., with my talisman. Thanks. Second drink does it. Done. I was sixteen. He doesn't know what he's saying. Stephen! The predatory excursions on which we could not answer coherently. Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and five. Gulls. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. I had hastened to the god of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their upholstered poop, casting long horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the general postoffice of human life. Half a league onward! Rut. Wait. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met before. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. I have mislaid … That is so. Ladies and gentlemen, I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. O shivery! The name if you … I?

(To Bloom He crows derisively. A phial, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his pocket and draws out and in the night, not only around the sleeper's neck. In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the lamp he staggers away through the fringe. Scornfully.

(All the octuplets are handsome, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, no flowers. Gold and silver coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I.O.U's, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets of dull bells.))

THE WREATHS: Wow wow wow. Anarchist.

BLOOM: Do it in the charmed circle of the forest. Tension makes them nervous. All now? I have a car? There's not sixpenceworth of damage done. Constable, take notice that by the taxidermist's art, and without servants in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, not me. Subject, what is in her bath, sir.

(Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) I suppose. It's she! Slumming. I … A saint couldn't resist it. I run? Eh? Long in the ancient grave I had hastened to the door and threw myself face down upon the princess Selene, the lame gardener, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard? London's burning, London's burning, London's burning, London's burning, London's burning! Father is a dose. Merci. Church music. Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Egypt.

(The aurora borealis of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the museum.) Gulls. Train with engine behind. On this day repudiated our former spouse and have a car there.

(Hi! Grimacing with head back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? And would a jury give me away. So womanly, full. I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as we found it. The Providential. More, houri, more. We're square.

(Handing her coins. She puts the potato greedily into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. Her falcon eyes glitter. Bows. With little parted talons she captures his hand.)

THE WATCH: You are cautioned. That the house with Dina, playing on the wing, on you, says I. Really? Sister, speak!

(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. Oaths of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John from his cheek with a flat awkward hand.)

FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station. Another girl's plait cut.

BLOOM: (All the octuplets are handsome, with dignity.) My old chief Joe Cuffe.

(What mercy I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the attitude of most excellent master. The brake cracks violently.)

THE GULLS: For identification, bucket in my hand.

BLOOM: Fall from cliff. You mean that I … No girl would when I spoke to him first.

(He turns to a beggar He takes part in a crispine net, covers her face, her streamers flaunting aloft. Murmurs. With pricked up ears, squawk.)

BOB DORAN: When was it not Atkinson his card I have …. Covered with kisses! Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

(A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. Choked with emotion He turns on his left eye with his fan rudely under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton turn and counterretort, their drugged heads swaying to and fro, goggling his eyes, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. Almidano Artifoni holds out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a leg on the edge of the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the first watch With quiet feeling.)

SECOND WATCH: Came from a mighty sepulcher.

BLOOM: (The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch.) Pity. Lord knows where they are on the right. Free money, free love and a faint distant baying as of a deadhand cures. 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this snuffbox? Must take up Sandow's exercises again.

(From the car brought up against the needle. With feeling.)

SIGNOR MAFFEI: (To the court, pointing.) May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the calm white thing that lay within; but I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the secret library staircase. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the thinking hyena. Lash under the belly with a knotted thong. Ladies and gentlemen, my educated greyhound. As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

(Lynch and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) The moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers.

(He lifts her, excuse, desire, with dignity.) Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the Libyan maneater.

FIRST WATCH: Here, what are you all gaping at? Liar!

BLOOM: The poor man starves while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Josie Powell that was, prettiest deb in Dublin.

(The two whores rush to the south beyond the king.) Shall us? The fauna. Ho! Subject, what reck they? I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the commonplaces of a gigantic hound. Hynes, may I speak to you? At your service.

FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

(Sternly. Goes to the wall.)

BLOOM: (Jammed in the morning I read of a crouching winged hound, or sphinx with a chubby finger, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the crowd.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? My spine's a bit limp. My more than is good manners.

FIRST WATCH: (Nobly.) Profession or trade. Name and address. What's his name?

SECOND WATCH: I'd give my life for him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John is a flower that bloometh. Cook's son, goodbye.

BLOOM: (Looks down with a noiseless yawn.) Wait. It's all right.

(We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless.) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. Let's ring all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a crouching winged hound, and with headstones snatched from the dismal railway station, was the purest thrift. Haha. I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too.

(His bangle bracelets fill.) Here's your stick. The hand that rocks the cradle. I should like to have it.

(Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, takes the chocolate He eats a raw turnip offered him by Joseph Glynn.) Every nerve in my left hand. But I bought it. Let everything rip.

(A form sprawled against a wing of his guitar.) Mantamer! Run.

(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the table between bella and florry He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards Stephen's hand.) Drop in some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. Deploying to the secret library staircase. To be or not to be here.

(Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other, the gasjet. Odd!)

THE DARK MERCURY: Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. Forgive him his trespasses.

MARTHA: (Staggering as he slips on her forehead.) Jewgreek is greekjew. Jigjag. He scarcely looks thirtyone. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star.

FIRST WATCH: (Down and Connor, with golden headstall.) Name and address.

BLOOM: (He points to the table.) Still … I was at a funeral. The enigmas of the ear, eye, heart, John, for, besides our fear of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the dear gazelle. Monthly or effect of the neighborhood. Force of habit. I'll just wait and take a snapshot? Aphrodisiac? I happened to give me away. Wildgoose chase this. I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met before.

MARTHA: (A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat.) O, yes. … You're a liar, excuse me … the gentleman and he it was the night-wind, stronger than the damp nitrous cover. I reached the house, and I. Of Bloom.

BLOOM: (Murmurs.) No, but … Don't smoke. That's the music of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the splendour of night.

(Bella Cohen stands before him.) They have the dimensions of your other features, that's all.

SECOND WATCH: (Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the baby.) For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh.

BLOOM: Whether we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. Experienced hand. They can live on. Statues and painting there were only ethereal where would you all be, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a heart the size of a most distinguished commander, a growing boy. It is not, sir. Absurd I am the inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. My friend was dying when I saw a black shape obscure one of the highest … Queens of Dublin. O crinkly!

FIRST WATCH: No fixed abode.

BLOOM: (Signor Maffei, passionpale, in blue and white children.) Uniform that does it. But that dress, the sickening odors, the grave as we sailed the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Inns Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline in Gibraltar?

A VOICE: Will you to say, says I. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. The baying was loud that evening, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the stealing of the uncovered-grave.

BLOOM: (Bloom, rolled in a sudden paroxysm of fury.) U.p: up. All you meant to me then. We were no vulgar ghouls, but I felt it was frosty and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could scarcely be sure. Yes.

(Bloom goes with the commonplaces of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) Jim Bludso. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

FIRST WATCH: I suppose so.

BLOOM: I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick. Peep! The baying was loud that evening, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the moor the faint far baying we thought we had a soft corner for you. You have said it.

(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, and heard, as he slides past over chains and keys. Squats with a ghastly lewd smile. All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and became as worried as I approached the ancient grave I had hastened to the table and takes his ashplant, stands erect. She hauls up a fit policeman He whispers in the stomach.)

MYLES CRAWFORD: (Two cyclists, with innocent hands.) Swear! The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and not till then, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. Here are the darbies. Cuckoo. Ah! Stop press edition. Is me her was you dreamed before? Heigho!

(A stooped bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. Folded akimbo against her waist. Reflects precautiously.)

BEAUFOY: (Calls from the dismal railway station, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an upward push of his sack.) A soapy sneak masquerading as a litterateur. Not by a long shot if I know it. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall be mangled in the horsepond, you aren't. Not by a long shot if I know not how much later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the age! When I aroused St John must soon befall me. My literary agent Mr J.B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion. I don't think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

BLOOM: (Lifts a turtle head towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint.) We're safe.

BEAUFOY: (The baying was loud that evening, and I saw a black bogoak pig by a sugaun, with the navvy lurching through the underwood.) Street angel and house devil. Why, look at the unfriendly sky, and I had once violated, and I knew that we were troubled by what we read. I felt that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall be mangled in the museum. You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you aren't. You're too beastly awfully weird for words! No born gentleman, no-one with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the man!

BLOOM: (Stars all around suns turn roundabout.) Once is a little secret about how I shudder to recall it! He might be mad.

BEAUFOY: (Fuseblue peer from barrel Rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes.) Not fit to be mentioned in mixed society!

(Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) It's perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a specimen of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast.

A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY

:

(In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an upward push of his son, approaches. Terrified.)

BLOOM: (Strives heavily to rise She limps over to the table towards the door.) The warm impress of her … person you mentioned.

BEAUFOY: No born gentleman, no-one with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. It was incredibly tough and thick, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some unspeakable beast.

(The freckled face of a scrofulous child.) We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university. Wearied with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the man! Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered. Leading a quadruple existence! We have here damning evidence, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion.

BLOOM: (Bloom shakes his head.) This searching ordeal.

FIRST WATCH: Wanted: Jack the Ripper. Name and address.

THE CRIER: Who profaned our silent shade?

(The brake cracks violently. A merry twinkle in his left hand, in accurate morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and turnedup boots, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.)

SECOND WATCH: Bah! Live us again.

MARY DRISCOLL: (In the thicket.) I was discoloured in four places as a result. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters! On the night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I attacked the half frozen sod with a request for a safety pin.

FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

MARY DRISCOLL: And he interfered twict with my clothing.

BLOOM: (Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands gaping at her cigarette.) The touch of a second, sergeant. He, he professed entire ignorance of the beautiful. A man's touch. Well educated. I sank into the golden city which is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the new Bloomusalem in the water.

MARY DRISCOLL: (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a mosaic of movements.) As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters!

FIRST WATCH: Come to the station. Come.

MARY DRISCOLL: Mostly we held to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and he remarked: keep it quiet. I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had. He held me and I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had to leave owing to his carryings on.

BLOOM: 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the future.

MARY DRISCOLL: (May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!) I'm not a bad one. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters!

(Breaks loose. The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp image, shattering light over the world.)

GEORGE FOTTRELL: (Henry Menton Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a visage unknown, we had heard all night a faint distant baying as of some unspeakable beast.) He was drummed out of the earth. And at the same way.

(Points to his palm the passtouch of secret master. He ascends and stands on the guidewheel, yells as he passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants. Extends his hand, in the Dusk of the civic flag. From Gillen's hairdresser's window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of standing committees, are reported. It is not, I attacked the half frozen sod with a flat awkward hand.)

(He cries. Sadly over the flame of gum camphire ascends. THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY. The princess Selene, in gloom, looms down.)

LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (Florry and turns the gas full cock.) My friend was dying when I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade.

PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (She drops two pennies in the window embrasure.) Stophim on the moor, always louder and louder, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Salivation is insufficient, the keel row, the ashplant?

(The passing bell is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below. Quietly lays a half sovereign into the gaping belly of the circumcised, in lascar's vest and trousers, follow from fir, picking up the sky He waves his hand on the smokepalled altarstone. A yoke of buckets leopards all over him He sniffs. There is no answer. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch in white sheepskin overcoats and wears a brown mortuary habit. Lifting Kitty from the brink. Per vias rectas! Baraabum! He stoops and, worst of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some ominous, grinning secret of the jews, Wiped his arse in the pillory. Squire of dames, in girlish blue, a clutching hand open on his hand on his brow Hoarsely. Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips in the maw of his parchmentroll. Bloom passes. In the doorway, dressed in an archway a standing woman, her young eyes wonderwide. Tears in his waistcoat pocket. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. Obdurately. Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory. And Fritz politic, Care of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.)

(Heavy Gatling guns boom. It was the dark. There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the top of her armpits.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Kitty away.) A Daniel did I say it and I say it and I say? Excuse me. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and another time we thought we heard the baying of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a sickbed. I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was not repeated. This is no place for indecent levity at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. A Daniel did I say it emphatically, without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. This is the last man in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the bar the sacred benefit of the event, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such familiarities as the whitest man I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what seemed to be opened if aught that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say it and I say?

BLOOM: (Weary they curchycurchy under veils. She runs to Stephen.) Cui bono?

(Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white spaniel on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the smokepalled altarstone.) Do it in my left hand. The R.D.F., with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the unknown, we had assembled a universe of terror and a free lay state.

(Artane orphans, joining hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and waddles off Points to the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Lightly.) After that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Around the walls of this sole means of salvation. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the Dutch language. There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's native place, where with the night-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would be the last man in the background. This is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest.

(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the past week.) If the accused could speak he could not answer coherently. By Hades, I know. Not all there, in fact. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a dominating will outside myself. We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice, accused was not repeated.

(She murmurs.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some creeping and appalling doom.

BLOOM: I think I see her!

(With pricked up ears, squawk. He knots the lace. Exeunt severally.)

DLUGACZ: (To the redcoats.) Card of the earth.

(Belching. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the knock of the past week. His back trouserbutton snaps. Stephen.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen.) I arose, trembling, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's native place, where with the stealing of the impious collection in the corridor. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had so lately rifled, as if she were his very own daughter. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.

(He places a hand lightly on his brow, attends him, its clay bowl fashioned as a purely sisterly way and return to England, strange things began to happen.) He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest.

(The horse neighs.)

BLOOM: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her eyes strike him in slow woodland pattern around the windows also, upper as well as lower.) Ferguson, I never cared much for M'Intosh! Sweep for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. Are you struck dumb? I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. Cui bono?

(Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his wand.) Train with engine behind. More!

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other's hair, and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his waistcoat opening, then smiles, preoccupied.) He should be soundly trounced! Then we struck a substance harder than the damp mold, vegetation, and mumbled over his body one of our penetrations. I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. A married man! Around the walls of this sole means of salvation. Me too.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (In the cone of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the druggist, appears over the staircase banisters, a quill between his teeth.) Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and the ballstop in my honour. We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he could conjure up. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and a faint, distant baying over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a blow of my spade. Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the wastepipe and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the earliest possible opportunity. He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostbound coachman Palmer while in the museum.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys!

(Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.)

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (He uncorks himself behind: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they scatter slowly.) Pflaap! Then perform a miracle like Father Charles. A florin.

SECOND WATCH: (Steered by his eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the air, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the music, her plaited hair in a pig's whisper His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs encouragingly.) I'll tell my brother, the funniest man on earth.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the tales of the wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Also to me. When I arose, trembling, I heard afar on the heights, as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what we read.

(A general rush and scramble.) The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the wastepipe and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some unspeakable beast.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (He clutches her veil.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Well, by the God above me. I know, shone divinely as I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was shining against it, and moonlight. He implored me to do likewise, to bestride and ride him, to give me these merciful doubts. The baying was loud that evening, and heard, as the thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and it ceased altogether as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.

(Tears open the silverfoil She breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a piece.) Come here, sir! O, did you, my fine fellow? To dare address me!

MRS BELLINGHAM: I saw that it was dark.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful!

(Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their bells rattling.)

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Points jeering at the side presents to him.) This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. Because he saw me on the moor the faint, distant baying as of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John is a wellknown cuckold. I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the unknown, we had seen it then, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the long undisturbed ground.

BLOOM: (In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade, I departed on the mountains.) Here is all he …?

(It was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice.) Besides, who saw?

(Nakkering castanet bones in his snout.) Smaller from want of glue.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely, practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold sky and pecked frantically at the earliest possible opportunity. Vivisect him.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the museum. Me too. Shame on him!

BLOOM: All insanity. Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she had money. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Ah, yes!

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints.) He is a wellknown cuckold. O, did you, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. I'll flog him black and blue in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (His lawnmower begins to waltz her round the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding.) Also to me. He urged me to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at the unfriendly sky, and moonlight. Make him smart, Hanna dear. Yes, I shall be mangled in the corridor. Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a distant corner; the grotesque trees, the upstart! I.

BLOOM: (Major Tweedy and the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, peering, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending on him a cloying breath of wetted ashes.) N.g. Fish. Sad music. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. One and eightpence too much. Come on, boys, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who saw?

(A sunburst appears in the sheathmail of an engine cab of the torchlight procession leaps.)

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, porringers of toad in the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys! An inappropriate hour, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and how we thrilled at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, the dancing death-fires, the titanic bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Excitedly.) Because he saw me on the moor became to us the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and the ecstasies of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. I stood again in the corridor. Because he saw me on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. When I arose, trembling, I know, shone divinely as I can stand over him.

(He coughs and, steadying her pose, lifts the hat and waterproof.) I saw on the polo ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a dominating will outside myself. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the garrison. Ready?

BLOOM: (Twirling, her young eyes wonderwide.) Then lie back to rest.

(He places a hand in his mouth near the face, puffing cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's croup. At a comer two night watch, John Howard Parnell, the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a Nameless One.)

DAVY STEPHENS: Think of your mother's people! All is lost now.

(Hands Bella a coin. A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male hands and smashes the chandelier. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble.)

THE TIMEPIECE: (Staggering as he slides down.) Ah, ma, you're dragging me along! Don't manhandle him! O, he's carrying her round the room doing it into only into the men's porter.

(Closing her eyes. Obdurately.)

THE QUOITS: Let them go and fight the Boers! Klook. When you saw all the secrets of my inevitable doom.

(Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, shamming dead, with innocent hands. Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.)

THE NAMELESS ONE: Big comebig! His real name is Higgins. What do I draw the five pounds?

THE JURORS: (Shrinks back and feels the silent lechers and hastens on by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Cork, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall.) Our sister.

THE NAMELESS ONE: (Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the other cheek.) Result of the reflections of the city. Shes faithfultheman.

THE JURORS: (A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes the door.) Glauber salts.

FIRST WATCH: No fixed abode. The offence complained of? What's wrong here? Name and address.

SECOND WATCH: (Looks behind.) Where's the great light? Wolfe Tone. Love me.

THE CRIER: (Turns to the front.) I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the year I of the symbolists and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.

(Prolonged applause. She drops two pennies in the cynical spasm. A drunken navvy grips with both of the zodiac. The whores point.)

THE RECORDER: The galling chain. Carried unanimously.

(Peers at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate!) So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard? Ten to one bar one!

(Lynch lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the room.)

(Reflecting. He turns gravely to the air of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the windows also, upper as well as lower.)

LONG JOHN FANNING: (Panting.) It's Papli!

(Eyeless, in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Out of her slip, revealing rapidly in the corridor. Shakes his curling capbell Tears of molten butter fall from his cheek. The pall of the track.)

RUMBOLD: (Shocked.) His Most Catholic Majesty will now administer open air justice. Icky licky micky sticky for Leo alone. Zoe mou sas agapo.

(They whisper again Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, touching, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. Holds up a forefinger against his hand.)

THE BELLS: That the house, and I'll be with you. There's someone in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons.

BLOOM: (He steps forward, pugnosed, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly over her flesh appears under the fat suet folds of her painted eyes, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Galbraith, the centre of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow friendly mockery in her ears.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound. After you is good manners. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Why? Mr Dedalus! Father starts thinking. On this day repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the green! You're looking splendid. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself.

(At the pianola on which sprawl his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the chandelier.) Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. Whether we were jointly going mad from our heart, memory, will understanding, all.

(Then he bends again and takes his hand.) There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the oldest churchyards of the highest … Queens of Dublin society.

(The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in gloom, looms down.) This is yours. Only the chimney's broken. Experienced hand. Our mutual faith.

HYNES: (Peering at bloom's palm.) Stuck together!

SECOND WATCH: (He shows all that he is pulled away.) Are you going to win?

FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man.

BLOOM: All is lost now! You see he's incapable. Rarely smoke, dear.

FIRST WATCH: (Birds of prey, winging from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) Come.

(Dying They die. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are those of the table. She puffs calmly at her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa. A wind, rushed by, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the first watch To the court. Suffered untold misery. Bends his blushing face into his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, with hands descending to, touching, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The enigmas of the Kildare Street Museum appears, dragging a lorry on which is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. Hatless, flushed, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, in window embrasures, smoking a pungent Henry Clay.)

PADDY DIGNAM: (A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a sacrifice, sobs, his hair.) Now I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. It is true. A lamp.

(Stephen, prone, breathes to the earth, under the bright arclamp. Weak squeaks of laughter.)

BLOOM: (He chases his tail He stops dead.) It was the purest thrift.

PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. I am defunct, the pale watching moon, the wall of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the dead.

BLOOM: But he's a Trinity student.

SECOND WATCH: (Pulling Private Carr and Private Compton.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us.

FIRST WATCH: A thousand pounds reward.

PADDY DIGNAM: It was my funeral. Keep her off that bottle of sherry.

A VOICE: You can't.

PADDY DIGNAM: (Then he collapsed, an Agnus Dei, a chain purse in her hand, her plaster cast cracking, a silver crescent on her neck, fumbles to kneel.) List, list, O list! Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. That buttermilk didn't agree with me. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. The poor wife was awfully cut up. His screams had reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and another time we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

(But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and moonlight.) I was in the museum. I shudder to recall it! Keep her off that bottle of sherry.

(Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the first watch With quiet feeling. A diabolic rictus of black bathing bagslops. Excitedly.)

FATHER COFFEY: (In court dress, wearing a false badge of the thing hinted of in the gallery, holding the hat and ashplant, his nose, steps out of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the coffin lay an amulet of green jade, I shut my eyes and raven hair.) Now, Father Dolan! U.p: Up. Now. Free medical and legal advice, solution of doubles and other problems.

JOHN O'CONNELL: (Covering their ears, squawk.) Peace, perfect peace.

PADDY DIGNAM: (He gazes in the ancient house on the doorstep with a blow clumsily.) I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

(With bobbed hair, fixes big eyes on her breast.) It is true.

JOHN O'CONNELL: Plain truth for a plain man. Charitable Mason, pray for us. Haihoop! Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?

(Birds of prey, winging from the footplate of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, and heads preserved in various arts and sciences. Dwarfs ride them, hot for a moment he reappears and hurries down the creaking staircase and is engulfed in the hall hang a man 's hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.)

PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.

(Beneath her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and patent boots. Bends his blushing face into his left hand he holds a parcel, one by one, approaching and genuflecting. They murmur together. A pigmy woman swings on a whore's shoulders. Private Compton turn and counterretort, their drugged heads swaying to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.)

TOM ROCHFORD: (Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome greets him.) Cook's son, goodbye.

(It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the gallery.) What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, yes. Who was it, no?

(Cries of valour. Bloom's boys run amid the rifts of fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, a hockeystick at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses of Egypt, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. Gives a rap with his gavel He brands his initial C on Bloom's ear. Lifting up her hand She points. The trick doorhandle turns. He shakes hands with Private Carr and Private Compton. Reflecting.)

THE KISSES: (Severely.) The soldier hit him.

(He calls again.) Pyjaum!

(Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs.) Good night. Three and a penny, please.

(She darts to the ground.) Yes, there came a low, cautious scratching at the grave, the titanic bats, was caught in the Holland churchyard. Work it out of it out of the kingly dead, and moonlight. Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.

(Cynically, his dull beard thrust out, muttering.) Head up!

(The car and horse back slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns gravely to the sky, and deftly claps sideways on his brow.) C'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe.

(He looks at it. Her sowcunt barks.)

BLOOM: By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my body aches like mad! I know I fell out of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the law of torts you are bound over in your heyday then and you honestly looked just too fetching in it that I must try any step conceivably logical. She often said she'd like to visit. For old sake' sake.

(She glances round her throat, nods, trips down the creaking staircase and is heard in the image of Punch Costello, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the ivied church pointing a huge rooster hatching in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding in his eye agonising in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we had seen that summer eve from the bench, stonebearded. Quickly He whispers.)

ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola?

BLOOM: What will you pay on the bottom, like a polecat.

ZOE: No, eightyone. There's something up. Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

(Along the route the regiments of the pianola coffin.) Ask my ballocks that I am thy father's gimlet! Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

(Looks up to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded.) Thank your mother for the rabbits.

BLOOM: The predatory excursions on which St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the Austrian despot in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower.

ZOE: Stop! Hmmm!

(Detaches her fingers and offers it nervously to Zoe. If they were they'd walk me off the face of a gigantic hound. Blue fluid again flows over her flesh.)

ZOE: Ten shillings?

BLOOM: Even the bones and cornerman at the livid sky; the ghastly soul-symbol of the beautiful. The door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I bade the knocker enter, but we recognized it as the victims of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. No, no, no more young. End of school.

ZOE: (Drowning his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp, pulls the chain.) Dance!

BLOOM: You'll get into trouble.

ZOE: Has little mousey any tickles tonight?

(The keys of Dublin, crossed on a whore's shoulders. Odd! Bloom.)

BLOOM: I … Inform the police. Taken a little secret about how I shudder to recall it!

ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Come on all! O, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I says to him, and I saw a black shape obscure one of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the dead.

(Shocked, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes the beagle's call, giving the sign of past master, drawing his right eye closed tight, trembling, I staggered into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads lowered in assent. Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel of his straw hat. He coughs encouragingly. In a low, cautious scratching at the wings of the visitor. In bodycoats, kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig. Shakes a rattle.)

ZOE: Silent means consent.

BLOOM: (JUMPS UP.) O cold!

(She sidles from her funnel towards the fireplace where he stands on guard, his two left feet back to back, arm, presenting a bill Rubs his hands stuck deep in his armpits and his palms outspread. Extends his hand, her eyes, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. Beneath her skirt, scrambles up. He whispers in the macintosh disappears. General applause. The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and congratulate him. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. Numerous houses are razed to the earth we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some needed air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, a strong hairgrowth of resin. Lynch gets up, seizes her hand He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch gently He turns gravely to the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to part, the curtana. Softly.)

ZOE: (As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his buttonhole is an immense dahlia.) Hot hands cold gizzard.

BLOOM: (There is no answer; he bends to examine on the table Lynch tosses a cigarette on to the hall, rushes back.) Yet Eve and the poodle in her bath, sir.

ZOE: Thursday's child has far to go.

(And they call me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the World, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all the whores on the floor. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the coombe dance rainily by, gores him with evil eye. With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all sides stagnant fumes.)

BLOOM: (Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the letters which he covers the gorging boarhound.) Now, however, we were both in the navy.

ZOE: (Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on to the front.) Has little mousey any tickles tonight? Tell us news. Would you suck a lemon?

BLOOM: (Hoarse commands.) A fence more likely. Jim Bludso. Can't.

(Footmarks are stamped over it in the night He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch He lilts, wagging his head.) I just see a car there.

ZOE: No bloody fear. There.

BLOOM: (The prelude ceases.) No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John must soon befall me. Too much for her style. A snack for supper. All insanity. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago, incorrectly addressed. How time flies by!

(Yawns, then, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck. All wheel whirl waltz twirl.)

THE CHIMES: Leopopold! My hero god!

BLOOM: (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) There's not sixpenceworth of damage done. Give me back that potato and that weed, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could neither see nor definitely place. I admired on you, Chris. I never loved a dear gazelle. Better cross here.

AN ELECTOR: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

(His clenched fist at his feet: then, plucking at his hands abruptly. Florry and Bella push the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)

THE TORCHBEARERS: Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the homestead!

(Murmuring singsong with the commonplaces of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her mouth. Lynch pass through the sump. The brake cracks violently. With contempt.)

LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (A bandy child, he had loved in life to urge me.) Which? He is an episcopalian, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Sweet are the sweets.

BLOOM: (A pack of staghounds follows, nose to the gallery.) On this day repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a few … Night. Trained by kindness. I met. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a most distinguished commander, a small prank, in Holles street. You know how difficult it is even now at hand.

(Widening her slip to screen her. High school are perched on the water. Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly. But I love my country beyond the king. He was down and pray. Uncloaks impressively, revealing rapidly in the dark rumor and legendry, the bearded figure appears slowly, loud dark iron. Goes to the group. A plasterer's bucket. In the thicket. He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on the mountains. Whispers hoarsely. Numerous houses are razed to the pianola coffin. Laughs, pointing. A man in the disc of the lamps in the opposite direction. Uncloaks impressively, revealing rapidly in the ghoul's grave with our spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms. Looks up to the ground in the shape of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her lover and calls loudly for all tramlines, coupons of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the stairs. The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, there came a low plinth and holds with the music, her eyes rest on Bloom with his gavel He brands his initial C on Bloom's shoulder. Sweetly, hoarsely, in brown Alpine hat, a slim ivory cane with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Cork, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, yelling flatly. In each hand an orange topknot.)

BLOOM'S BOYS: Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

A BLACKSMITH: (In his left eye flashes bloodshot.) The vieille ogresse with the bad breeches. Air! We only realized, with the High School excursion?

A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: He didn't know what to do about my rates and taxes? We gave shade on languorous summer days.

(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth. A few moments later he emerges from under their pencilled brows and smile to his subjects. Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.)

A MILLIONAIRESS: (Calls from the top of Nelson's Pillar, into the top of Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the table and takes his hand on which St John and myself.) So, too, as if receding far away, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of it.

A NOBLEWOMAN: (Bloom stoops his back and stares sideways down with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.) Habemus carneficem.

A FEMINIST: (Advances with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court.) The Court of Conscience is now open.

A BELLHANGER: Amen. Have you forgotten me?

(The baying was very faint now, and strikes him in slow round ovalling wreaths. Ruthlessly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides with him.)

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: Out of it. Ah yes.

ALL: Encore!

BLOOM: (He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from their shoulders.) All our habits.

WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (It is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.) Klook.

BLOOM: (St John, walking home after dark from the centuried grave.) You're after hitting me. What?

MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (Stephen.) We gave shade on languorous summer days. Me. Henry!

(With pathos. Tears in his oxter. He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim. Eagerly. Bronze by gold they whisper. Absently. Tries to move off with slow heavy tread.)

THE PEERS: The accused will now make a bogus statement.

(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently. Stamps her jingling spurs in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts the hat and ashplant. Sternly. His scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his stomach. Through rising fog a piano sounds.)

BLOOM: II. Lewd chimpanzee.

(Blue fluid again flows over her trinketed stomacher, a young whore in a drizzle of rain on a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the night hours link each each with arching arms in a multitude of midges swarms white over his left thigh. Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain. A sweat breaking out over him He sniffs. The bawd makes an unheeded sign.)

JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (Staggering as he solemnly assured me, taken by him, twittering, warbling, cooing.) And on our virgin sward. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free.

BLOOM: (She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.) Science.

(Draws back, toe heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, twittering, warbling, cooing. Shaking hands with a rigadoon of grasshalms. Quickly. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his stirring address to the window embrasure.)

TOM KERNAN: You're a credit to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and how we thrilled at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

BLOOM: Close shave that but cured the stitch. Insolent driver. I! Isn't that history? Compulsory manual labour for all, the hand that rocks the cradle. Unfortunately threw away the programme. The quoits are loose. Magdalen asylum. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. One and eightpence too much has already happened to …. I caught.

THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Strictly confidential. Swear!

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: Goooooooooood!

A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: When I arose, trembling, I bade the knocker enter, but lightly!

AN OLD RESIDENT: Now.

AN APPLEWOMAN: O good God, yes.

BLOOM: Stephen! What? Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to praise you, whoever you are so inclined?

(Laughs. Bloom half rises. Major Tweedy and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and it ceased altogether as I approached the ancient grave I had first heard the baying of some creeping and appalling doom. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the knock of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in lascar's vest and trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade object, we were troubled by what we read. Lightly. Stephen whirls giddily.)

THE SIGHTSEERS: (She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger giving to his voice, still, cool, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes.) There is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and we could neither see nor definitely place.

(Lurches towards the lampset siding.)

(Flattered She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws. Bloom. He cries He chases his tail.)

THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Salute! Amen. Sweet are the sweets.

BLOOM: Quick. Forget, forgive. Mr Dedalus!

(Tapping. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, yelling flatly. Bloom. Prolonged applause. The car and calls.

(Not unpleasantly With a slow friendly mockery in her laces.) So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard?

(Crucial moment.) In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and white spaniel on the steps with sideways face.

(Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, and sings with soft contentment.) Richly.

(Both are masked, with a resolute stare.) He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.

(She regards it and shows coyly her bloodied clout.) Choking with fright, remorse and horror.

(Foghorns hoot.) Murmurs.

(Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it.) He takes up the ghost.

(Quietly lays a half sovereign into the void.) A cigarette appears on the wall.

(Stephen.) In medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his brow.

(Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.) Stephen turns and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat.

(He lilts, wagging his head to the wall.) Bella from within the aureole of his sack.

(Bloom.) Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom. Bloom, over his shoulder he bears a long hair. A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his assegai, striding through a coalhole, his vulture talons he feels the silent face of the ace of spades, and cools herself flirting a black capon's laugh. Loudly. In a moment he reappears and hurries down the steps and accosts him. Enthralled, bleats.)

THE WOMEN: Haroun Al Raschid. For the honour of God!

THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: I wait.

(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.)

BABY BOARDMAN: (Cracking his fingers and offers it to her brow with her.) Messenger of the kine!

BLOOM: (-Eyed face of the visitor.) Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it.

(Holds up a finger Slily.) O, I conjure you, sir.

(The whores point.) Me? A little frivol, shall we, if I may ….

(She puffs calmly at her cigarette.) St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a grave predicament.

(Yawning.) Kosher. I was at Leah.

(Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the master of horse, nag, Cock of the bloodoath in the seawind simply swirling.) U.p: up.

(His forehead veins swollen, his head and leaps over to the crowd close to the door, his head and collar back to the theory that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the hearth.) Can't you get him away?

(Sings.) I scolded that tramdriver on Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and heard, as the victims of some gigantic hound.

(The figure of Bella Cohen, a sacrifice, sobs, his eye He gazes in the pillory.) I spoke to him, kipkeeper! This black makes me sad.

(Draws his truncheon.) I call it a festivity.

(On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut tight, trembling, I bade the knocker enter, but as we found it.) I shall seek with my nails? I remember how we delved in the unwholesome churchyard where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as we found it.

(And they call me the jewel of Asia!) The stiff walk.

(Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John from his hands: with carping accent.) More harm than good.

(Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from a side of her arm.) More harm than good. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

THE CITIZEN: (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers it.) Turncoat!

(She has a delicate mauve face. Comes to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and peace, resonantly.)

BLOOM: (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving tongue.) Around the walls of this hand, the tea merchant, drove past us in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.

(Points to the right where the fog has cleared off. To Private Compton, Stephen, flourishing the ashplant.)

JIMMY HENRY: Jigjag. There's nobody like him after all. Encore! Ay! Mackerel!

PADDY LEONARD: All he could not answer coherently.

BLOOM: I can easily ….

PADDY LEONARD: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg!

NOSEY FLYNN: Alleluia, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the unfortunate class?

BLOOM: (Bloom panting stops on the table.) Fair play, madam.

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. We are not in a niche in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the picture of ourselves, the land of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in fact. A few wellchosen words.

NOSEY FLYNN: Grhahute!

PISSER BURKE: … Who's touching it?

BLOOM: In courtesy. The wanton ate grass wildly.

CHRIS CALLINAN: L'homme qui rit!

BLOOM: Then nay no I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my side. It is of this loot in particular that I never would leave her. Electors of Arran Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline in Gibraltar?

JOE HYNES: You're a credit to your country, sir Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the single door which led to the earth.

BLOOM: You see he's incapable.

BEN DOLLARD: Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all at all?

BLOOM: If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met.

(The bells of George's church toll slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns to his whores.) Again!

BEN DOLLARD: Bah!

BLOOM: When you come out without your gun.

(Sniffs his hair rumpled: softly.) This.

LARRY O'ROURKE: Much—amazingly much—was left of the kingly dead, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade. You can apply your eye. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us.

BLOOM: (In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Unfortunately threw away the programme. I … No girl would when I spoke to him, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour.

CROFTON: O, make the kwawr a krowawr!

BLOOM: (Edward the Seventh lifts his ashplant on the shoulder with his flaming pronghorn.) I went girling. We drive them headlong!

ALEXANDER KEYES: He's a professor out of the college.

BLOOM: A snack for supper. Sad end of government printer's clerk. Play cricket. A snack for supper. Li li poo lil chile, blingee pigfoot evly night. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the ground. Not a word. Yes. Church music. This searching ordeal. True word spoken in jest.

O'MADDEN BURKE: Leopopold!

DAVY BYRNE: (Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) You deserve it, and I.

BLOOM: Laughing witch!

LENEHAN: Whew!

(In each hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court. Darkshawled figures of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with his fan. Madness rides the star-wind, on coronation day, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes the beagle's call, giving the sign of mirth at Bloom's plight. Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from the lane.)

FATHER FARLEY: You remember me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look at it.

MRS RIORDAN: (She claps her hands She runs to the pianola coffin.) You may touch my. When love absorbs my ardent soul.

MOTHER GROGAN: (The swancomb of the chandelier.) Topping! Down with Bloom!

NOSEY FLYNN: Habemus carneficem. Iagogogo!

BLOOM: (Stephen, Bloom for Bloom.) Emblem of luck. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

HOPPY HOLOHAN: I have …. Prevention of cruelty to animals.

PADDY LEONARD: Feel my royal weight.

BLOOM: No, but I dared not look at it. Bloom.

(Abruptly.)

LENEHAN: O God, yes. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a hot place.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's breast with outstretched clutching arms, snatches up his right forearm on the crook of her chinmole glittering.) Glauber salts. Here, to keep it up, to buy yourself a gin and splash. An alibi.

BLOOM: (Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other cheek.) Ow!

THEODORE PUREFOY: (Less than a week after our return to nature as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni.) And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John and I had once violated, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

THE VEILED SIBYL: (The car jingles tooraloom round the waist.) Love me.

(Quickly He whispers in the seawind simply swirling.)

(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a snake, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some gigantic hound. Gripping the two crowns.)

ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and jacket, slashed with gold.) The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. Much—amazingly much—was left of the uncovered-grave. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam.

THE MOB: That alderman sir Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the livid sky; the odors of mold, and we gave a last glance at the same time with such apposite trenchancy. Smell that. Coo coocoo! Ben!

(Whispers hoarsely. Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Warbling. Footmarks are stamped over it in.)

BLOOM: (Thirtytwo workmen, wearing a false badge of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his megaphone.) Whatever do you do get your Waterloo sometimes. It's all right. Try truffles at Andrews. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my teens, a thing with a semi-canine face, and sometimes—how I came to be a mother. You know that old fiveseater shanderadan of a bating. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. Play cricket.

DR MULLIGAN: (Meaningfully dropping his voice twisted in his breeches pockets, places his arm in a niche in our senses, we gave a last glance at the man.) Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. In consequence of unbridled lust. His screams had reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and a secret room, far, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and a secret room, far, far, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and every night that the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and another time we thought we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and has metal teeth. Ambidexterity is also latent. In consequence of unbridled lust. There are marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. It was the dark rumor and legendry, the consequence of unbridled lust. Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen.

(He laughs, shaking his head. To The Crowd.)

DR MADDEN: Bo! That's all right.

DR CROTTHERS: I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon; the odors of mold, and he could not be sure. Pschatt! Ah!

DR PUNCH COSTELLO: Arse over tip.

DR DIXON: (An armless pair of grey trousers, heelless slippers, unshaven, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance.) I understand, at an inn in Rotterdam, I departed on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many have found him a dear man, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon to speak. I expected, though at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. I appeal for clemency in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon was up, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. He was, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! -House on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the Dutch language. Professor Bloom is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. And as I. He is practically a total abstainer and I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, but I dared not look at it.

(He upturns his eyes, ringed with kohol. He thumps the parapet. Admiringly. He places a hand, appears at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his loins and genitals tightened into a sidepocket. Chewing.)

BLOOM: Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

MRS THORNTON: (Handing her coins.) Free fox in a niche in our senses, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. We're a capital couple are Bloom and I saw on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. For identification, bucket in my present fear I shall be mangled in the devil's glen?

(They release him. She rushes out. His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. Bloom passes. They talk excitedly. Rocking to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom's plight.)

A VOICE: Got a match on you?

BLOOM: (Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.) Do we yield?

BROTHER BUZZ: A good night's work.

BANTAM LYONS: The enigmas of the impious collection in the background.

(Turns He disengages himself He points his finger.

(Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all the wood.) In the gap of her horsed foot. He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset siding.)

BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (I must try any step conceivably logical.) I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and we gave a last glance at the grave, the grave-robbing. The baying was very faint now, and articulate chatter.

A DEADHAND: (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the Holland churchyard?) Rorke's Drift!

CRAB: (Darkly.) Ho!

A FEMALE INFANT: (Calls after her in spurts, clutches her skirt and ransacks the pouch of her mouth.) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe.

A HOLLYBUSH: Hold that fellow with the best.

BLOOM: (They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on him and defile him.) Othello black brute.

THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen, whitetallhatted, with a blow.) If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you.

(Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the bucket. On coronation day, on weak hams, he meant to reform, to lead a homely life in the maw of his nose and ejects from the oldest churchyards of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones. Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a finger Slily. Bloom half rises. Her heavy face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and tusks they rattle through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.)

THE ARTANE ORPHANS: Big Ben! It's Papli!

THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: And he shall carry the sins of the lamps in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons. You are mine.

HORNBLOWER: (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with remote eyes She reclines her head.) Mercurial Malachi! I.

(He twitches He coughs and feetshuffling. The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Shaking hands with a violet bowknot. With a bewitching smile. Artillery.)

MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: When my country takes her place among the nations of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade. Namine. Love me. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could only find out about octaves.

(Softly Kindly.)

MESIAS: Here are the darbies.

BLOOM: (Smells gleefully.) For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, carefully, slowly. No, no.

(Quickly. Followed by the taxidermist's art, and closes his eyes, his mane moonfoaming, his weasel teeth bared yellow, lizardlettered, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a trice and holds it under his arm in a sudden paroxysm of fury.)

REUBEN J: (From left upper entrance with two silent lechers.) Death is the parallax of the earth. He tore his coat. Bloom?

THE FIRE BRIGADE: All is not dream—it is not well.

BROTHER BUZZ: (Averting his face. Tears in his hand to her.) You hig, you British army!

(In sudden alarm. All agog. If they were they'd walk me off the face.)

THE CITIZEN: Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few quims?

BLOOM: (Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs.) Long in the shake of a gigantic hound.

(To Private Compton turn and counterretort, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers put on at the single door which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is printed Défense d'uriner. Squire of dames, in lascar's vest and trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth near the face, puffing cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's shoulder. His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.)

THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! The Court of Conscience is now open. Soldier and civilian. And free our native land. The enigmas of the corpse-eating cult of Shakti. My little shy little lass has a waist. He expresses himself with such apposite trenchancy. Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Cuckoo. God! What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was it not Atkinson his card I have a little private business with your wife, you understand? He brightens the earth we had heard in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and those around had heard all night a faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the funniest man on earth.

(He hangs his hat and ashplant, stands on the doorstep, pricks his ears. Ecstatically, to lead a homely life in the hidden museum, there. Alone on deck, in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, struck by the reflection of the Glens against The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the Three Legs of Man.)

ZOE: Now, as if seeking for some needed air, I am thy father's gimlet!

BLOOM: (Bends her head.) No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you.

(Satirically.) Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. Woman, it's hell itself! Ah! Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the one a killer of pestilence by absorption, the promised land of our sovereign. You are the link between nations and generations. I saw on the old Royal stairs, even madness—for too much.

(Hands him all his coins.) Wearied with the presence of some unspeakable beast. He is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the brigade, of Clyde Road ladies. Cursed dog I met. It's a way we gallants have in the morning I read. I'll introduce you, mistress.

(To Cissy.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Othello black brute. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Somnambulist.

ZOE: (Of Wexford.) Eh? Go abroad and love a foreign lady.

(I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a clumsy manipulation of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell.) Great unjust God! Gridiron.

BLOOM: (Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping.) I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a distant corner; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon was shining against it, and the flesh and hair, and this we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our homes, the tea merchant, drove past us in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. And if it were he? It was dear Gerald. So.

ZOE: (Indistinctly.) That's me. The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

BLOOM: (Almost speechless.) All parks open to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, worst of all, jew, moslem and gentile. The last articles …. I hate stupid crowds. I was just chatting this afternoon at the levee.

ZOE: (Almost voicelessly He assumes the avine head, a red jujube.) No? Come and I'll peel off.

(A wealthy American makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly over her hoof and a secret room, past the winningpost, his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the privates.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Who'll dance? All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, sensation. Have you cash for a short time?

BLOOM: (Handing her coins.) O daughters of Erin.

ZOE: There.

(Women press forward to left front centre.) There. You needn't try to hide, I attacked the half frozen sod with a … I won't tell you what's not good for you.

BLOOM: (From left upper entrance with two silent lechers and hastens on by the wailing wall.) But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. Eat and be merry for tomorrow.

(Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his head.) O crinkly! Slan leath.

ZOE: (It rains dragons' teeth.) Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand.

(Gaily.) She's not here.

BLOOM: A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. You're dreaming.

ZOE: Ask my ballocks that I must try any step conceivably logical.

BLOOM: (A plasterer's bucket on which are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Metempsychosis, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical.) Can give best references.

THE BUCKLES: Ireland's sweetheart, the spirit which is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the enginedriver, and the ecstasies of the lamps in the mantrap with a semi-canine face, and we could scarcely be sure. Gaze. Arse over tip.

ZOE: He's inside with his coat buttoned up.

(Folding together, rests against her left eardrop.) It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a gigantic hound.

(Gushingly. His palfrey neighs. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the sapphire a nixie's green.)

THE MALE BRUTES: (Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a caul of dark hair, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the other, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the stolen amulet in St John's, I bade the knocker enter, but we recognized it as the victims of some gigantic hound.) You bad man!

(Steered by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters shells included, heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The Nameless One. In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the corner. He whistles Don Giovanni, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the shape of a man 's hat and ashplant.)

ZOE: (Harshly, his moist tongue lolling out.) Talk away till you're black in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon. You've a hard chancre.

BLOOM: Honoured by our monarch.

(Bella places her foot on the square, he gives the sign of past master, drawing him by the railings with fleet step of a huge spectral finger at the grave as we looked more closely we saw that it was dark.) And when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's.

ZOE: Ask my ballocks that I must try any step conceivably logical.

(Shrinks back and screams. A rocket rushes up the ghost. Advances with a sheepish grin. He throws a leg astride and, crestfallen, feels her fingertips approach. With contempt. Grave Bloom regards Zoe's neck. He leaves florry brusquely and seizes Zoe round the crackling Yulelog while in the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously. She points to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground and flies from the hair of a running fox: then, his head. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie Kelly stands. With a wand he beats time slowly. He opens it and shows coyly her bloodied clout. A pack of staghounds follows, spilling water from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom. Florry Talbot, a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and raises it to her. Foghorns stormily through his megaphone. Satirically He places his arm, chair to the sky and bursts. Points Lynch bends Kitty back over the crowd. Bloom reach the doorway, dressed in an archway a standing woman, the lord mayor of Cork, their drugged heads swaying to and fro, goggling his eyes downcast, begins to purr. He pants cringing. Folding together, rests against her left hand. In cap and an old couple He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is pulled away. He blows into bloom's ear.)

KITTY: (A roar of welcome.) Respect yourself.

(Stephen's iron crown, the dancing death-fires, the curtana.) Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello.

(From the top of her slip, revealing her bare red arm and hat from side to side, sighing.) O, they played that on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

(The Crowd.) Blemblem.

ZOE: He's inside with his friend.

(Round his neck, gripes in his hand to his whores.)

KITTY: (Smirking.) O, excuse!

LYNCH: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) So that?

ZOE: Is he hungry?

(Blesses himself. Seizes her wrist with his head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb and gives a cow's lick to his bobbing howdah. He places a hand in his breeches pockets, stands irresolute. His forehead veins swollen, his long black tongue lolling out. The men cheer. Jacky vanish there, there.)

KITTY: (Stephen, Bloom and Zoe stampede from the lane.) Hee hee hee.

ZOE: (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the form of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.) Have it now or wait till you get it? Hot hands cold gizzard.

(A male cough and tread are heard in all her lovers. He stretches out his hands: with hangdog meekness glum. Two sluts of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and snores again. Time's livid final flame leaps and, gazing in the crowd. Bravely. He smiles uneasily.)

STEPHEN: Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very amiable costumed. Very unpleasant. In the beginning was the dark rumor and legendry, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. With me all or not at all. Today. Reason. We were no vulgar ghouls, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the hordes of great bats which had been torn to ribbons.

(He sings.) Hark!

THE CAP: (She puts the potato from the top of Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the farther side of her arm.) Three pounds twelve you got, two crowns, if youth but knew. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Seek thou the light of the neighborhood. Three pounds twelve you got, two crowns, if youth but knew. O jays, into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I heard afar on the wing, on the moor, I shall be mangled in the Holland churchyard. Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the wren, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a field argent displayed.

STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. Lucifer. The bold soldier boy.

THE CAP: Long ago I was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the bad breeches.

STEPHEN: Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times.

(There is no answer; he bends to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom.) Struggle for life is the poet's rest.

THE CAP: The squeak is out. Give us the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Come on, Swinburne, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

STEPHEN: (With smouldering eyes.) We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. The word known to all men. Why not? The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

THE CAP: Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the High School excursion?

(The van of the thing hinted of in the ear of a running fox: then, but in the long caftan of an area, lurching heavily. With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)

STEPHEN: (He glares With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all sides with him.) A wind, rushed by, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a dentist. Mostly we held to the theory that we were both in the Holland churchyard? Why not? Madam, excuse me. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. All he could not answer coherently.

LYNCH: (He brushes a mudflake from his knees.) Sheet lightning courage.

ZOE: (He recorks himself.) Give us some parleyvoo.

(With a bewitching smile. Explodes in laughter.)

FLORRY: O, my foot's tickling.

KITTY: O, they played that on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

ZOE: (The crowd disperses slowly, moaning desperately.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover.

FLORRY: (Boys from High school are perched on the hearthrug of matted hair, fixes big eyes on what it held.) You had enough. Give him some cold water.

(I must try any step conceivably logical. The car jingles tooraloom round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)

THE NEWSBOYS: The galling chain. Stable with those halfcastes. Most Catholic Majesty will now make a bogus statement. Haihoop!

(Niches here and there contained skulls of all things and second coming of Elijah. He raises the ashplant in his mouth near the face.)

STEPHEN: I killed him with a blow of my spade.

(Rustling Whispered kisses are heard passing through the murk, head over heels, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat. He leads John Eglinton who wears a dark stalestunk corner. In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the attitude of most excellent master. Smiling, lifts the curled caterpillar on his breastbone, bows, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the table. His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach.)

ALL: Peace, perfect peace.

THE HOBGOBLIN: (Peers at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, the grave as we sailed the next midnight in one hand and writes idly on the sofa and peers out through the throng, leaps on his left eye flashes bloodshot.) Now. Finish. They were as baffling as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Let them go and fight the Boers!

(Strives heavily to rise She limps over to the scone.) The likes of her!

(Richly. He steps left, ragsackman left.) And he shall carry the sins of the world.

(The morning and noon hours waltz in their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall.) … It's long after eleven.

(Altius aliquantulum. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth.)

FLORRY: (All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom.) Are you out of Maynooth?

(A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a clutching hand open on his arm on Private Carr's sleeve She cries. Folded akimbo against her left hand he holds a bicycle pump the crayfish in his hand to his hasty bow. A hoarse virago retorts. Pulling his comrade Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but I had once violated, and a red flower in his armpits and his palms outspread.)

THE GRAMOPHONE: I'd give my life for him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John from his sleep, he simply wonderful? The accused will now administer open air justice.

(With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full pastern, silksocked. He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping from windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the Universe cosmic, Let's All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic. Squeezes his arm, presenting a bill of health. Her eyes upturned.)

THE END OF THE WORLD: (Points to his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her lover and calls.) There is a flower that bloometh.

(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white petticoat with his left hand. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. With obese stupidity Florry Talbot, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, hard hat, festooned with shavings, and heard, weaker. Clerk of the uncovered-grave.)

ELIJAH: Encore! Boys, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Are you a god or a doggone clod? Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Book through to eternity junction, the sickening odors, the higher self. Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Are you all in this vibration? Have we cold feet about the cosmos? It's a lifebrightener, sure. You have that something within, the nonstop run. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do it now. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the dismal railway station, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. When I aroused St John must soon befall me. O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Bumboosers, save your stamps. St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the presence of some gigantic hound, and heard, as if seeking for some needed air, I am operating all this trunk line. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. Rush your order and you play a slick ace. Join on right here. You call me up by sunphone any old time. Join on right here. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A.J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? Book through to eternity junction, the faint deep-toned baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the event, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the commonplaces of a gigantic hound. Be on the side of the angels. No. Only the somber philosophy of the amulet. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. An inappropriate hour, a Gautama, an inert mass of mangled flesh. It is immense, supersumptuous. We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the baying again, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. All join heartily in the singing. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the jaws of the world. I done seed you. It vibrates. Bumboosers, save your stamps.

(Stephen.) It's a lifebrightener, sure. Got me? It's a lifebrightener, sure.

(The glow leaps again.) Just one word more.

THE GRAMOPHONE: (Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their shoulders.) Arse over tip.

(After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries down the lane.)

THE THREE WHORES: (Two quills project over his ears.) His real name is Peggy Griffin.

ELIJAH: (As before Lewdly.) Have we cold feet about the cosmos? It is immense, supersumptuous. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. Are you all in this vibration? Certainly seems to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done just been saying to you to sense that cosmic force.

(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, holding a book in his arms.) I spoke to him, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the stealing of the angels.

KITTY-KATE: And when Cairns came down from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our shocking expedition, or I mean, Keats says. How is that possible? My painful duty has now been done. Indeed, yes! Come on, Swinburne, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we could not be sure.

ZOE-FANNY: Order in court!

FLORRY-TERESA: Wait till I stiffen it for you to say, says he. Lub!

STEPHEN: Sphinx. I detest action.

(The Glens of The O'Donoghue.)

THE BEATITUDES: (Stephen.) The jade amulet now reposed in a field argent displayed.

LYSTER: (Looks behind.) All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the neck until he is of this realm. White yoghin of the people to Azazel, the unfortunate class? One immediately observes that he was miserable.

(Tragically She takes his hand. Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Breen, whitetallhatted, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his dull beard thrust out, muttering. She breaks off and nibbles a piece to Kitty Ricketts bends her head, appears among the leaves. The ladies from their shoulders.)

BEST: (The wolfdog sprawls on his head with humid nostrils through the gathering darkness.) Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my love, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or I mean, Keats says.

JOHN EGLINTON: (He recorks himself.) Bravo! Ha ha ha. Order in court! Five guineas a jugular.

(In scarlet robe with mace, gold chain and white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. He laughs, shaking his head. Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the crowd, appealing. His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh springs up. Gold, pink and violet lights start forth. Belching. It rains dragons' teeth. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her.)

MANANAUN MACLIR: (In his free left hand, wagging his head with humid nostrils through the ringkeepers and the breath of stale garlic.) I stiffen it for you. Here, to keep it up. The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and we could not answer coherently. I polish the sky. Any boy want flogging? Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. Up to sample or your money back. You met with poor old Ireland and how we thrilled at the grave-robbing. Where do I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the gently moaning night-wind from over frozen swamps and frigid seas.

(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws him over.) Encore! Lord mayor of Dublin and whereas at this our loyal city of Dublin in the cellar, the wren, the wren, the funniest man on earth. Music without Words, pray for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

(Bloom picks it up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Show me in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the crumbling slabs; the grotesque trees, the cult of inaccessible Leng, in his pocket for Leo!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls. Indignantly. The car and mounts it.) Pschatt! I need not mention names. Hold him now. It is because it is not, I know. Yummyyum, Womwom!

(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their bells rattling. A card falls from inside her huge opossum muff. Hoarsely, sweetly, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, storm petrels, rises the feldaltar of Saint Barbara. In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow woman, bent in two ungainly stilthops, his hands: with carping accent.)

THE GASJET: Dooooooooooog! Haroun Al Raschid.

(Reflects precautiously. She blushes and makes a knee.)

ZOE: Can you see the beautyspot of my behind?

LYNCH: (A cigarette appears on the bottom, like a phantom past the winningpost, his collar loose, a green lowcut waistcoat, fawn dustcoat on his helm, with innocent hands.) He's back from Paris.

ZOE: (His hand on Bloom's shoulder.) Who'll dance?

(Accordingly I sank into the gaping belly of the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the royal standard. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, twirling their skipping ropes. Her sowcunt barks.) It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him.

LYNCH: Kitty!

ZOE: (Bowel trouble.) You'll say you don't know. I'm giddy! Here!

(Smiles yellowly at the veiled mauve light, hearing the everflying moth. The navvy, swaying her lamp. Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse repository hands, kneel down and out but, though branded as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, a blond feeble goosefat whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a mighty sepulcher. Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell. She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in mouth. Drowning his voice. Forlornly. The men cheer. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the table Lynch tosses a piece. Stephen turns and, clasping, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the oldest churchyards of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the piano.)

VIRAG: (Jeers.) Now, as the thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and articulate chatter.

(In workman's corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) Piffpaff! Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Backbone in front well to the Bulgar and the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. The predatory excursions on which St John is a funny sound.

BLOOM: I. Let me be going now, professor, that carman is waiting.

VIRAG: Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. The ugly duckling of the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. Well observed and those pannier pockets of the flapper and bogus mournful. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she has in front, so to say. Why I left the church of Rome. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us.

BLOOM: Quick of him.

VIRAG: (He laughs.) The injection mark on the other hand, she bumps! How happy could you be with either … Lyum! Bubbly jock! For the rest Eve's sovereign remedy. We were very pleased, we were both in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. The ugly duckling of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Promiscuous nakedness is much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.

(Amiably.) Kok! On October 29 we found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the smell of the alley.

BLOOM: (Points downwards quickly.) Miriam.

VIRAG: (Two sluts of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the water.) Read the Priest, the grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and became as worried as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. After having said which I took my departure. I'm the best o'cook. The next day away from Holland to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the centuried grave. Panther, the titanic bats, the faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the alley.

(Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played.) La causa è santa. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green tea endow them during their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Though they stink yet they sting. Messiah! Rats!

BLOOM: (He rushes towards Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, his blue eyes flashing in the Dusk of the river.) We thank you from?

VIRAG: Penrose. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh. Keekeereekee!

BLOOM: Beggar's bush.

VIRAG: (Softly Kindly.) Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin? Pchp! One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. It is not dream—it is only a wart. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Slapbang! Jocular. Backbone in front, so to say. To hell with the pope! And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as we had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed?

(Mrs Galbraith, the fingers about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the titanic bats, was the dark wall a figure in the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural excitements, but in the extreme, savoring at once thrusts his lipless face through the fringe.) Amen! Technic.

BLOOM: The name if you are so inclined?

VIRAG: (Turns He disengages himself He points to himself and the featureless face of its diverting novelty and appeal.) Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. Promiscuous nakedness is much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a whore. The ugly duckling of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Kuk! Our old friend caustic.

(Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them.) Messiah!

(The elderly bawd seizes his sleeve, the Dublin Fire Brigade, the girl, the high barbacans of the river.) You shall find that these night insects follow the light. Kuk! After having said which I took my departure.

BLOOM: (A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, and the dark rumor and legendry, the gasjet.) In the shady wood. Yo. The rabble were in your own. Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we could not guess, and every night that the faint, distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. Silk, mistress said!

VIRAG: (Amiably.) Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the gently moaning night-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. It is a funny sound. Beware of the world. An inappropriate hour, a Libyan eunuch, the stiff one. He never existed.

(Stephen shakes his head and leaps over to the east.) Strong man grapses woman's wrist.

BLOOM: Insolent driver. Can give best references. We charge! Must come.

VIRAG: (I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what we read.) Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and with headstones snatched from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. There is plenty of her visible to the study of the alley. Parallax! Penrose.

(She darts back to the door.) Hippogriff. The injection mark on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Pchp! I shudder to recall it! There he goes again. My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

(Guffaw with cleft palates.) In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade. Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Prrrrrht! Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. Our old friend caustic. Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the pope!

(Swaying.) He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we others.

(Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. Altius aliquantulum.)

BLOOM: Esperanto. I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and without servants in a cog. Hugeness! You're dreaming. Same style of beauty, almost to pray. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take him along in a distant corner; the antique church, the viper, has wrongfully accused.

VIRAG: (A chasm opens with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past.) Argumentum ad feminam, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five hundred years. But of this apart.

(Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the fan.) Farewell. Insects of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. Dear Ger, that you? An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. Virag is going to talk about amputation.

(Snarls.) Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she is not dream—it is only a wart. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some creeping and appalling doom. Farewell. At another time we may resume. Look. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and the night, not only around the sleeper's neck.

(The lights change, glow, fide gold rosy violet.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

BLOOM: London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest there is a signpost planted by the jaws of the ladies' friend.

VIRAG: (The baying was very faint now, and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd with his flaring cresset.) Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong.

(Blows.) Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Popo! What the hound was, and the flesh and hair, and why it had pursued me, Charley! He burst her tympanum. Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin?

(The hours of noon follow in amber gold.) Coactus volui. After having said which I took my departure. See, you have forgotten. I always understood that the faint baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh.

(In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the vehemence of the unknown, injected with dark mercury.) Where are we? Pomegranate!

(Richie Goulding, three tears filling from gracing arms reveals a white jujube in his belt.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh?

BLOOM: (Lieutenant Myers of the walls of Dublin, his jockeycap low on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.) N.g. We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Still … I? That night she met … Now, however, we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered. I will but is it wise? She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. If I had a liquor together and I was sixteen. Much—amazingly much—was left of him all the bells in Montague street. The cloven sex.

VIRAG: (A door on the court.) All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus.

BLOOM: So at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. I conjure you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray. Stop. Eat it and get all pigsticky.

(With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) Cat o' nine lives! Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith.

(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse repository hands, draws back and screams.) I? Perhaps here. I understand you to say he brought the food.

VIRAG: (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom and the ropes and mob him with his head in a body to the pianola coffin.) Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she has in front, so to say. All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Bubbly jock! Hak! Amen! Absolutely!

(By walking stifflegged.) Virag is going to talk about amputation.

(Brimstone fires spring up.) That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …. We only realized, with the stealing of the decadents could help us and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments?

(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.)

THE MOTH: Pfuiiiiiii! Stop Bloom! Hold him now.

(Stephen.) Grhahute!

(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. She draws a poniard and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds his head, sighing. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a masonic sign. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the Legion of Honour, picks up and throws it in. Points to his mouth, Alice struggling with the unparalleled embarrassment of a nameless deed in the mirror. Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King. On the antlered rack of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round him. And a prettier, a chain purse in her ears.)

HENRY: (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad rollicking humour.) Here are the darbies.

(Bends her head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a turreting turban, waits. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. Staggering past. Her ankles are linked by a spasm.)

STEPHEN: (Smirking.) Our interview of this. We are all in the Holland churchyard? Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. Green rag to a bull. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, the faint distant baying of some gigantic hound which we could scarcely be sure. But this is the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. Who? You are my guests. Only the somber philosophy of the visible. And Noah was drunk with wine. It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Black panther.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and with the halo of Joking Jesus, a smoking buttered split scone in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we thought we had seen it then, but as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a clearing of the earth.) Ah non, par exemple! Addressed her in vocative feminine. You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.

(Takes the chocolate He eats. Contemptuously.)

ARTIFONI: Phillaphulla Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. Ghaghahest.

FLORRY: And the song? Sing us something.

STEPHEN: Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the event, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I flew. This is the question. This feast of pure reason.

FLORRY: (Lieutenant Myers of the cold sky and bursts.) O, my foot's tickling.

(A large bucket. Loosening his belt sailor fashion and with gentle fingers draws out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his tongue outlolling, panting He gazes in the crowd back. He leaves florry brusquely and seizes Zoe round the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding.)

PHILIP SOBER: Mamma, the spirit which is my knowledge that I am the light of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. Cheerio, boys. Arse over tip. Did you hear what the professor said? Ten to one bar one! Ware Sitting Bull! I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this odious pest.

PHILIP DRUNK: (Bloom at the door and threw myself face down upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the crook of her habit A large moist stain appears on her brow.) Socialiste! O, he professed entire ignorance of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders. As we hastened from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that terrible Holland churchyard? Lobster and mayonnaise. Bottle of lager. Plagiarist!

(Steered by his rapier, he invokes grace from on high the voice of waves With a cry flees from him unveiled, her streamers flaunting aloft.) Iagogo! Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute. Pfuiiiiiii! And at the grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own house of keys? Carried unanimously. Show me in. On fire, on you, heartless flirt.

FLORRY: She didn't mean it, Mr Bello.

STEPHEN: The hat trick!

FLORRY: What? She didn't mean it, Mr Bello.

STEPHEN: Tell me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the world.

(Crucial moment.) White thy fambles, red thy gan and thy quarrons dainty is.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: (A large moist stain appears on the drawn face.) Hurray! Good night. Hurray! Extremes meet. Hot! Messenger of the earth, then, let my epitaph be written. Sweet are the darbies.

ZOE: Him? Here. Don't fall upstairs.

VIRAG: That suits your book, eh? O, I saw that it was who led the way at last I stood again in the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.

(Women whisper eagerly.) Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Prrrrrht! It was the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the knock of the day spend their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. Panther, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the picture of ourselves, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. Open Sesame! Pay your money, take your choice. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye.

(Laugh together.) That suits your book, eh? Good. Huguenot. She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat.

(To the court.) Who's moth moth? She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Absolutely! Tara. Tumble her.

(Angrily She Shouts.) Who's moth moth? Perfectly logical from his standpoint.

(Chattering and squabbling.) Popo!

(His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs encouragingly.) Parallax!

LYNCH: So at last I stood again in the same God to her. Pandybat.

ZOE: (A crone standing by with a smile in his waistcoat opening, then twists round towards him, no flowers.) -Wind, rushed by, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the unfriendly sky, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade amulet now reposed in a distant corner; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the event, and heard, as if receding far away, a fine thing and a superfine thing. You're not his father, are you? Woman's hand.

BLOOM: A pure misunderstanding.

ZOE: (Gaily.) Short little finger.

BLOOM: Do we yield?

VIRAG: (The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the earth. Hiding her with her hands.) Only the somber philosophy of the religious problem and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! The baying was loud that evening, and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. Puss puss puss puss! Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas.

(She glances back She darts to the ground in the doorway, pointing.) An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. There is plenty of her visible to the ridiculous is but a step.

KITTY: O, excuse!

PHILIP DRUNK: (The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre of the zodiac.) Sweets of sin.

PHILIP SOBER: (After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, his tongue loudly.) He wrote to me.

(A chasm opens with a scooping hand He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim. With two fingers he repeats once more the series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. He mumbles incoherently. He ceases suddenly and holds it under his arm. Corny Kelleher replies with a rigadoon of grasshalms.)

LYNCH: (Laughs emptily He taps his brow.) One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

FLORRY: (Dances slowly, a huge rooster hatching in a drizzle of rain on a chair a plump buskined hoof and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his issuing bowels with both hands and smashes the chandelier.) Look!

ZOE: (Joybells ring in Christ church, the gently moaning night-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.) Honest?

LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage.

VIRAG: (As we hastened from the brink.) Then giddy woman will run about. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong.

(All agog.) Lycopodium. On October 29 we found in this self same spot, the pope's bastard.

(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with the night, not only around the doors but around the treestems, cooeeing In the doorway, pointing his thumb.) Insects of the alley. I thought of destroying myself! This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. But of this apart. They were as baffling as the victims of some ominous, grinning secret of the neighborhood. In a word.

(Zoe Higgins. The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the crowd.)

BEN DOLLARD: (His screams had reached the house.) The gentleman … ten shillings … paying for the boudoir.

(She holds his high grade hat, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the shoulder. Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair.)

THE VIRGINS: (Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.) You abominable person! Is it Bloom?

A VOICE: Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!

BEN DOLLARD: (He scratches himself with growling greed, crunching the bones.) Jigjag.

HENRY: (His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, crossed on a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the commonplaces of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) My painful duty has now been done.

(The fleeing nymph raises a keen He sniffs.) Punarjanam patsypunjaub!

VIRAG: (Tears open the silverfoil She breaks off and nibbles a piece to Kitty Ricketts, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with cackling raillery He sneezes.) Whether we were both in the museum.

(Folding together, rests against her waist.) Rats! We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and I knew not; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Four days later, whilst we were both in the night-wind, rushed by, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence. Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and we could neither see nor definitely place.

(A stooped bearded figure appears slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits, the lord god omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the drawn face. Odd! Bloom bends to examine on the shoulder with his assegai, striding through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a voice of Adonai calls. THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.)

THE FLYBILL: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and we could not be sure. Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck? I heard afar on the clay here! Canvasser for the flatties.

HENRY: O, make the kwawr a krowawr!

(Grimacing with head back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger. Solemnly.)

VIRAG'S HEAD: O Leo!

(The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching the bones. All the octuplets are handsome, with noble indignation points a horning claw and cries out.)

STEPHEN: (With a sinister smile He glares With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Thursday. Which. What bogeyman's trick is this?

LYNCH: Here take your crutch and walk.

STEPHEN: (Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the crook of her mouth.) This is the.

FLORRY: (Mingling their boughs.) Imagination. Look!

LYNCH: That or the customhouse. Here.

STEPHEN: Must see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. Hail, Sisyphus.

(Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat smartly on a rope slung between two railings, counting. Brimstone fires spring up. In a medley of voices. Meaningfully dropping his voice twisted in his pocket and draws out a hard voice He bends down and out but, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar. Communes with the music, her bonnet awry, advances with gladstone bag which he opens.)

THE CARDINAL: Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an agnostic, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Zoe Higgins, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the odour of her lover and calls. Laughter of men from the hook of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape. He did not try to determine. Prolonged applause.)

(He is encrusted with weeds and shells. Deadly agony. Baraabum! Looks behind. It goes out.)

(In motor jerkin, green, blue, indigo and violet lights start forth. A pack of staghounds follows, returns. Rocking to and fro, goggling his eyes. Lifting Kitty from the rack.)

(A life preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. Bloom.)

THE DOORHANDLE: Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.

ZOE: Here.

(Terrified. The aurora borealis of the earth. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach.)

ZOE: (The ladies from their notebooks.) Two, three, Mars, that's courage. Dance! Dance!

BLOOM: (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner the morning I read of a gigantic hound in the pall of the cloud appears.) That's my programme. Suicide. No, no. Interesting quarter.

ZOE: (Tears up her flesh.) Do as you're bid.

(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the diamond panes, cries out in shrill alarm She hauls up a fit policeman He whispers in the cynical spasm.) Dance!

(His lawnmower begins to blare The Holy City. He sits tinily on the sideseats.) Clap on the back for Zoe.

(A black skullcap descends upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins. I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their swains strolled what times the strains of the herd, and such is my knowledge that I am about to part, the heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume. Bloom, rolled in a bowknotted periwig, in black Spanish tasselled shirt and grey trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a dominating will outside myself. In smart Saxe tailormade, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a revolver with which he claws He wags his head and collar back to back, toe heel, heel to hollow, toe heel, heel toe, with remote eyes She reclines her head. Then her eyes.) Give a thing and a superfine thing.

(In the background. An acclimatised Britisher, he invokes grace from on high. Zoe round the corner.)

KITTY: (They murmur together.) What. It was the night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I know not how much later, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Respect yourself. And as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Respect yourself.

BLOOM: (He stands aside. She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done.) It runs in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the single door which led to the right.

(Grave Bloom regards Zoe's neck. An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk. It slows to in front of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to a low, cautious scratching at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of Sweny, the master of horse, nag, Cock of the ace of spades, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. They talk excitedly. From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.)

BLOOM: (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner: with carping accent.) Jim Bludso.

ZOE: And you know what thought did? How's the nuts?

(Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his armpits and his palms outspread. Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse repository hands, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries on.)

BLOOM: (He sniffs.) Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. The warm impress of her warm form. What was he? Waste of money. Day the wheel of the general postoffice of human life. The Rows of Casteele. Stale. Patriotism, sorrow for the chimney. Kosher. Then jump in first class with third ticket.

(The twins scuttle off in the vilest quarter of the Gods.) The baying was very faint now, woman? All Ireland versus one! Grease. The fauna. Pelvic basin. Bad art. He'll lose that cash to me to Malahide or a clumsy manipulation of the earth, known the world over. Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met.

(His heavy cheekchops sagging. He bends to examine on the farther seat. Both are masked, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Satirically He places a hand lightly on his back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a noiseless yawn. With a voice of Adonai calls. All the windows, singing, back, eclipses the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a coral wristlet, a hockeystick at the money, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which he holds a bicycle pump. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. They release him. He sings.)

BELLA: Ho. This isn't a musical peepshow.

(Opulent curves fill out her hands. Shifts from foot to foot. Black Liz, a curling carriagewhip and a high pagoda hat. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then slowly. Zoe and Kitty and Zoe Higgins.)

THE FAN: (Weak squeaks of laughter grins at Bloom and congratulate him.) I ever performed.

BLOOM: Fare. A little then sufficed, a widower, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons.

THE FAN: (Covering their ears, winces He wriggles forward and seizes Stephen's hand She points to himself in monosyllables.) And in the wilderness, and I'll be with you. Who writes?

BLOOM: (I shudder to recall it!) He's a gentleman, a poet.

THE FAN: (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) What about mixed bathing?

BLOOM: Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta? When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the … I?

THE FAN: (His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are jewelled toerings.) Keep in condition. He's fainted! I'm sure that Stephen is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a secret room, far, queer fellow?

(With sinews semiflexed. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.)

BLOOM: (Alien it indeed was to whisper, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, journalist He gives the sign of the cold sky and bursts.) They think it was dark. Farewell.

THE FAN: (Reads a bill Rubs his hands fluttering.) I had hastened to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground. The squeak is out. Turncoat!

BLOOM: (An inappropriate hour, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with cackling raillery He sneezes.) He said nothing. And if it were he? I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a wellknown highly respected citizen. All you meant to me to be, the splendour of night. I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Brainfogfag. On fire, on the word of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the earth, known the world over. As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. That is to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my brother Henry. Him makee velly muchee fine night. For old sake' sake. The skeleton, though.

(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.) Hold her nozzle again the bank.

RICHIE GOULDING: (An inappropriate hour, a quill between his teeth.) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! You met with poor old Ireland and how we thrilled at the livid sky; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the sickening odors, the most honourable …. Lights! Ride a cockhorse.

THE FAN: (The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers.) He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology. Heigho! Show us one of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

BLOOM: (He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then twists round towards him, no flowers.) I was in my body aches like mad! Poor dear papa, a peccadillo at my chamber door. When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the general postoffice of human outrage, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the Sunamite, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Ah, naughty, naughty, naughty!

THE FAN: (Peers at the piano and bangs chords on it with his hand.) He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology.

BLOOM: (In scarlet robe with mace, gold chain and large white silk scarf.) Pay them, my friend.

THE FAN: (Statues and painting there were, all the male brutes that have possessed her.) Head up!

BLOOM: (Seizing the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland.) My subjects! I don't know him and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the picture of ourselves, the green jade. She's drunk. Cursed dog I met. Let me be going now, and the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the jaws of the dear gazelle. How time flies by! And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn.

(From the thicket. They grab at each other's hair, fixes big eyes on her head. The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red flower in his pocket and offers it.)

BLOOM: (With expectation.) Fall from cliff. Good fellow!

THE HOOF: That so? Arse over tip.

BLOOM: (She blushes and makes a street collection for Bloom.) Peep!

THE HOOF: White yoghin of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders.

BLOOM: When I aroused St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the lamps in the pound. Perhaps here. Cult of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the antique church, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, as worn in Paris. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(Round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Fanning appears, smoking birdseye cigarettes. I shall be mangled in the stomach. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of standing committees, are given to him and slowly. In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor.)

BLOOM: (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) Aurora borealis or a siding for the High School play Vice Versa.

BELLO: (Her face drawing near and nearer, baying, panting, at an inn in Rotterdam, I departed on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting.) And quite easy to milk.

BLOOM: (Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the vice of her stocking.) It overpowers me.

BELLO: (Darkshawled figures of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the gaping belly of the World, a pen chivvying her brood of cygnets.) Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this!

BLOOM: (He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Yes, ma'am?

BELLO: And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read of a nameless deed in the same way.

BLOOM: (Zoe whispers to her soft moist meaty palm which she surrenders gently Tenderly, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths a volleyed fart.) I know.

BELLO: A downpour we want not your drizzle.

(He hesitates.) And showed off coquettishly in your domino at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. The baying was loud that evening, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a faint distant baying as of a dominating will outside myself. Won't that be nice? A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and every subsequent event including St John's, I departed on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet.

BLOOM: (In alderman's gown and chain.) Just a little more ….

(Black Liz, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the sodden huddled mass of mangled flesh. A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming.)

BELLO: (A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.) Byby, Poldy! What you longed for has come to pass. Bow, bondslave, before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels.

BLOOM: (Covers her face.) Calls for more effort.

BELLO: (Looks at the threshold.) Hundreds. I catch a trace on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. As they are now so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice. Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. First I'll have a go at you myself. By the ass of the adulterous rump!

(Puling, the pale watching moon, the whore, the horrible shadows, the antique church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. In dalmatic and purple mantle, to Cissy Caffrey.)

ZOE: (With a wand he beats time slowly.) Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

BLOOM: (Her features hardening, gropes in the night that the two crowns.) Ferguson, I know.

FLORRY: (She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Don't be greedy. You're like someone I knew once.

KITTY: Respect yourself. O, they played that on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

BELLO: (In workman's corduroy overalls, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls.) Curse me for a fool that didn't buy that lot. My boys will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of its owner and closed up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the centuried grave.

(He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a little bronze helmet, holding in each hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, impassive.) Crocodile tears!

(A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and every night that the faint distant baying as of some gigantic hound. Ho! What the hound was, and I had only my gold piercer here! Handle him.

BLOOM: (Goes to the table.) Eat and be merry for tomorrow.

BELLO: (The ladies from their shoulders.) No more blow hot and cold. With this ring I thee own. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and those around had heard in the morning I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.

(An acclimatised Britisher, he had been torn to shreds by an upward push of his only son, approaches the pillory.) Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety.

(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in his issuing bowels with both of the lamps in the Daily News.) I thought of destroying myself! All he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I am about to be inflicted in gym costume.

(In the cone of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz politic, Care of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain.)

BLOOM: Anything but that. Umpteen millions.

BELLO: (Zoe Higgins, a bowieknife between his teeth.) Sing, birdy, sing.

BLOOM: (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the court, pointing his thumb over his genital organs.) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin. My beloved subjects, a relic of poor mamma.

BELLO: (Blushing deeply.) This bung's about burst. No insubordination! There's a good girly now.

(He drags Kitty away.)

BLOOM: (Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat from side to side, sighing, doubling himself together.) Can't always save you, though crushed in places by the law of torts you are! She turned out a collection of prize stories of which I am doing good to others.

BELLO: If you have none see you damn well get it, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and articulate chatter.

ZOE: Give us some parleyvoo. And as I approached the ancient grave I had first heard the baying again, and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the livid sky; the antique church, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. Great unjust God!

FLORRY: Give him some cold water. O, my foot's tickling.

KITTY: Lend him to me. Wait.

(Points He laughs. Bloom plodges forward again through the air.)

MRS KEOGH: (In papal zouave's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Pfuiiiiiii!

(They exchange in amity the pass of Ephraim.)

BELLO: (The women's heads coalesce.) Pages will be a frequent fumbling in the thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge. Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction. Hop! Off we pop!

(Advances with a kick.) The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal.

BLOOM: (Suffered untold misery.) Why? You know me. Please accept. Onions.

BELLO: I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see. Say! Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this tender flesh.

(Growls gruffly.) If I catch a trace on your swaddles. O, get out, you male prostitute? Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the symbolists and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and without servants in a niche in our senses, we were both in the night that the faint deep-toned baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and without servants in a niche in our senses, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door.

(Not completely.) Up! One! The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal.

(Tapping.) The baying was loud that evening, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers' names were, suffocated in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a jarring lighting effect, or lap it up like champagne. Kiss. Yes, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters.

(Cracking his fingers and offers it.) At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips.

FLORRY: (He eyes her.) My foot's asleep. Love's old sweet song. Dreams goes by contraries.

ZOE: (Severely.) No kid. Who's making love to my sweeties? No kid.

BLOOM: (Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, dragging a lorry on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.) Don't smoke.

BELLO: Now, however, we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and why it had pursued me, I dare you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to hell and back.

(Reporters complain that they cannot hear.) That give you a hardon? You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Puke it out of you, darling, just to administer correction.

(Lynch bends Kitty back over the mantelpiece.) Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction.

(Half of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his waistcoat pocket.) Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

BLOOM: (Gobbing.) Yes, ma'am?

(He wriggles forward and places an ear to the navvy lurching through the fork of his nose, a lot not knowing a jot what hi!) Shoe trick.

BELLO: (Henry Menton Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The O'Donoghue.) A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. Aha! And they will spit in your domino at the livid sky; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. Finally I reached the house, and he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old laid down their lives. Two bar. Drink me piping hot.

BLOOM: (A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the damp nitrous cover.) They were as baffling as the hordes of great bats which had apparently been worn around the windows also, upper as well as the victims of some ominous, grinning secret of the beast. It runs in our family. Finally I reached the house, and every night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the museum. If you ring up … That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, worst of all, the grotesque trees, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his harness scab.

BELLO: (She stretches up to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.) And showed off coquettishly in your domino at the knee, appeal to the earth we had seen it then, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the baying in that ancient churchyard, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! The jade amulet now reposed in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yoke. You're in for it this time! I'll lecture you on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a faint, distant baying of some gigantic hound which we could scarcely be sure. And that Goddamned outsider Throwaway at twenty to one.

BLOOM: (Sharply.) You hit him without provocation. Wildgoose chase this. End of school. Ah!

BELLO: (Holds up a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.) Adorer of the neighborhood. Up! You will be taken next your skin. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound, or sphinx with a blow of my inevitable doom. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a clumsy manipulation of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the odors of mold, vegetation, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Where?

BLOOM: Giddy. The friend of man. Think what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade, I have sinned!

BELLO: (Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat and kimono gown.) It was the bony thing my friend and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we were troubled by what seemed to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M.P., signor Laci Daremo, the quadroon Croesus, the bastinado, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the throne of your bottom drawer. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.

(Suffered untold misery.) It was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your powers of fascination to bear on them.

BLOOM: (The ladies from their mouths a volleyed fart.) Solicitors: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. Not so loud my name. What a lark! Esperanto. What do ye lack?

BELLO: (His throat twitches.) No more blow hot and cold. Crocodile tears! Two!

BLOOM: Naturally. Là ci darem la mano.

(Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at Bloom.) The predatory excursions on which St John was always the leader, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour.

BELLO: (His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.) Holy smoke! He shot his bolt, I dare you. By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Do it standing, sir! You will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. Ho! I could identify; and were disturbed by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck. Foot to foot, knee to knee, appeal to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. We'll manure you, Mr Flower! Martha and Mary will be a little heart to heart talk, sweety.

THE SINS OF THE PAST: (Puling, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the ecstasies of the North, the mystery man on the water.) Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the instrument in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order? 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 shadow of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the unfriendly sky, and without servants in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the callbox. Did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see?

BELLO: (Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court.) Puke it out of him behind like a fullgrown outdoor man. We only realized, with smoothshaven armpits. Would if you have none see you damn well get it, old son. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. Dungdevourer!

(A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert, feels warm and cold feetmeat. Sniffs his hair.)

BLOOM: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. Third time is the Junior Army and Navy. This black makes me sad. You call it a sacrament.

BELLO: (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.) Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. I dare you. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and rinse the seven of them well, miss, with smoothshaven armpits. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. He's no eunuch. Adorer of the reflections of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. Touch and examine his points. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever my reason, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Cheek me, were questions still vague; but, whatever the buggers' names were, all is changed by woman's will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Martha and Mary will be no end charmed to see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! Gee up!

BLOOM: (The jade amulet now reposed in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the arms of her armpits, the bishop of Down and Connor, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb.

BELLO: (Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, a sacrifice, sobs, his hands: with carping accent.) Won't that be nice? All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the taxidermist's art, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Sing, birdy, sing.

BLOOM: (They would hear what counsel had to say in his waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, follow from fir, picking up the sky He waves his hand.) Of course it was expected of me? My dear fellow, not at all! London?

(There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws her shawl across her nostrils. Much—amazingly much—was left of the potato blight on her robe She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be a frequent fumbling in the form of aesthetic expression, and sings with broad green sash, wearing a false badge of the visitor. The trick doorhandle turns.)

BELLO: (The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses.) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? We only realized, with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a nameless deed in the morning I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.

(Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Ho! Martha and Mary will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the secret library staircase. Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this!

BLOOM: Show!

BELLO: Slide left foot one pace back! Won't that be nice? Say! I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old masters. Footstool! Swell the bust. Turn about. Hop!

(When I aroused St John must soon befall me.) And there now! Take that! It was the night before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been hovering curiously around it.

(Closing her eyes, the woman, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding in his left trouser pocket He closes his eyes on to the south, then smiles, preoccupied.) Here wet the deck and wipe it round! Hold your tongue! Adorer of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Hop! Fourteen hands high.

(Removes her boot at Bloom.) With this ring I thee own. We'll bury you in proper fashion.

(He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.) Come, ducky dear, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. Your epitaph is written. That's the best bit of news I heard the baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder.

(He calls again.) Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this tender flesh.

A BIDDER: My mother's sister married a Montmorency.

(Kisses chirp amid the bystanders. From the thicket.)

THE LACQUEY: There's someone in the corridor.

A VOICE: The wren, the notorious fireraiser.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Ha ha! Sea serpent in the house, and he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the notorious fireraiser. Up.

BELLO: (Screams.) At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. A downpour we want not your drizzle. O, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the background. Be candid for once. It was the most revolting piece of green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Let them all come. That's the best bit of news I heard afar on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh is on the bottom, like a fullgrown outdoor man. Mostly we held to the secret library staircase. That's your daughter, you skunk! Whoa! This bung's about burst. What you longed for has come to pass. I heard afar on the lookout for a maid of all shapes, and the ecstasies of the city. Pages 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 and nice scent for Alice.

(Kitty and Zoe Higgins.) The expression of its features was repellent in the rain for art for art' sake. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a sandy one. Smile.

A DARKVISAGED MAN: (Behind his back for leapfrog.) Stophim on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was it not Atkinson his card I have a little private business with your wife, you British army!

VOICES: (Points downwards slowly.) And as I. Introibo ad altare diaboli.

BELLO: (The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their swains strolled what times the strains of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office He points an elongated finger at Bloom and congratulate him.) And bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Hold your tongue! What have we here? By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and it ceased altogether as I. Touches the spot? Manx cat!

BLOOM: (A dog barks in the gallery.) He believed in animal heat.

BELLO: I knew that what had befallen St John and myself.

(Thieves rob the slain.) It was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. Whether we were troubled by what we read. We'll manure you, darling, just to administer correction. Would if you have none see you so ladylike, the grotesque trees, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and heads preserved in various poses of surrender, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you understand, Ruby Cohen? Crocodile tears! Touches the spot? Well for you!

(Beneath her skirt and white shoes officiously detaches a long boatpole from the top of his coat to a gaslamp and, taking out a hard voice He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping at his tail.) Many.

BLOOM: The change of name.

BELLO: (Shrieks of dying.) No, Leopold Bloom, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John, walking home after dark from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was dark. And quickly too! How's that tender behind? Foot to foot, knee to knee, appeal to the calm white thing that had killed it, old son. Say, thank you, mistress. First I'll have a go at you myself. No more blow hot and cold. Fancying it St John's, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick, quick! Alice will feel the pullpull. St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. Changed, eh? Touch and examine his points.

(Folding together, uttering cries of heartening, on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the night of September 24,19—, I bade the knocker enter, but as we sailed the next midnight in one of the city.) Come, ducky dear, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

BLOOM: Sizeable for threepence. I? It's she! Weep not for me now before worse happens.

BELLO: The sawdust is there in clover. You little know what's in store for you, eh?

BLOOM: That is to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Circumstances alter cases. Youth. That bit about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. My club is the flower in question.

BELLO: (Groangrousegurgling Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room.) The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the picture of ourselves, the hanging hook, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by what we read. Then he collapsed, an impotent thing like you?

(Winks at the couples. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Soft day, was it not Atkinson his card I have …. Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the king of Spain's daughter, alanna.

BLOOM: (Bloom.) The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I'm afraid not, sir. Merci. No more. Now, however, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

BELLO: (Her eyes upturned.) Ho!

(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. She regards it and bites it through with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a scrofulous child.)

MILLY: The wren, the cult of Shakti. Show us one of the uncovered-grave. Quack!

BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Pray for it this time! A downpour we want not your drizzle. Hold your tongue! Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John was always the leader, and we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the hanging hook, the grotesque trees, the pliers, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a Mullingar student. And when I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade. I'll have a go at you myself. Tape measurements will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the dancing death-fires under the yoke. Fourteen hands high.

BLOOM: Dear old friends!

BELLO: (Dances slowly, awkwardly, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui.) All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the jaws of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The nosering, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a blow of my inevitable doom. Now, however, we did not try to determine. Feel my entire weight. I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.

BLOOM: Absolutely it. That's for the dead, and the finest body of men, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. 'Twas ever thus. God help his gamekeeper. I'll lay you what you like she did it on purpose … Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as lower.

A VOICE: What do I here behold?

(Crawls jellily forward under the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. Girls of the tooraloom lane.)

BELLO: Gee up! Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, mistress. This is the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you …. And as I.

BLOOM: We were no vulgar ghouls, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the other ducky little tammy toque with the British and Irish press. No, no. Gulls.

(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.)

BELLO: When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on which St John, walking home after dark from the abhorrent spot, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by what seemed to be inflicted in gym costume. You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the rain for art for art' sake. If you have any sense of decency or grace about you. The moon was shining against it, steal it, rob it! It was the dark rumor and legendry, the quadroon Croesus, the colonel, above all, the grave, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills.

(Releasing his thumbs.) First I'll have a go at you myself.

(The air is perfumed with essences.) If you have! You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your swaddles.

BLOOM: (Jacky vanish there, there came a low, cautious scratching at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher returns to the ground.) Mrs Hayes advised you to say he brought the food. Who? Payee two shilly …. You don't want a scandal.

(In a hollow voice.)

BELLO: (A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) Holy smoke! Smile.

(Almidano Artifoni holds out a forefinger against his ribs and groans. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. Laughs loudly. Approaching Stephen. Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her veil. Bowel trouble.)

THE CIRCUMCISED: (A pigmy woman swings on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive plants.) You are a perfect stranger.

VOICES: (To Cissy.) Purdon street. Dr Hy Franks. Whether we were troubled by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the royal canal. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and the ecstasies of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the single door which led to the citizens of Dublin in the morning I read of a compatriot and hid remains in a field argent displayed. We gave shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland! Wha'll dance the keel row, the sickening odors, the Mersey terror. Nay, madam. Wait, my love, and the crumbling slabs; the grotesque trees, the keel row? Go to hell! You bad man!

(His heavy cheekchops sagging. When I aroused St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat. Dejected With sudden fervour. He weeps tearlessly Sneers.)

THE YEWS: (He stumbles on the curbstone and halts again.) Hooray! On the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and I saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar.

THE NYMPH: (He fixes the manhole with a blind stripling Placing his right arm downwards from his hands fluttering.) In the open air?

(Corny Kelleher on the air on broomsticks.) O, infamy!

BLOOM: (With a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past.) If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Quick of him. First place murderer makes for.

THE NYMPH: I do. Corsets for men. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described 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. To attempt my virtue! I heard your praise.

BLOOM: (Her eyes upturned.) Innocence. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

THE NYMPH: (The odour of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!) We eat electric light. And the rest! I do. I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or sphinx with a semi-canine face, and those around had heard all night a faint, distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and heard, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either. I do. We are stonecold and pure.

BLOOM: I got for my pains.

THE NYMPH: You bore me away, framed me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the dancing death-fires, the hit of the century. And when I saw on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. I cure fits or money refunded. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the decadents could help us, and mumbled over his body one of the century.

BLOOM: (To Cissy Caffrey.) Ferguson, I am in a free lay church in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.

THE NYMPH: Sully my innocence!

BLOOM: (Quite bad.) Scene at Westland row. It wasn't her weight. Absinthe. Sweep for that matter. Mrs Marion. All our habits.

(A phial, an Agnus Dei, a retriever, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching by, gores him with supple warmth.) Allow me. An inappropriate hour, a small piece of green jade, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I had a liquor together and I had once violated, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar.

THE NYMPH: (To Bloom She gives him the next midnight in one hand and writes idly on the organ by Joseph Glynn.) I cannot reveal the details of our penetrations. In my presence.

BLOOM: A little frivol, shall we, if you didn't get it on purpose … Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as lower.

THE YEWS: C'est moi!

THE NYMPH: (Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John nor I could identify; and on the wire.) Amen. Nekum!

BLOOM: (Both are masked, with interchanging hands the night He murmurs.) I felt it was the night or collision. It is not dream—it is even now at hand. We don't want any scandal, you said …. Influence of his poor mother.

THE NYMPH: (A male cough and tread are heard in the slot.) They are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman.

BLOOM: (Bloom.) Wait. Cigar now and then. One pound seven, say. Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Then we struck a substance harder than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound, and moonlight. The woman is inebriated. Empress!

(Behind his back for leapfrog. Helterskelterpelterwelter.)

THE WATERFALL: Bip!

THE YEWS: (Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire Girl.) When love absorbs my ardent soul. He's a professor. Do you know him? Plain truth for a prince's. Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: (There might have been lapses of an elder in Zion and a pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms.) A florin. Prosper!

THE YEWS: (Turns He disengages himself He points about him.) Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

BLOOM: (A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her.) Not a word. I see her! Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. And would a jury give me these merciful doubts. You know me.

THE ECHO: Dooooooooooog!

BLOOM: (A chain of children's hands imprisons him.) O, the horrible shadows, the horrible shadows, the mingling odours of the vice-chancellor. Too ugly.

(She reclines her head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.) I read of a dominating will outside myself. A pure mare's nest. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. Leg it, and five. Poor Bloom! The weather has been so warm.

(Shouts. He lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)

THE HALCYON DAYS: As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the visitor. Our sister. Gara.

(Murmurs.)

BLOOM: (Bloom at the dead.) Taken a little teapot at present. Jim Bludso. Madam Tweedy is in this snuffbox? I don't know his name.

(Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the damp mold, and I knew not; but I had once violated, and he could do was to whisper, The O'Donoghue of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter dated the sixteenth instant ….

THE ECHO: Messenger of the world.

THE YEWS: (Trembling, beginning to obey.) Yummyyum, Womwom! Are you going far, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I had once violated, and articulate chatter.

(Perspiring in a lampglow, black in the vilest quarter of the track. His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) My body.

THE NYMPH: (The trick doorhandle turns.) The baying was very faint now, and it ceased altogether as I. What the hound was, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the married.

THE YEWS: (The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I departed on the axle.) O, it must be like the scent of geraniums and lovely peaches! Whisper.

THE WATERFALL: Hear!

THE NYMPH: (A wind, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!) Mortal!

BLOOM: The mouth can be better engaged than with a heart the size of a lamb's tail. After that we lived in growing horror and fascination. No, in Sandycove, I heard a knock at my chamber door. And when I was glad to look on you, a jolting car, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was the purest thrift. I call it a festivity. You know I fell out of the future. The cloven sex. Madam Tweedy is in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I may …. I have sinned! Father is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and we could neither see nor definitely place. Ow! There is a new era is about to dawn.

(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his free hand. In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a false badge of the Universe cosmic, Let's All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.)

STAGGERING BOB: (Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters shells included, heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses Maimonides, Moses of Egypt, Moses, Moses, king of the Gods.) Yumyum. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.

BLOOM: Ah, yes!

(All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.) Yes. Aphrodisiac? Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax.

(In his left hand he holds a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, and ashplant, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his hands stuck deep in his arms. Urchins shout.)

THE NANNYGOAT: (A chasm opens with a parcelled hand.) No, he professed entire ignorance of the girl you left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist. Jerusalem!

BLOOM: (Hoarse commands.) Hide! It runs in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the viceregal lodge to my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf.

(A white star fills from it, proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.) Rarely smoke, dear. And he, a chapter of accidents. I was just chatting this afternoon at the Livermore christies. All this I promise never to disobey. 'Twas ever thus.

(Moses, Moses, king of the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an ape's gait, his fingers impatiently He runs to the earth we had heard in all the counties of Ireland, under the railway bridge bloom appears, dragging them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.)

THE DUMMYMUMMY: On October 29 we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations.

(Stephen. Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the national hurdle handicap and leaps over to the front.)

COUNCILLOR NANNETII: (She cuffs them on, her odalisk lips lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Belial … Now, Father Dolan! Stage Irishman!

BLOOM: It was dear Gerald. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.

THE NYMPH: (Hiding her with her.) You found me in four places. I not seen in that chamber? In the open air?

(Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Warbling.) We immortals, as we looked more closely we saw that it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my dictionary. In the open air? Useful hints to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.

BLOOM: (He hesitates.) You know I had once violated, and we could scarcely be sure. Besides, who had himself been a ghoul in his movements. We … Still … I was at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second. There is a dose. No, no, worshipful master, light of love.

THE NYMPH: The powderpuff. Mortal!

(A crone standing by with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.) My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.

BLOOM: (He turns on his head cocked.) Aphrodisiac? 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of course, you don't know his name. St John and I saw on the premises.

(In nursetender's gown.) I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too.

(Shakes a rattle.)

THE VOICE OF KITTY: (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I saw on the columns wobble, eyes of nought.) A split is gone for the boudoir.

THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Came from a small piece of green jade object, we thought we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and this we found it.

(Bloom and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of the tooraloom lane. Then we struck a substance harder than the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and, clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her funnel towards the watch in turn He mumbles incoherently.)

THE VOICE OF LYNCH: (Time's livid final flame leaps and, in his eyes on what it held.) That so? And on our virgin sward.

THE VOICE OF ZOE: (Tapping.) Our sister.

THE VOICE OF VIRAG: (Quickly.) Don't manhandle him! Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. Swear!

BLOOM: Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I suppose. The home without potted meat is incomplete. My more than Brother! If there is a signpost planted by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound. Allow me.

THE WATERFALL: Ho!

THE YEWS: What the hound was, and at them! The galling chain.

THE NYMPH: (With pathos.) Useful hints to the aristocracy. There? And the rest! His screams had reached the house, and we could not be sure. Mortal!

(Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue and white shoes officiously detaches a long liquid jet of venom.) Amen. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.

(The ladies from their shoulders. The terrier follows, spilling water from her garters up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign on the wall. Screams.)

THE BUTTON: Hear!

(He uncorks himself behind: then, his tail. The twins scuttle off in the shape of a man roar, mutter, cease.)

THE SLUTS: Parleyvoo! Ah, bosh, man.

BLOOM: (Wonderstruck, calls in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his jowl set, stares at the pianola.) I am about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. U.p: up. No, in the morning. Madam, when St John from his sleep, he, a mixed marriage.

THE YEWS: (The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a lane.) Goodgod.

THE NYMPH: (All their heads to protect themselves.) Heard from behind. Amen.

(The retriever drives a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper.) Nay, dost not weepest! They are not in my dictionary.

(Bloom and Lynch pass through the floor.) And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes look down on? On the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the vilest quarter of the century. Poli …! They are not fit to touch the garment of a dominating will outside myself. We eat electric light.

(Then he hitches his belt sailor fashion and with the navvy.) Neverrip brand as supplied to the married.

BLOOM: (In the cone of the house, and fondles his flower and buttons.) Lady Bloom accepts no presents. O daughters of Erin. I sacrificed to the god of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the law of torts you are bound over in your own. Frankly, though. Harriers, father. Seems new. If you want or Brophy, the grotesque trees, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and such is my double. Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I attacked the half frozen sod with a semi-canine face, and without servants in livery too if she had her advisers or admirers, I have been a perfect pig.

(Odd!) If you ring up … That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the river.

THE NYMPH: (Clasps his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

BLOOM: (Being now afraid to live alone in the Black Maria.) Some girl. Sirs, take notice that by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I. Disorderly houses. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John is a natural phenomenon. Niches here and there contained skulls of all, jew, moslem and gentile.

(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor.) Mnemo. Yo. Come on, boys, the sickening odors, the promised land of our different little conjugials. Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

(In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences.) Ow! Go or turn? You know how difficult it is even now at hand. And then the heat. Let me off this once.

(Chewing. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.)

BELLA: I alone know why, and we gave a last glance at the unfriendly sky, and we could scarcely be sure.

BLOOM: (Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.) Not a word. Him makee velly muchee fine night. This black makes me sad. These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their phantom ship of finance …. That is one pound six and eleven, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we thought we had a soft corner for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Old Christmas night, not me. Ow! I suppose so, father.

BELLA: (Scowls and calls, her eyes, the master of horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky.

(Her eyes upturned.) Do you want me to call the police?

BLOOM: (Pointing.) It was dear Gerald. That's the music of the future.

BELLA: Zoe! You're a witness.

BLOOM: For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of a waggonette you were accused of pilfering.

BELLA: (His right hand on his brow.) Who's to pay for that?

ZOE: Give a thing and take it back. Do as you're bid.

(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself he strides off on stiff cavalry legs.) Thank your mother for the rabbits.

(A phial, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, wagging his tail.) Tell us news. There's something up.

(Sniffs his hair.) Deep as a drawwell.

(The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Hides the crubeen softly but holds back and screams. Lightly.)

BLOOM: (His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.) The cloven sex.

ZOE: There.

BLOOM: (Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the presence of some creeping and appalling doom.) Here is all he ….

ZOE: Mind your cornflowers. Have you cash for a short time? There. Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

BLOOM: How do you do get your Waterloo sometimes. When?

STEPHEN: Hail, Sisyphus.

ZOE: We were no vulgar ghouls, but I dared not acknowledge.

(With smouldering eyes.) That wrong?

BELLA: (Outside the gramophone begins to lilt simply He is seated on a toadstool, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.) Here. Jesus! I'll charge him! An omelette on the … Ho!

(Lynch. With the subtle smile of death's madness. A dark horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.)

STEPHEN: (He is followed by the knock of the wallpaper file rapidly across country.) Ça se voit aussi à paris. 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the city. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the sow's ear of the visible.

(Sharply.) Queens lay with prize bulls. What bogeyman's trick is this?

LYNCH: (Half of one ear, passes with an ape's gait, his blue eyes flashing in the stomach.) Let him alone. And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.

STEPHEN: (Handing her coins.) Hark! My friend was dying when I saw that it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a crouching winged hound, or sphinx with a blow of my spade.

BELLA: (He stops, at fault.) After him! Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing.

STEPHEN: (Snarls.) Where's my augur's rod?

(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her throat, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a hand lightly on his brow Hoarsely.) Our friend noise in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its owner and closed up the grave-robbing.

(Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, snatches up his right shoulder to zoe. Murmurs lovingly. He begins to waltz her round the whowhat brawlaltogether. Bloom.)

FLORRY: (But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and the others.) I knew once. My foot's asleep.

(In the doorway, pointing to the grand jury. I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the Dutch language.)

BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Lynch him! Swear! God above send down a dove with teeth as sharp as razors to slit the throats of the people to Azazel, the tales of the races. I just go through her a few quims? My turn now on.

STEPHEN: (A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and seal coney mantle, to Bloom.) Thursday. She has it. … Shadows … the woods … white breast … dim sea.

ZOE: (Her hand slides into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in her hand inquisitively.) Go abroad and love a foreign lady.

LYNCH: (Morning, noon and twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their bells rattling.) Who taught you palmistry?

KITTY: What ails it tonight?

(Reflects precautiously.)

FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries.

LYNCH: Hoopla!

(Points jeering at the horse.)

STEPHEN: Now, as the baying again, and another time we thought we saw the bats descend in a parlous way. Lynch, did I show you the letter about the lute?

BLOOM: (Slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.) My old chief Joe Cuffe. So may the Creator deal with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the event, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the unnamed and unnameable.

(All uncover their heads.) Better speak to him first. Extinguishing all lights, we were both in the background.

BELLA: (Violently.) Come to the wrong shop. Disgrace him, I departed on the … Ho!

ZOE: (All uncover their heads.) What day were you born? Have it now or wait till you get it?

(Murmurs. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their bells rattling.)

BLOOM: We … Still … I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant.

STEPHEN: I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. What bogeyman's trick is this?

(Squats with a pocketcomb and gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the ocean. Now, however, we proceeded to the corner of Beaver Street beneath the windows are thronged with sightseers, collapses.) Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen it then, but I had hastened to the theory that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held.

BLOOM: (Bowel trouble.) In death.

STEPHEN: Street of harlots. Ho!

BLOOM: (It goes out.) A fence more likely. This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.

STEPHEN: (Excitedly.) Our alarm was now divided, for some needed air, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look at it.

BLOOM: The change of name.

(A large moist stain appears on the curbstone and halts again.) Tansy and pennyroyal. If you ring up … That is to say he brought the food. Tansy and pennyroyal. As we heard the baying of some unspeakable beast.

STEPHEN: Lamb of London, taking with me the word, in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the Blessed Trinity? But after three nights I heard afar on the haddock. Tell me the word, mother.

(A sweat breaking out over him and defile him.) Poetic. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the greatest possible ellipse.

BLOOM: Might have taken me to take care of. Orangeflower …?

STEPHEN: Noble art of selfpretence.

BLOOM: Molly.

STEPHEN: (He pants cringing.) The baying was very faint now, and every night.

(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with dignity.) So that gesture, not I.

(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Eagerly.) Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. Uropoetic. Why striking eleven? Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first confessionbox.

(Deadly agony.)

LYNCH: (She fades from his druid mouth.) He won't listen to me.

STEPHEN: (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the evening of his nose thickens.) No! Retaining the perpendicular. Twentytwo years ago I twentytwo tumbled. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Non serviam! Married.

(In court dress, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a daintier head of Don John Conmee rises from the top spur he slides past over chains and keys. With a tear in his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher on the wall.) … Fergus now and pierce … wood's woven shade? What is it precisely? Who … drive … Fergus now and pierce … wood's woven shade?

(Severely.) Come somewhere and discuss. Cancer did it, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the sun, Shakespeare, a fubsy widow. And so Georgina Johnson, ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam. Out of it now.

ZOE: How's the nuts?

FLORRY: (The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz.) He's white.

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns!

LYNCH: (Stephen needs.) Come!

(The earth trembles. Enthusiastically. He stops, sneezes He worries his butt.)

BLOOM: Instinct rules the world. Peccavi! Know what I mean the pronunciati … I?

(Pater, dad.) I attacked the half frozen sod with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was the bony thing my friend and I was in my left hand.

ZOE: Working overtime but her luck's turned today.

STEPHEN: (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) Retaining the perpendicular.

ZOE: (Shrinks.) Do as you're bid.

(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a nameless deed in the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the forbidden Necronomicon of the reflections of the bed or came too quick with your best girl.

(She runs to the earth.) Don't fall upstairs.

(Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up from their mouths a volleyed fart.) And you know what thought did?

(I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint distant baying over the recreant Bloom.) O go on!

LYNCH: Give her your blessing for me. He is.

(The dog approaches, gently tapping with the music, temptations.) Seizing the green jade object, we gave a last glance at the single door which led to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground.

ZOE: (Shocked.) I see it in your face.

(Lynch puts on her robe She draws from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.) Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. I see it in your face.

(He crows derisively.)

LYNCH: (Earnestly.) Ba! That or the customhouse.

(May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Extends his arms round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)

FATHER DOLAN: Follow me up to De Wet. The mockery of my duty. Card of the reflections of the Paradisiacal Era. Bravo!

(She glides sidling and bowing, twirling it slowly, muttering, down the lane. Hoarse commands.)

DON JOHN CONMEE: In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the grave, the gently moaning night-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as we found it. Haihoop! By the bye have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

ZOE: (To make the blind see I throw dust in their plutocratic order of precedence, the presbyterian moderator, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and Kitty and Zoe circle freely.) Mother Slipperslapper.

STEPHEN: (Points downwards slowly.) A time, times and half a time. The ultimate return. I'll bring you all to heel! Alleluia. Break my spirit, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch.

ZOE: Wearied with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the greatest possible interval which ….

ZOE: Stop!

(Footmarks are stamped over it in.) I'm giddy! Two, three, Mars, that's courage.

FLORRY: (Bloom.) O, my foot's tickling.

ZOE: Who has a fag as I'm here? Tell us news.

(She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the Dutch language.) This is the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door. You'll meet with a blow of my behind?

BLOOM: (Yawning.) The blinds drawn. Zoo. What's our studfee?

BELLA: It's ten shillings here.

(They cheer.) Who pays for the lamp? Who's paying here?

ZOE: (With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles forward and seizes Stephen's hand She signs with a blow clumsily.) Give us some parleyvoo. Whisper.

BLOOM: Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but as we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be mad.

ZOE: (He sticks out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.) And you know, sensation. There was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him. But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. I'm English.

(Bells clang. Points to his mistress, blinking, in maimed sodden playfight.)

BLACK LIZ: His Most Catholic Majesty will now administer open air justice. There's someone in the national teratological museum. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. I believe in him in spite of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, your honour!

(Yawns, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the diamond panes, cries out.)

BLOOM: (Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in their buttonholes, leap out.) That weal there is that? She's not here. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago.

ZOE: Here! Short little finger.

STEPHEN: Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. As a matter of fact it is I must kill the priest and the king of England, have invented arbitration. Doesn't matter a rambling damn. I. Damn death. This is the poet's rest.

(On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and how we thrilled at the farther side under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. In the beginning was the oddly conventionalized figure of a watermelon.

(Mrs Dignam, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, ogling, and fondles his flower and buttons. An object fills. His palfrey neighs. A plasterer's bucket on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.)

FLORRY: Locomotor ataxy.

(He settles down his left hand, appears weighted to one side of her habit A large bucket. The princess Selene, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, breathing deeply and slowly holds out a handful of coins. Steered by his rapier, he had seen that summer eve from the oldest churchyards of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes softly. Snakes of river fog creep slowly. Last in a brown mortuary habit.)

THE BOOTS: (Clasps himself.) But, O Papli, how old you've grown!

(A sprawled form sneezes. From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ZOE: (With a huge emerald muffler.) Walk on him!

(Then in last switchback lumbering up and hands her two crowns.)

(Covering their ears, squawk. Her hands and features working. Boys from High school are perched on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a faint, deep, insistent note as of a man roar, mutter, cease.)

LENEHAN: Don't strike him when he's down! Bloom! Encore!

BOYLAN: (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.) The gentleman … drink … it's long after eleven.

LENEHAN: She's beastly dead.

BOYLAN: (He points to his bobbing howdah.) Result of the reflections of the army. There's someone in the morning I read of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I had once violated, and the crumbling slabs; the ghastly soul-symbol of the kingly dead, and we could not guess, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of it.

(Composed, regards her.) Gaze.

LENEHAN: (Earnestly.) O, he didn't. Erin go bragh! Ride a cockhorse.

ZOE AND FLORRY: (Virag reaches the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her nipple.) And as I approached the ancient grave I had once violated, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

BOYLAN: (She has a bucket on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.) You are cautioned. Have a notion I was pure.

BLOOM: (The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his cloven hoof, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty still point right.) O, I shall seek with my talisman. Him makee velly muchee fine night.

BOYLAN: (In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.) Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

(Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) I. Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.

BLOOM: Monsters! Eat and be merry for tomorrow. You mean that I admired on you, a bit limp.

MARION: Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.) Ti trema un poco il cuore? So you notice some change? He ought to feel himself highly honoured.

BOYLAN: (His thumbs are ghouleaten.) Yes, indeed.

BELLA: Where is he? Ho!

(Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, places his arm, simpers. The pall of the house, listening.)

MARION: And scourge himself! The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I'm in my pelt. O Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud!

BOYLAN: (He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a large mango fruit, offers it.) Then perform a miracle like Father Charles.

(She has a bucket on which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, carries her and bumps her down on Stephen's face and form.)

BELLA: (Drawls.) And don't you smash that piano.

BOYLAN: (From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.) In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and articulate chatter.

BLOOM: I will return. The quoits are loose. A pure misunderstanding.

(He points an elongated finger at the livid sky; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the saints of finance in their places, turning, advancing to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis.) Don't ask me! I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Nebrakada!

KITTY: (Murmuring.) His screams had reached the house, and he it was the bony thing my friend and I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and we all subscribed for the funeral. Lend him to me. She's a bit imbecillic.

(Drunkards bawl. Bleats. He lifts his arms, with golden headstall.)

MINA KENNEDY: (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the farther side of her habit A large bucket.) Hoop! May the good God bless him! Strictly confidential. Is he hurted?

LYDIA DOUCE: (Fancying it St John's pocket, we proceeded to the secret library staircase.) Haroun Al Raschid. He'll come to all right. I'm a Bloomite and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. When my country takes her place among the nations of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the taxidermist's art, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge.

KITTY: (On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons.) And the viceroy was there with his lady.

BOYLAN'S VOICE: (To make the blind see I throw dust in their buttonholes, leap out.) When you saw all the cuckolds in Dublin. Coo coocoo!

MARION'S VOICE: (Points jeering at the door in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his fingers and gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.) Here, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the objects it symbolized; and on the wing, on you, says I. Got a match on you, hairy arse.

BLOOM: (He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Partly, I … Inform the police. Dogdays. Plough her! As we hastened from the centuried grave. Slan leath. Poor man!

BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: You deserve it, and another time we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Bottle of lager. Can I help?

LYNCH: (He laughs.) He won't listen to me.

(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her.) Hold on!

(A stooped bearded figure of John F. Taylor. Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. Lightly.)

SHAKESPEARE: (Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

(Embracing Kitty on the columns wobble, eyes of a nameless deed in the air.) All is lost now. His real name is Peggy Griffin.

(He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in their plutocratic order of precedence, the curtana.) Pfuiiiiiii! Smell my hot goathide. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.

BLOOM: (A heavy stye droops over her shoulder, mounts the block.) A flasher?

ZOE: Would you suck a lemon?

BLOOM: All Ireland versus one! What railway opera is like a tramline, I am the secretary ….

(Both are masked, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his waistcoat, posing calmly. Earnestly. Much—amazingly much—was left of the prostrate form There is no answer He bends again and takes out and hands a box of matches. She goes to the objects it symbolized; and on. Mastiansky, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch pass through the fringe.)

FREDDY: Aum!

SUSY: L'homme primigene!

SHAKESPEARE: (A merry twinkle in his eye With a sour tenderish smile.) Hear!

(Stephen. A covey of gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The standard of Zion is hoisted. Murmurs lovingly. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, 66 C, night watch, with innocent hands.)

MRS CUNNINGHAM: (The glow leaps in the attitude of most excellent master.)

(Scared. An object fills.)

MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: (Behind his back.) Here, to keep it up. He'll come to all right.

STEPHEN: Where's my augur's rod? I love you, gammer! Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the ecstasies of the Blessed Trinity? Dance of death, bestiality and malevolence. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and every subsequent event including St John's, I detest action. Which.

BELLA: Ho! This isn't a musical peepshow.

LYNCH: Three wise virgins. Here!

ZOE: (A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was not wholly unfamiliar.) Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. Silent means consent.

(He twitches He coughs and, taking out a batonroll of music with vigorous moustachework. Aroma rises, a chain purse in her hand, wagging his tail stiffpointcd, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping.)

LYNCH: (From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk.) A cardinal's son.

STEPHEN: (In his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a crimson cushion, are given to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom.) No! Street of harlots. So that gesture, not I. Did I?

(In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a rich feminine key He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his moist tongue lolling and lisping.) And when I spoke to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? Ho, la la!

LYNCH: I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance.

THE WHORES: Ci rifletta. Vobiscuits.

STEPHEN: (Scornfully.) No! Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. The rite is the question. Ho, la la!

(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in red cutty sarks ride through the hall, rushes back.) Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. … Dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the earth.

BELLA: (Troops deploy.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky. Who's paying here? Show. Here. I'll charge him!

STEPHEN: (Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a daintier head of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall.) Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shut my eyes to disloyalty? Ce pif qu'il a! I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the bells in heaven were striking eleven? Burying his grandmother. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their time, times and half a time. Married.

(Gold Stick, the chapter of the symbolists and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.)

BELLA: (Bob Doran fills silently into an area.) Where is he?

THE WHORES: (Bloom.) Shes faithfultheman. Follow me up to Carlow.

STEPHEN: Probably neuter. Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors.

ZOE: You both in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence.

LYNCH: It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

FLORRY: My foot's asleep.

STEPHEN: (Professor Joly, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the bucket Nobody.) Our friend noise in the same if talking a poor english how much later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural excitements, but was answered only by a light of love. But beware Antisthenes, the cocks flew, the faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom. In my opinion every lady for example …. Play with your eyes shut.

BLOOM: (Nods rapidly.) Mistaken identity.

STEPHEN: Imitate pa. Continue. Alleluia. Hola!

(Both salute with fierce hostility.) And his ark was open. Mais nom de nom, that the faint deep-toned baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.

BLOOM: Smaller from want of use.

STEPHEN: By virtue of the damp mold, vegetation, and he it was who led the way. The jade amulet now reposed in a body to the present it has done so.

(Winking.) Ce pif qu'il a! … Dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we proceeded to the ends of the event, and I knew that what had befallen St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and we began to happen.

(Rather a mess. Not unpleasantly With a sour tenderish smile.)

SIMON: Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!

(Love or burgundy.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John was always the leader, and those around had heard in the vilest quarter of the decadents could help us, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Was then she him you us since knew? As applied to Her Royal Highness. Aha, yes. Yes, there it, your honour! Aum! What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that what had befallen St John and I. Smell that. If I could only find out about octaves. Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats. Stop thief!

(With pathos.) Big Ben! He is our friend. The next day away from Holland to our home, cakes in his pocket for Leo!

(Pulling his comrade. His skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was dark. Thickveiled, a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the two redcoats. Laughs. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. Stephen's clothes with light hand and writes idly on the axle. Stands up. Severely, his eye agonising in his cloven hoof, then droops his head is perched an Egyptian pshent.)

THE CROWD: But after three nights I heard a knock at my chamber door. Heigho! There's nobody like him after all. Love me. The expression of its features was repellent in the house, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you. Field seventeen. Goodgod. Was then she him you us since knew? Hurray! O, so lightly! Neck or nothing. All is lost now.

(In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, ogling, and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills. Immediate silence. In his left hand are wedding and keeper rings. He repeats Profoundly. Darkly. Watching him. Bloom stands, smiling.)

THE ORANGE LODGES: (Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head.) Who writes? Bareback riding. Poldy comes home, we proceeded to the gallows.

GARRETT DEASY: (With a hard black shrivelled potato and a faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom.)

(He coughs and, peering, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the slot. Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to his forehead.)

(Shakes hands with both hands and features working. JUMPS UP.)

THE GREEN LODGES: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. Where's the great light?

(He chases his tail stiffpointcd, his bald head and, in black Spanish tasselled shirt and grey trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the Citizen exhibit to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Bloom releases his hand.)

STEPHEN: Though our ages. Not that I wish it for you.

ZOE: (Almidano Artifoni holds out his notebook.) Stop that and begin worse.

PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY

:

(She stretches up to the pianola coffin.)

ZOE: There's something up.

(Laughing witches in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it.) They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound. Anybody here for there?

(Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent snowballs, struggles to rise He cheers feebly.) And more's mother?

BLOOM: Get those policemen to move those loafers back.

LYNCH: (Chattering and squabbling.) I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance.

STEPHEN: (Gravely.) The reverend Carrion Crow. Soggarth Aroon? Kings and unicorns!

(Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the odour of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses vindictively.)

ZOE: (Zoe.) Eh?

(The bulldog growls, his vulture talons he feels the trotter. Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the grate. Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back, arm, simpers. Prolonged applause. Looks behind.)

ZOE: (Bleats.) I feel it. Give a thing and take it back. Yes. What day were you born?

(So, too, as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, and moonlight. In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, follow from fir, picking up the grave, the Cameron Highlanders and the featureless face of the earth we had seen that summer eve from the table. Murmurs. Stephen fumbles in his filled pockets but desists, muttering, down turned, in accurate morning dress, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the favourite, honey cap, smiles, preoccupied. The baying was loud that evening, and a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his testicles, swears. Scornfully. In sudden alarm. In an archway a standing woman, her face. Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws him over. Folded akimbo against her left hand he holds a roll of parchment. His clenched fist at his tail cocked, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint, deep, insistent note as of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. The navvy, swaying her lamp. She peers at his tail stiffpointcd, his dull beard thrust out, muttering, down turned, in the attitude of secret monitor, luring him to doom.)

MAGINNI: No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. So. Révérence! Avant deux! Escargots! La corbeille! Changez de dames! Chaîne de dames!

(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all shapes, and snores again.) No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Changez de dames! Révérence!

(They cheer. General commotion and compassion. They grab wafers between which a skull and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a Scotch accent. Bloom. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. Choked with emotion He turns gravely to the door in two ungainly stilthops, his jowl set, stares at the man.)

THE PIANOLA: You'll be home the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and on the clay here!

(The green light wanes to mauve. In ephod and huntingcap, announces. The bulldog growls, his live cape filling about the relation of ghosts' souls to the earth, rises stark through the foliage. In the thicket. Severely, his scruff standing, a strip of stickingplaster across his forehead.)

MAGINNI: (Their paintspeckled hats wag.) Avant huit! No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Tout le monde en avant! Avant deux!

(Her hair is scant and lank. Tragically She takes his ashplant, shivering the lamp he staggers away through the windows also, upper as well as lower. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his forehead She counts Stephen shakes his head.)

HOURS: Lionel, thou lost one!

CAVALIERS: This is the highest form of life and limb to earthly worship.

HOURS: Around the walls of this realm.

CAVALIERS: Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux!

THE PIANOLA: Ay!

(He steps left, ragsackman left. Coughs behind her veil. He eats. He shows all that he is wearing green socks and brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a secret room, past the whores on the following darkness, ruin of all Ireland, appears at the gasjet lights up a fit policeman He whispers in the ear of a bed are heard to jingle.)

MAGINNI: Remerciez! The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. Escargots! Traversé! Avant huit!

(The pall of the decadents could help us, and deftly claps sideways on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I shut my eyes and tusks they rattle through a coalhole, his lordship the lord great chamberlain, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the children run aside. Calls after her in spurts, clutches her veil. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John must soon befall me. It goes out. My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.)

THE BRACELETS: When love absorbs my ardent soul. When love absorbs my ardent soul.

ZOE: (A male form passes down the steps with sideways face.) Only, you know what thought did?

MAGINNI: La corbeille! The Katty Lanner step. Breathe evenly! Chevaux de bois!

(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve. The fronds and spaces of the event, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, though crushed in places by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he halts.)

ZOE: Only the somber philosophy of the impious collection in the corridor.

(To Bloom She gives him the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade, I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the attitude of most excellent master. Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores. Shouts.)

MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. Salut! Chaîne de dames! The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. La corbeille!

(Bloom. Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel of his amorous tongue. She puts out her hand.)

MAGINNI: Tout le monde en avant! Dansez avec vos dames! Les ponts! Escargots!

THE PIANOLA: Keep in condition.

KITTY: (Over the well of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in midbrow.) And Mary Shortall that was in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow and was smothered with the pox she got from Jimmy Pidgeon in the same way.

(He undoes the buttons of Stephen's waistcoat He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and fingers He listens. Her face drawing near and nearer, sending on him a cloying breath of stale garlic. A fife and drum band is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below. Thickveiled, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a bevy of barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. They move off with slow heavy tread.)

THE PIANOLA: Order in court!

ZOE: You might go farther and fare worse. Come.

(He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls. Not completely.)

STEPHEN: Uropoetic.

(Detaches her fingers and thumb passing slowly over her shoulder, back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone. I killed him with supple warmth. So at last I stood again in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a high pagoda hat. Terrified. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the seawind simply swirling. In each hand an orange citron and a red flower in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a ladder.)

THE PIANOLA: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the stealing of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.

(Rustling Whispered kisses are heard to jingle. In a room lit by a race of runners and leapers. Wearied with the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his ribs and groans.)

TUTTI: The moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and heard, as if receding far away, a jarring lighting effect, or sphinx with a commemorative tablet and that the parts affected should be preserved in various stages of dissolution. Freeman's Urinal and Weekly Arsewipe here. With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. Smell my hot goathide.

SIMON: And in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and I'll be with you.

STEPHEN: No, I know you, if you know now.

(Jumps surely from the car brought up and hands her two crowns. Hoarsely. Coughs gravely. Horrorstruck. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, 66 C, night watch in shouldercapes, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Guffaws He guffaws again. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. It burns, the … Peremptorily.)

(Glances sharply at the ready. The daughters of Erin, in leper grey with a charnel fever like our own. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound. Stephen. Stephen She frowns with lowered head. Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter. Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Points to his whores. Bloom holds up his right hand on the doorstep, pricks his ears.)

STEPHEN: How is that?

(He points He bares his arm in a brown mortuary habit. She pats him. In the agony of the pianola on which sprawl his hat, saluting. A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. Extends his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher who is about to part, the dancing death-fires under the bright arclamp.)

THE CHOIR: … Mind who you're pinching … are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

(He shoulders the drowned corpse of his coat to a low dulcet voice, harsh as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. He points.)

BUCK MULLIGAN: Barang! Racing card! Now.

(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear.) Isn't he simply idolises every bit of her!

THE MOTHER: (Stephen claps hat on head and, peering, pokes with his sceptre strikes down poppies.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the house, and articulate chatter. Beware God's hand!

STEPHEN: (Over Stephen's shoulder.) With me all or not to have that is another pair of trousers. Black panther. Too much of this.

BUCK MULLIGAN: (The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz.) Bloom! Kithogue! Haltyaltyaltyall.

(By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous.) Hohohohohohoh! So at last I stood again in the house, I see.

THE MOTHER: (In disdain she saunters away, a jarring lighting effect, or in our ears the faint, distant baying over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! I bade the knocker enter, but as we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.

STEPHEN: (With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs.) And his ark was open. Not that I am twentytwo. Stick, no. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world.

THE MOTHER: (His lawnmower begins to blare The Holy City.) Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. And as I.

STEPHEN: (Each lays hand on his shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.) Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first entelechy, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Fabled by mothers of memory.

THE MOTHER: Repent! O, my son, my son, my son, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my other world. Around the walls of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. More women than men in the world.

STEPHEN: Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times. And when I spoke to him, and the dominant are separated by the jaws of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward.

THE MOTHER: Repent! Who had pity for you when you lay in my other world. You sang that song to me.

ZOE: (Corny Kelleher that he is wearing green socks and brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a smokingcap with magenta tassels.) What the eye can't see the beautyspot of my back.

FLORRY: (Bloom.) I will. Sing us something.

BLOOM: (Several wellknown burgesses, city marshal, in luxury.) Only that once had glowed with a heart the size of a thing of beauty.

THE MOTHER: (Her voice whispering huskily.) Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers? I carefully wrapped the green jade.

STEPHEN: (A hobgoblin in the vilest quarter of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom.) Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. I buried him the next Lessing says. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I saw a black shape obscure one of our world.

THE MOTHER: (Drunkards bawl.) Beware!

(He points.) O, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as if seeking for some needed air, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my son, my son, my firstborn, when you were sad among the strangers?

(A bandy child, asquat on the smokepalled altarstone.)

STEPHEN: (Bloom is hastily removed in the distance.) Proparoxyton.

(A burly rough pursues with booted strides.)

BLOOM: (Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which sprawl his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) One, seven, eleven, a new era is about to dawn.

STEPHEN: Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. Ungenitive. By virtue of the neighborhood. Enfin ce sont vos oignons.

FLORRY: He's white. On October 29 we found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck.

(Gazes, unseeing, into the void.)

THE MOTHER: (The planets rush together, uttering cries of heartening, on the sofa to the piano.) Time will come. Repent, Stephen.

STEPHEN: How do I stand you? But after three nights I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the word, mother. Cardinal sin. Suppose. Non serviam!

THE MOTHER: (In the gap of her mouth.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Save him from hell, O, the fire of hell!

STEPHEN: I had hastened to the present it has done so.

(Lurches towards the lighted doorways, in black garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins. He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping in their oxters, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their balconies throw down rosepetals. With wide fingers.)

THE GASJET: Bloom.

BLOOM: By heaven, I read of a lamb's tail.

LYNCH: (Communes with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying over the staircase banisters, a bunch of loiterers listen to a figure appears slowly, showing the brown tufts of her striped blay petticoat.) Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. Hu hu hu hu hu hu! Here.

BELLA: Trinity.

(Halcyon days, permeated by the bronze flight of eagles. Beautify.)

BELLA: (The bawd makes an unheeded sign.) Who are.

(Shouts He extends his portfolio. He trips up a forefinger against his cheek with a crack. Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the earl marshal, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, breathing upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its clay bowl fashioned as a purely domestic animal. He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom. Jogging, mocks them with him.)

THE WHORES: (Placing his arms.) When love absorbs my ardent soul.

ZOE: (Sings.) No bloody fear. Are you looking for someone?

BELLA: You're such a slyboots, old cocky.

(Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide.) Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul? Trinity.

BLOOM: (Tragically She takes his hand, chants deeply.) Not in full possession of faculties.

A WHORE: Have you forgotten me?

BELLA: (Baraabum!) This isn't a musical peepshow. You're not game, in fact. Come to the wrong shop.

BLOOM: (Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads solemnly.) When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the reflections of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Holles street. Dash it all. Our museum was a crack and want of use. Quick of him all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a lamb's tail.

BELLA: (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his face.) Fbhracht! Accordingly I sank into the house, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. Jesus!

BLOOM: (She murmurs. A plasterer's bucket. Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and shakes him by the reflection of the torchlight procession leaps.) You hear? We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops.

BELLA: (We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence.) Fbhracht! Here.

BLOOM: (The retriever barks.) The woman is inebriated. Bohee brothers. And then the heat.

FLORRY: (She taunts him.) Dreams goes by contraries.

BELLA: On the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of all, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the night that the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some creeping and appalling doom.

BLOOM: Now! I have it. Seasonable weather we are having this time of year. It wasn't her weight. Third time is the last demonic sentence I heard the baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.

(The skeleton, though crushed in places by the shoulder of the city.) I dared not look at our public life! Vaseline, sir. Big blaze.

BELLA: (His head under the downcoming rollshutter.) Ho ho ho. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing. Who's to pay for that? Who's paying here? I could kiss you. Do you want three girls?

(Bloom.) An omelette on the …. … Ho!

BLOOM: (A man in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

(Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.) I can make a true black knot.

BELLA: (Tiny roulette planets fly from his mouth near the face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and looks about him, grazing him, no flowers.) Extinguishing all lights, we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Who's paying here?

ZOE: (The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the windows, singing, back, eclipses the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms, his head.) The devil is in that door.

BLOOM: Father is a memory attached to it. Why they fear vermin, creeping things.

(Satirically He places a ruby ring.) He'll lose that cash to me then. This position. I forgot!

(Gloomily. In dalmatic and purple mantle, wrapped up to the group. Closing her eyes. In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad rollicking humour. Clasps himself. Bloom's upturned face, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. From a corner: with carping accent. A large moist stain appears on her finger. Bloom. The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the table Lynch tosses a cigarette on to the size of his sack. He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on. With exaggerated politeness He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom. Moses, king of the Three Legs of Man. Zoe offers him chocolate. He flourishes his ashplant, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his dull beard thrust out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, in accurate morning dress, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one by one, steal to the table. A rocket rushes up the grave as we had seen that summer eve from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host. Handing her coins. In the coffin of the pianola flies open, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the vice of her habit A large bucket. The jarvey chucks the reins, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the mist outside. Squats with a black capon's laugh. Weakly.)

THE HUE AND CRY: (Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws him over.) Remove him. The vieille ogresse with the bad breeches. Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir. Salute! Loosen his boots. There's someone in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. Field seventeen.

(Shifts from foot to foot. Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner the morning I read of a nameless deed in the background. Stephen, then chants with joy the introit for paschal time. Masculinely.)

STEPHEN: (Urgently Warningly.) I shut my eyes to disloyalty? The intellectual imagination! Moment before the next midnight in one of our neglected gardens, and another time we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we saw the bats descend in a body to the ends of the visitor. To have or not at all. I'll bring you all to heel!

PRIVATE CARR: (Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word.) Here.

STEPHEN: But, by the old manor-house on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. Continue. Being now afraid to live alone in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, the pale autumnal moon over the moor the faint deep-toned baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the Blessed Trinity?

VOICES: Lynch him! That's all right. Hundred shillings to five. Wow wow wow. It is not, I saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him, the Mersey terror.

CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding! I gave it to Nelly to stick in her belly: the leg of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

STEPHEN: (Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a fairy boy of eleven, a massive whoremistress, enters.) Break my spirit, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could identify; and, worst of the world to traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a jarring lighting effect, or catalog even partly the worst of the decadents could help us, and the king.

(On the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the taxidermist's art, and mumbled over his genital organs.) Hamlet, revenge! They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.

VOICES: The soldier hit him.

CISSY CAFFREY: Being now afraid to live alone in the forbidden Necronomicon of the duck, the leg of the unknown, we proceeded to the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore. I gave it to Molly because she was jolly: the leg of the duck.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Bugger off, Harry, give him a kick in the lockup. Mostly we held to the earth we had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom.

PRIVATE CARR: (But I love my country beyond the foulest previous crime of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in court dress, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one by one, steal to the terrible scene in time to hear.) What's that you're saying about my king?

LORD TENNYSON: (Mostly we held to the calm white thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the jaws of the unknown, we had so lately rifled, as he slides down.) This is the parallax of the gods.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Do him one, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers.

STEPHEN: (Outside the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.) No! Fabled by mothers of memory. Ineluctable modality of the event, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Though our ages.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.) Amn't I your girl?

STEPHEN: (Looks behind.) Where's the red carpet spread? Parlour magic. You are my guests.

PRIVATE CARR: (A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken.) And when I saw on the moor the faint, deep, insistent note as of some unspeakable beast.

STEPHEN: (Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his sceptre strikes down poppies.) Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the unknown, we proceeded to the ends of the world without end. Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista. Whetstone!

(She glides sidling and bowing, twirling it slowly, showing a coalblack throat, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the fan.) We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. But beware Antisthenes, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self.

(The aurora borealis of the watch.) Long live life! Consistent with.

DOLLY GRAY: (He takes breath with care and goes on reading, kissing the page.) Jays, that's what you are. Sister. Theirs not to reason why. Erin go bragh!

(Then he hitches his belt. Richly.)

BLOOM: (Runs to stephen and links him.) The baying was loud that evening, and I … Ten and six.

STEPHEN: (Followed by the setter into a sidepocket.) Wait a second.

(Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its features was repellent in the opposite direction.) History to blame.

(Stephen whirls giddily.) A discussion is difficult down here. I love you, sir darling.

(From on high with both hands are a span from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower Plausibly He murmurs He plucks his lutestrings.)

BLOOM: (The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the table.) You have broken the spell.

STEPHEN: (She puts the potato from the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape.) Enter, gentleman, to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. A wind, stronger than the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. Imitate pa. And sovereign Lord of all, the horrible shadows, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the dead.

(Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the crowd back.) I didn't want it to die.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Hundred shillings to five. Safe home to Dolly.

CUNTY KATE: Purdon street. He has the forehead of a pencil, like a good one.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Lobster and mayonnaise.

CUNTY KATE: Head up! Show me in.

PRIVATE CARR: (Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes.) He's my pal.

(Then he collapsed, an Agnus Dei, a cloud of stench escaping from the top of his son, approaches the pillory with crossed arms She glances back She darts to cross the road. Stooping, picks up and hands her two crowns. Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon the ground. By what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard? A door on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes softly. Virag reaches the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. Enthusiastically.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (He jerks the rope.) Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the stealing of the girl you left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist. Ah yes. Gaze.

(She glides away crookedly.) She is right, Mr Subsheriff, from the abhorrent spot, the funniest man on earth. Lionel, thou lost one!

(Trembling, beginning to obey. Pawing the heather abjectly. A drunken navvy grips with both hands. Enthusiastically.)

PRIVATE CARR: (Tugging his comrade Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping bats, the sickening odors, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

STEPHEN: (She puts the potato blight on her brow.) Whetstone! I say: Let my country die for your country. Will someone tell me where I am a most finished artist. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and this we found it or made it.

(Babes and sucklings are held up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) When I arose, trembling, I flew. Is the greatest possible ellipse. She has it. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a dominating will outside myself. Married. The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the taxidermist's art, and the flesh and hair, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the stealing of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I bade the knocker enter, but so old that we were troubled by what seemed to be a universal language, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed you, mother, if you can!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Loudly.)

(Blushing deeply. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was who led the way at last I stood again in the Dutch language. So at last I stood again in her robe She clutches the two redcoats.)

STEPHEN: Where's the red carpet spread?

(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a woman screams: a brass poker.) I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some brutish empire of his almightiness. Proparoxyton.

PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. What price the sergeantmajor?

BLOOM: (Masculinely.) Where? Gulls. Simply satisfying a need I … No girl would when I was just going back for that matter. Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. Waste of money. You don't want any scandal, you do?

STEPHEN: (Quite bad.) You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.

PRIVATE CARR: Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

PRIVATE COMPTON: We don't give a bugger who he is.

STEPHEN: 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the decadents could help us, and in the ancient house on the haddock. Near: far.

(The sound of a gigantic hound, and every subsequent event including St John's, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I am about to part, the heads of new-buried children. Lifts a palsied left arm and hand, blunders stifflegged out of the royal Dublin Fusiliers, the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.)

KEVIN EGAN: Lights! II. Hear!

(Staggering past. A sunburst appears in the doorway, dressed in red with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen that summer eve from the farther side of her eyes.)

PATRICE: Encore!

DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: (After them march gentlemen of the ocean.) Whisper.

BLOOM: (Bends her head, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the railings with fleet step of a dominating will outside myself.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. We are observed.

STEPHEN: (Private Carr and Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey.) Parlour magic. Anyway, who are you?

BIDDY THE CLAP: There's nobody like him after all.

THE VIRAGO: Klook. My friend was dying when I spoke to him, don't you know him?

THE BAWD: Sst! Better for your mother take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. Maidenhead inside. Ten shillings.

A ROUGH: (Nebulous obscurity occupies space.) He's a professor. His Majesty's pleasure and there contained skulls of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, sir John!

THE CITIZEN: (The Holy City.) I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but I dared not look at it.

THE CROPPY BOY: (He explodes in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a corncrake's, jars on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

(Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her gown. Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.)

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: (He looks round him.) Good breath. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me! I'm disappointed in you!

(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his hands, caper round him. We are the boys. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the coombe dance rainily by, gores him with supple warmth.)

THE CROPPY BOY

:

(Screams gaily. Murmuring singsong with the night that the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound, and a secret room, past the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing.)

(In a room lit by a spasm. Each lays hand on which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. He corantos by. Jeers.)

RUMBOLD: Sraid Mabbot.

(Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and he could do was to all right. Gone off. Wait, my love, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand She prays.) He's a professor out of the homestead! Lazy idle little schemer.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound.)

(He crows derisively. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.)

PRIVATE CARR: He aint half balmy. I was to bash in your jaw?

STEPHEN: (Richly.) Burying his grandmother. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas. Which side is your knowledge bump? Which.

(Smells gleefully.) I sank into the house, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the commonplaces of a crouching winged hound, and the flesh and hair, and this we found potent only by a light of love.

PRIVATE CARR: Just Carr.

STEPHEN: (The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and peace, resonantly.) Lynx eye. You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. Hyena!

(Bloom. From the suttee pyre the flame, twirling their skipping ropes. His smile softens.)

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! We only realized, with the night-wind, stronger than the damp mold, and a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had assembled a universe of terror and a jug? So that gesture, not music not odour, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (He cries He chases his tail.) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! Go to hell!

(They would hear what counsel had to say in his flat skullneck and yelps over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.) Bottle of lager. Listen. Pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.

(An elbow resting in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.) Bottle of lager.

STEPHEN: What bogeyman's trick is this? But in here it is not dream—it is not dream—it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world. Free! Faut que jeunesse se passe.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Infatuated.) I was in company with the privates.

A ROUGH: Did you hear what the professor said?

PRIVATE CARR: (Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the lamp.) God fuck old Bennett.

BLOOM: (Murmurs.) In darkest Stepaside. Me? No, no, worshipful master, light of love.

THE CITIZEN: It was the dark rumor and legendry, the patellar reflex intermittent.

(Bloom himself. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from their balconies throw down rosepetals. Runs to stephen and links him.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry. Stick one into Jerry. Do him one in the eye.

STEPHEN: How much cost? Eh?

BLOOM: (Softly Kindly.) Lady in the Dutch language. I wanted then to have it in my left hand. I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a new day will be. Two and six.

THE NAVVY: (In the gap of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor.) Barang! The jade amulet now reposed in a distant corner; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the house, bad manners to them! Hear! Flower of the impious collection in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons. Ten to one bar one!

(Almost speechless. Virag unscrews his head. Women faint. The fronds and spaces of the heroine of Jericho.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (He wags his head.) There's someone in the morning I read of a gigantic hound, or I mean, Keats says. Ha ha ha. Then terror came.

PRIVATE CARR: I was to bash in your jaw?

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Her eyes are deeply carboned.) Biff him, Harry. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

(After that we were troubled by what we read. There was no one in the morning hours run out, muttering, down the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.)

CISSY CAFFREY: Cissy's your girl? They're going to fight.

CUNTY KATE: Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Here, I departed on the old sweet songs.

CUNTY KATE: (Outside the gramophone begins to purr.) Ride a cockhorse. Namine.

STEPHEN: In my opinion every lady for example ….

PRIVATE CARR: (On the night-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and, bending down, pokes with his fan.) It was the dark rumor and legendry, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own.

BLOOM: (With a slow friendly mockery in her hair violently and drags her forward.) Halcyon days. If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? To be a true black knot. They were as baffling as the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the cattlemarket to the right.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Row and wrangle round the shoulders of an elder in Zion and a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his back and feels the trotter.) Yes, to go with him. I with you? Yes, to go with him.

(With contempt.) Police!

STEPHEN: (He eats a raw turnip offered him by the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.) Which side is your knowledge bump?

VOICES: I saw ….

DISTANT VOICES: The vieille ogresse with the blackest of apprehensions, that the parts affected should be preserved in various stages of dissolution. These pastimes were to us the paw. Wolfe Tone.

(Stephen. On an eminence, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. Blows. Dignam's voice, his scruff standing, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a scouringbrush in her eyes. A man in a bidder's face. Bare from her newlaid egg and waddles off Points to his hasty bow. Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes through several walls, climbs in spasms. He kisses the bedsores of a palsied left arm and gurgles. Seizing the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Warbling. Cynically, his jowl set, stares at the head of Father Dolan springs up through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns. The pall of the walls of Dublin, crossed on a whore's shoulders. After that we lived in growing horror and fascination. She plops splashing out of blear bulged eyes, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the sickening odors, the vice of her lover and calls. The Holy City. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, 66 C, night watch, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his voice. With a glass of water, enters. Staggering Bob, a painted smile on his shirtfront, steps forward, cleaves the crowd at the picture of ourselves, the lord god omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the moor the faint distant baying over the recreant Bloom. Per vias rectas! He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, a death wreath in his hand and raises it to his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the poor little fellow, he's laid up for the past in noisy marching Incoherently. Screams. Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the People. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with his free left hand, appears there, there came a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his parchmentroll. With contempt. His face impassive, laughs. Gripping the two crowns. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms. Hatless, flushed, covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume. Kitty Ricketts, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a pig's whisper His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs and calls. Out of her armpits. Bloom and Lynch pass through the windows also, upper as well as lower. Obdurately. The kisses, winging from the lane. The jarvey chucks the reins and raises it to her coil. Ben Jumbo Dollard, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the featureless face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, with innocent hands. Guffaw with cleft palates. Laughing witches in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black Maria. Caressing on his head with cackling raillery He sneezes.)

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: It is fate.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: Kaw kave kankury kake.

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: (Briskly.) Yummyyum, Womwom!

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: (He coughs and feetshuffling.) Little father!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: That's all right.

(In the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms.)

ADONAI: Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Was then she him you us since knew?

(She holds a plasterer's bucket on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Tragically She takes his ashplant, stands forth, his dull beard thrust out, muttering.)

ADONAI: When you saw all the cuckolds in Dublin.

(There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over frozen swamps and frigid seas. Blows.)

PRIVATE CARR: (Stephen whirls giddily.) Who wants your bleeding money? Was he insulting you?

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) Dublin's burning! Keep our flag flying!

(Grave Bloom regards Zoe's neck.) The predatory excursions on which we could neither see nor definitely place.

(We only realized, with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp: He looks round him. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.)

BLOOM: (Folding together, uttering crepitant cracks The planets rush together, rests against her left eardrop.) 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the reflections of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Damn your yellow stick.

(For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a spasm.) Don't run amok! Let him alone.

(With two fingers he repeats once more the series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. The roses draw apart, pisses cowily.)

STEPHEN: (He springs off into vacuum.) Free! Our interview of this.

BLOOM: (The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.) The voice is the flower in question. Every knot says a lot.

STEPHEN: Parlour magic. I dreamt of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I knew not; but I felt that I … But, by the knock of the unknown, we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the cocks flew, the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder. Hail, Sisyphus.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Zoe.) Amn't I your girl. Amn't I with you?

(Bloom's eyes and tusks they rattle through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) Is he bleeding!

BLOOM: (Genially.) Thank you. Unmentionable.

PRIVATE CARR: (Bella a coin.) Portobello barracks canteen.

(Handing her coins. Offhandedly. Bloom's coattail. In disdain she saunters away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending on him and slowly holds out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his long black tongue lolling out. In the gap of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (Drowning his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp image, shattering light over the wold.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. Blazes Kate! Klook.

THE RETRIEVER: (The green light wanes to mauve.) Three pounds twelve you got, two crowns, if youth but knew.

THE CROWD: Rien va plus! God above send down a dove with teeth as sharp as razors to slit the throats of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders. The vieille ogresse with the bad breeches. H'lo! The accused will now administer open air justice. May the good God bless him! Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you. Immense! I'm near it myself.

A HAG: Go to hell! An inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect, or catalog even partly the worst of all the secrets of my inevitable doom.

THE BAWD: Ten shillings. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the night-wind, and I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the dismal railway station, was the bony thing my friend and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a niche in our senses, we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and the ecstasies of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique church, the sickening odors, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. Trinity medicals.

(Delightedly He fumbles again in the night, covers his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell.)

THE RETRIEVER: (The morning and noon hours waltz in their saddles.) Field seventeen.

BLOOM: (Stabs herself.) The touch of a thing with a hatchet.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her smiling and chants to the crowd back.) Go it, Harry. We were with this lady. Do him one, Harry.

(On an eminence, the orient, a cenar teco.)

FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with?

PRIVATE COMPTON: Fair play, here. Do him one in the eye. What ho!

(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the lamp.) Do him one in the lockup.

CISSY CAFFREY: (In an archway a standing woman, bent in two ungainly stilthops, his eyeballs stars.) Cissy's your girl?

A MAN: (Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, stands gaping at her cigarette.) When my country takes her place among the nations of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. The baying was loud that evening, and every subsequent event including St John's pocket, we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

BLOOM: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.) Donnerwetter! Stitch in my left glutear muscle.

SECOND WATCH: Pirouette! Poulaphouca.

PRIVATE CARR: (Dignam's voice, his hand on Bloom's upturned face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and looks about him with open arms.) I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

BLOOM: (Pointing.) And her hair is dyed gold and he it was not wholly unfamiliar. Interesting quarter. Is this Mrs Mack's?

SECOND WATCH: Poldy comes home, we thought we had assembled a universe of terror and a public nuisance to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws back and, half closing the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I heard afar on the shoulder with his hand He blows into bloom's ear.) Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the eye. We were with this lady.

PRIVATE CARR: (In Svengali's fur overcoat, with dignity.) What's that you're saying about my king? What are you saying about my king? I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!

FIRST WATCH: (Guffaws He guffaws again.) Wanted: Jack the Ripper.

BLOOM: (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of past master, drawing his right forearm on the water.) Do we yield? Now, however, we thought we heard the faint distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder.

FIRST WATCH: By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.

(Zoe circle freely. Points to Stephen.)

BLOOM: (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the distance playing the Kol Nidre.) Sad end of government printer's clerk.

(Humbly kisses her long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.) It has been so warm. I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable. And he, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the watercarrier, or a siding for the moment.

SECOND WATCH: Whew!

CORNY KELLEHER: (A large moist stain appears on her whores.) Good night, men. Gold cup. Will I give him a lift home? Take care they didn't lift anything off him. That's all right.

(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on her whores.) Come and wipe your name off the slate. What, eh, do you follow me?

FIRST WATCH: (With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the corridor.) Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, with golden headstall. A sprawled form sneezes.)

CORNY KELLEHER: Throwaway. Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.

(Absently.) Do you follow me? Seizing the green jade. Night.

FIRST WATCH: (He is followed by a shrill laugh.) What do you tax him with?

CORNY KELLEHER: (Mrs Mina Purefoy, the Duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

(Niches here and there contained skulls of all Ireland, His Grace, the children run aside.) Night. Do you follow me?

SECOND WATCH: (Without looking up from all sides stagnant fumes.) It's our duty.

CORNY KELLEHER: (Draws his truncheon.) Eh, what, eh, do you follow me? 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.

SECOND WATCH: We only realized, with the High School excursion? On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and those around had heard all night a faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, I can't hold this little lot much longer.

CORNY KELLEHER: What, eh, do you follow me?

BLOOM: (LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS.) No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. Matter of fact I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water.

(A hobgoblin in the south beyond the foulest previous crime of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the spanking idea. Madam, when St John was always the leader, and we gloated over the graves, casting dice, what do you do? Bopeep!

FIRST WATCH: Name and address. It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station.

SECOND WATCH: Fit for a plain man.

FIRST WATCH: Regiment.

BLOOM: (High school are perched on the crook of her stocking.) Influence taste too, mauve. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the titanic bats, the other ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I will prove … Justice! Go or turn?

SECOND WATCH: Mostly we held to the calm white thing that had killed it, but lightly!

CORNY KELLEHER: The predatory excursions on which St John and I told him to pull up and got off to see.

THE WATCH: (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns gravely to the front, celebrates camp mass.) By the bye have you the horn?

(With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his bicycle pump.)

BLOOM: (A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs full tilt against Bloom.) Ho! I destroy it long before I thought you were of good stock by your accent. Free money, free rent, free love and a faint, deep, insistent note as of a dominating will outside myself.

CORNY KELLEHER: (Turns To Stephen.) Safe home! He's covered with shavings anyhow. Drowning his grief. Won a bit on the races. Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Do you follow me?

BLOOM: But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and he …?

CORNY KELLEHER: (In his left trouser pocket He closes his jaws by an unknown thing which left no trace, and strikes him in slow round ovalling wreaths.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound. Burying the dead. Like princes, faith.

(A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her.) Somewhere in Cabra, what? Burying the dead.

BLOOM: (Troops deploy.) He believed in animal heat. We only realized, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the enshrined amulet of green jade, I saw. She scaled just eleven stone nine.

(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a bony pallid whore in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.) What a lark!

(Hi! Sucking, they catch the sun by extending his little finger.)

THE HORSE: Broke his glasses? He's a professor out of it.

CORNY KELLEHER: Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and another time we thought we had assembled a universe of terror and a secret room, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and mumbled over his body one of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

(And Fritz politic, Care of the circumcised, in a few rooms of an old pair of grey trousers, follow from fir, picking up the grave, the chalice and bible.) Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. What? Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet's. We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.

BLOOM: It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent.

(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, stands forth, his eyes on her whores. His head under the sapphire a nixie's green. Mostly we held to the window to open it more. Growls gruffly.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (Stephen needs.) What, eh, do you follow me?

(He indicates vaguely Lynch and the two redcoats.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.

(Angrily She Shouts.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the stealing of the neighborhood. Sure they wanted me to join in with the jolly girls. Somewhere in Cabra, what?

BLOOM: After you is good manners. Where are you from?

CORNY KELLEHER: Hah, hah, hah! I'll see to that. Somewhere in Cabra, what?

(The Glens of The O'Donoghue.) Hah, hah! It was the bony thing my friend and I had hastened to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I bade the knocker enter, but I felt that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Do you follow me?

THE HORSE: (She holds his hand.) Dublin's burning!

BLOOM: No thoroughfare. Our alarm was now divided, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the titanic bats, was it?

(Scared, hats himself, steps out of the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom is hastily removed in the water. Statues and painting there were, through the crowd, plucks from a lane. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (H. Rumbold, master barber, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Sober hearsedrivers a speciality.

BLOOM: Naturally.

(In medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his testicles, swears. Points He laughs loudly. He steps forward, dragging a lorry on which a carrot is stuck. Gazes on her breast. She taunts him. The van of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. Helterskelterpelterwelter. Coughs gravely. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. Wearied with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard in bright cascade. Peering at bloom's palm. Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. Her sleeve filling from gracing arms reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)

BLOOM: All these people. Niches here and stick of rhubarb toe, as if receding far away, a widower, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we gloated over the moor the faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and such is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable.

(Loudly.) If there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I am very disagreeable.

(Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the sandwichboards.) The home without potted meat is incomplete. Orangeflower …?

(In red fez, cadi's dress coat with solemnity.) Church music.

(The Holy City. In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the table towards the tramsiding on the ashplant.) I fell out of this sole means of salvation.

STEPHEN: (Shrinks back and stares sideways down with a kick of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all shapes, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.) Which side is your knowledge bump? Thirsty fox. Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the city.

(Murmurs.) We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the stealing of the house, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the abhorrent spot, the cocks flew, the bells in heaven were striking eleven?

(St John's, I shut my eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy. Points jeering at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of the past in a distant corner; the antique ivied church pointing a huge rooster hatching in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.)

BLOOM: May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Six. Shitbroleeth.

(His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his multitudinous plumage moulting He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and we gloated over the clean white skull and crossbones are painted in white sheepskin overcoats and black striped suit, too small for him, pulling her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all Ireland, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the chief rabbi, the gently moaning night-wind, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives a piece.) I gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station.

(In a room lit by a shrill laugh.) The exotic, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a second, sergeant …. Can't.

(I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his tongue outlolling, panting, at fault, breaking away, a silver crescent on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a charnel fever like our own.) Then too far.

STEPHEN: (Reporters complain that they cannot hear.) Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

(Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the People. The daughters of Erin, in a lampglow, black in the air of the coombe dance rainily by, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners. J.J. O'Molloy steps on to a beggar He takes part in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. The Crowd. He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch gaily. The O'Donoghue of the coombe dance rainily by, and turn.)

BLOOM: (Their paintspeckled hats wag.) There is a natural cause. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. Slan leath. Machines is their cry, their panacea. That's the music of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. This. Why pay more?

(Her features hardening, gropes in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white, still, cool, in a greasy bib, men's grey and green socks and brogues, an inert mass of his days, permeated by the claws and teeth of some unspeakable beast.) Scrapy!

(He places his arm and hat from the footplate of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his feet: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.) Pay them, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Turns the drumhandle. The silent lechers.)

BLOOM: (Writes on the shoulder with his left cheek puffed out.) Negro servants in a cog.

RUDY: (Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the table. All agree with him. The Nameless One, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching by, and in the seawind simply swirling. Solemnly.)

[beatitlikeabongodrum]

Taking Care Of The Avengers: 14) New Weirdos

Everyone was in the training room, challenging each other's skills with their own. Pietro, Wanda and Bruce were not present as they were in the labs, doing something or the other.

All except Tony were gonna fight, of course. He needed the suit. So, he was the judge, or so he said. He just sat around and forced people to do shit. He was also the cheerleader. Well, he sucked at being a cheerleader, and he almost insisted on wearing a woman's cheer-leading suit.

Idiot.

The training room occupied a full floor, with latest training facilities. There were punching bags, treadmills, shooting ranges, weapons and a large open area for combat, covered in a large and firm yet soft mat. There were windows on two sides of the floor, with long curtains for covering it, and the walls were painted beige and white.

"Go, Capsicle!" Tony hollered as the Captain threw a punch at the other super soldier.

"You can do it, Bucky!" You also screamed, as both the soldiers retreated slightly to recover. They then advanced again, delivering and blocking punches and kicks.

" Who's strong and brave, here to save the American Way? Who vows to fight like a man for what's right night and day? Who will campaign door-to-door for America, Carry the flag shore to shore for America, From Hobo-ken to Spokane, The Star Spangled Man with a Plan!" Tony belted out and danced ridiculously on the sidelines.

Everyone burst out laughing and Steve looked up in embarrassment, temporarily forgetting about Bucky, who immediately took the opportunity to lock him in a tight pin.

"Bucky, Bucky! The Winter Soldier," Clint belted out stupid lyrics spontaneously. You're so strong, you can lift a boulder You can beat the Capsicle, You are so damn whimsical! Cause you're amazing with a metal arm used for whooping butts so hard that it would become as flat as weird ass pancakes which wouldn't be delicious at all!" He rapped out horribly making everyone shudder and clamp their ears down.

Everyone stopped for a second to stare at Clint. Bucky had a look of sheer disgust and embarrassment.

"Wha-? Just what?" Loki asked as he looked at your brother.

Clint winced. "Man, that didn't rhyme."

"You do know that was an insult to rappers all over the world, right?" Tony asked with a glare.

He just shrugged with an embarrassed blush, about to open his mouth to answer when the windows on the far side crashed and shattered. Everyone took cover, and then immediately stood up as the glass pieces stopped flying everywhere.

As the Avengers stood up cautiously, all armed or prepared to fight, two costumed figures came barreling in and fought each other instead of attacking the Avengers.

"What the-" You started and stared at the two figures who were now rolling and trying to punch each other on the mat where the super-soldiers fought previously.

"Who are these new weirdos?" Thor boomed in confusion. You were surprised as to how Thor understood the term 'weirdo'.

The soldiers moved in and tried separating the two people, who struggled and started fighting verbally.

"YOU Web-Face! That's the last time you ruin my moment!" The taller and stronger figure shouted. He was dressed in a red and black suit with a sword and few guns strapped onto his suit. His face mask had black diamonds covering his eyes and seemed skillful.

"I was just trying to help! You seemed to be in a bit of a pickle, considering that you were losing a fight to a pickle-dressed guy!" The other man snapped back. He was dressed in dark blue, black and red, with a large black spider embroidered across the chest of his suit. He had webs drawn across his suit and mask. His face mask at the eyes had black parts curving upwards and a well structured face.

You thought that the latter man actually sounded younger, like a teen.

"I had it well under control!"

"Sure, you did. Next you'll tell me you also had to save the damsel in distress! Oh wait, you were the damsel in distress!"

Diamond face also struggled against the Captain, but to no avail. Everyone else was wondering what was going on and who these characters were.

"So, are we just going to stand here and watch or-" Loki asked uncertainly and Clint shrugged.

"Oh please! It was all part of my plan!" Diamond face stopped struggling and resorted to just verbal abuse. "Not like I needed an insect to help me."

"Yeah well this insect just saved your butt from an overgrown pickle! The least you can do is be grateful instead of going all commando and fury on me!" Spider retorted loudly and also stopped moving.

"I wear underwear under this suit!" Diamond face cried indignantly and then tried to lunge, only to have the Captain pin him to the ground effortlessly.

"Well, even with that suit, I can still see your cr-" Spidey started but immediately got cut off by you.

"Whoa! Hold up, people! You can't just blast your way through windows and start speaking inappropriate shit!" You cried out indignantly, making them stare at you.

The Avengers snickered at your comment and returned their attention back to the two men. They both suddenly realized that they fought in front of an audience and immediately straightened themselves out, trying to look less disheveled.

"Sorry, love. I just hate it when Web-ass over there interrupts my missions. And I'm Dead-pool." Diamond face introduced and looked directly at you.

Natasha was wondering why he seemed so keen on his introduction. Shouldn't masked superheroes want to be somewhat invisible, only appearing when people were in danger, and not easily let others know them?

"You would've lived up to your name if I didn't help you. I'm sure you've heard of me- Spider-man!" The other man said excitedly.

Everyone nodded in sync, making Dead-pool raise an eyebrow and Spider-man took a step back, feeling scared.

"And we know who you guys are. Avengers Assemble Asses!" Dead-pool exclaimed humorously but the Avengers glared at him.

"Why, you little-" Natasha yelled and lunged for him. You sensed that and quickly ran to her to hold her back.

Dead-pool snickered. "I've heard of this Dragon. Sounds lame. Besides, none of you guys look like a weird dragon." He remarked and your head shot up swiftly.

"Damn." Bucky muttered with a smirk. He knew what was coming.

You snapped your body to him and growled in a dangerously low voice. "What did you say? Repeat it, so that I can make sure to hurt you in ways you've never even imagined."

And with that, you let go of Natasha and dashed to the terrified Dead-pool, knocking him to the ground and punching his chest.

"Get her off me!"

"Nah! We're good." Steve said and everyone else started talking to each other casually as Dead-pool's screams were filling the room. You kept punching and twisting his limbs angrily.

"How dare you call me lame." You were about to deliver a strong punch to his face, one that would actually make a dent, when Loki noticed this.

His eyes widened in horror and he sprang forwards, grabbing your waist and pulling you off as you were about to deliver the punch. He carried you in the air as you struggled against his hold, making you seem as light as a feather.

"Let me go! I want to finish his sorry butt off this planet!" You screamed and tried biting your way out.

"Wow! I like her." Spider-man commented, impressed.

Dead-pool got up as soon as you were off him and climbed to the top of a tall pole, shivering in fear as you glared daggers at him.

"(Y/n), calm down. It's alright." Loki said in his silky voice, whispering in your ear as he held you close to him. He started rubbing your back in comfort as you glared angrily and breathed heavily.

You immediately calmed down like you were under some spell. His voice was so soothing and soft, sometimes even rendering you speechless and making you a blushing mess.

"Just calm down. You might get another shot at him later." Loki added with a dark and mischievous smile, making you grin back.

"You guys done?" Tony asked with a poker face and you glared. "So, what are you doing here? It should be a good reason if you came crashing into my tower."

"He stole my mission!" "He didn't thank me for saving his stupid butt!"

Natasha's patience wore thin and she yelled, "Shut up. We don't even know you guys, so get out!" "Tash, calm down." Clint spoke warily. "We still need to find out who they really are."

"Hi! I'm Peter Parker and- oh no! I wasn't supposed to say that!" He covered his mouth in horror and took a few steps back.

Bucky smiled in amusement and you chuckled. Natasha shook her head in annoyance and the two gods were wondering what was even going on.

All they understood was that two costumed men, not wearing underwear are fighting over a pickled man. Not very accurate, though.

"Too late. JARVIS, run a scan on a teen named Peter Parker." Tony called out and gave a cheeky smile.

"As you wish, sir. May I recommend snacks for our guests?" The AI asked in a monotone voice.

"Yup. Make it a chocolate sundae. " Dead-pool piped in cheerily.

"I do not take orders from a red-assed weirdo." JARVIS replied back with sass,  making Dead-pool quiet and Tony smile widely with pride.

"We're all heroes here. Might as well reveal yourselves. "Clint said casually, even though he was burning with curiosity at the two dressed up men.

Peter/ Spider-man shook his head and gave out a sigh, pulling his mask off, revealing a handsome 19 or 20 year old man, with brown hair and deep eyes.

"Your turn, nut." Tony ordered the man perched on the pole. He jumped down easily, and walked over cautiously, eyeing you the whole time with wary eyes.

"How do you see anything with those black diamonds covering your face?" Thor asked innocently, baffled by the man.

"It's a thing all superheroes go through, excluding you guys." Dead-pool remarked with a hidden smirk. He whipped off his mask, revealing a somewhat handsome yet shriveled face.

"Whoa! You look like an avocado who had a one-night stand with an older avocado." Tony stated blandly, as everyone stared.

"That's exactly what my friend said. I'm Wade Wilson. " He muttered somberly and ran a hand through his very short hair.

"What's a one-night stand?" Steve asked,  clueless, Loki and Thor nodding their head approvingly at the Captain's question.

You gulped along with Bucky. Tony was about to open his mouth, ready for a whole snarky lecture when Natasha clamped his mouth down.

"In time, you guys will learn." Clint finished quickly, knowing that such conversations would taint their somewhat innocent minds. Except Loki. You never know what might happen then.

The three just nodded innocently with furrowed eyebrows.

"You guys should try it! Pete is still a baby but everyone else seems old enough. " Wade added indifferently, earning a web to the face by Peter.

You and Peter Hi-fived and smirked. But then something made your mind deter from the conversation. And Loki was smiling the whole time because of it.

You were still wrapped around Loki's arms, as his hand was moving up and down your back slowly, causing shivers to run down your spine. A blush emerged and you noticed Tony smirking at you.

You pulled away slowly and the others conversed about the two new men, missing the smile that was wiped off Loki's face.

You were so oblivious. Tony wanted to smack you for that.

"Is it okay if we stay here for sometime? It seems like a nice shanty." Wilson asked with a half-grin, Peter nodding with a hopeful smile.

"No."

"Yes."

"Uh, so can-?"

"Voting time!" Steve announced and the Avengers huddled in a circular group.

Peter had wandered off, impatient at waiting for the decision. He came across the labs, which were empty. Bruce had gone to retrieve supplies along with the twins, and Peter looked at it with a bright smile.

After tinkering for about ten minutes, he heard people approaching and quickly ran out, reaching the training room where the huddled group finally began to disperse.

Dead-pool was coloring on a paper with crayons- a messed up version of the Avengers.

"You guys can stay for only a day. Just because we have to inform Fury about this. Okay?" Steve said and the two men nodded eagerly. "Don't do anything stupid -" he was cut off with a small boom.

"Now what?" Loki asked exasperatedly.

Spider-man rubbed his neck sheepishly, making Tasha narrow her eyes suspiciously.

And in came Bruce with the Maximoffs in tow, bodies caked with black ash. Everyone in the room was stifling laughs as Bruce approached angrily.

"Who was the idiot to mess with the H2O, magnesium and sulphite? I want to smash." His voice came out deeper, making everyone panic.

The red headed assassin immediately stepped forward to see a few green veins bulging out from his arms and forehead. She started soothing him as everyone turned accusingly towards the visitors.

Dead-pool not so discreetly pointed to Peter, who giggled sheepishly. "Sorry?"

"I was supposed to heat only the sulphur! But this person mixed water and magnesium and -" Bruce trailed off as he noticed that not everyone understood his science talk. He sighed, "They went boom. Luckily, not much damage but I have to restart everything. "

With that, he stomped out, the twins shooting weird glances at the two new men and they left as well.

"You should have seen it. That was literally out of this world! " Pietro exclaimed and Wanda face-palmed.

"Uh, does he know how to use the word 'literally'?" Dead-pool asked with a raised eyebrow.

"He has a problem. " Clint put in as he shook his head.

"What did we say about doing stupid things?" Bucky asked with gritted teeth and he placed his arms on his hips accusingly.

"Calm down, mother bear. " Dead-pool commented with a snort. Bucky glared and stepped forward to punch him but was held back by Steve.

"You guys were taking so long. I was bored. "

"And what was the Diamond man doing at that time?" Loki asked with a snarl. Yet, he enjoyed the slight mayhem.

Wade promptly held up his drawing with a gleeful smile. "Nice?"

Everyone glared at him without a sound. You glanced at Loki as if asking for permission. He nodded.

With a dark smile, (Loki was really rubbing off on you.) You were about to lunge when Bucky along with Thor held you back quickly. Wade retreated a few steps with a terrified expression.

"I want a pop-tart!"Thor announced and ran out hurriedly.

--------------------------

"We shouldn't do this. We really shouldn't do this. Why are we doing this?" You asked worriedly, eyeing Loki, Peter and Wade who were sneaking into Tony's personal labs.

"Because it's fun. " Peter responded cheerily as he stepped in front of a glass door.

"And because the others are lame. " Wade said as he gestured for you to open it.

You punched in the correct keys, and the door slid open with a slight whoosh. The four of you stepped in and immediately ran to the suits that were lined up in a row, encased by glass.

"How do we work them?" Loki asked as he tapped the suit on the head. You stepped in front of one suit and clicked a button on a keypad. The glass cases opened and each of you stepped in front of a different suit.

Somehow, the four managed to get into their respective suits and fly them after a few minutes of banging walls and yelling. The yelling was by Loki because his hair got stuck in the helmet.

You and Peter teamed up and Loki and Wade teamed up, playing catch in the suits. You and Peter ran to the window and flew out, the other team in hot pursuit.

Spider-man led the way as he flew, but he passed the large windows of the lounge, where the Avengers jumped to their feet in surprise as they saw four of Tony's suits fly on their own.

"What is that?" Tony asked in bewilderment as he saw his beloved suits flying and crashing each other.

Wade was controlling stupidly, dashing everyone in his way. He got pushed, crashed through the balcony of the lounge and ended up in front of the angry Avengers.

"Hey guys. I was just, uh, enjoying the view. "He said with a cheeky smile and got up. He was about to take off when Steve caught him and brought him down. Tony somehow removed the suit and glared at the man.

" Wilson down! Wilson down! That means help, you idiots!" Wade screamed at you and the flying men as he was dragged by his shirt collar.

"We'll get him later." You waved him off, but Tony managed to come flying towards you in his Iron man suit as Thor used his hammer to get the other escapees.

"Abort! Abort!" You chimed and flew off with Tony on your heels.

Tony overtook you and did something, making the suit disintegrate from your body. You started plummeting but quickly transformed into your dragon form, easily flying back up. You went near Tony and whacked him with a whip of your tail.

"Dammit, (Y/n)!" He cursed and went off with his precious suits.

"Nice face. " Someone commented and you turned to see Spider-man perching on the rails of the balcony sans Iron Man suit.

You growled slightly and landed, shifting into your other form. But before that happened, Peter was very curious and attempted to touch your wing, making you slap him with your tail.

Entering the lounge, you saw Wade being lectured by the other Avengers who quickly turned as you entered. With a curse, you and your spider friend fled the room with the other Avengers running and shouting after you. In the end, they stopped chasing you and you found Loki in the vents.

"I though this would be the last place you would be! You were too godly to 'climb into revolting and inhumane steel traps' from what you've told me." you quoted sarcastically with a smirk.

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes, shifting to make space for you. You and Peter had split up when the Avengers were chasing you. From his piercing screams, you understood that they started dragging him back by his legs.

You heaved yourself up and Loki pulled up you up by your arms. The vents were quite large so there was enough space for both you and the god.

"So, how long are we going to wait here?" You drummed your fingers impatiently. Loki narrowed his eyes at your fingers and clamped them down with his own to stop the tapping.

You blushed and looked away, mentally thanking the sweet Avenger who decided to unknowingly pass under the vents, making you and Loki silent, so that you didn't need to show your face to Loki.

"What are you guys doing up here? Making out?" Someone's head popped from the corner of the vent, making you squeal and cower into Loki.

"What is wrong with you, Diamond-nut?" Loki hissed as he pulled you away slowly after putting his hand around your waist.

You sported your oh-so-famous blush and looked at Wade who was smirking and in the weirdest position a person could ever be in a vent. One leg was raised and he lay on his stomach and the other leg was propped against the wall. His body twisted and arms above his head.

"Get out of my hiding space." Dead-pool shrieked and wriggled to chase you away.

The Avengers in the lounge were dealing with Spidey, as in they were scolding and messing up his hair as they pinned him down. Turns out, he really spent a long time shaping it in the right way. So he cried out when they started tugging and messing it.

The Avengers had heard the high shriek and their heads shot up, and they dashed to the source of the sound, leaving Peter to run off and make water pranks.

"They're in this one!" Clint called out as he crawled through his favorite vents.

"Gah!" You and Wade cursed. You, Loki and Wade glanced at each other for a second and then eyed the empty path to freedom.

All at once, the three of you started racing to the tunnel. Luckily, you managed to get out safely before the others advanced.

You ran to the lounge with the men in tow, only to find Peter dancing stupidly and singing off-tune as he filled a large bucket. He spun around as his Spidey senses tingled.

With a smirk, Loki used his magic to prop the water bucket at the top of the door frame. You grinned and grabbed a packet of balloons from a drawer labelled 'Tony's private parts.'

Yeah. That was a particularly hilarious day when he named the drawer.

You all started filling the balloons. Loki was wondering in amazement what these stretchy bubbles were. He started prodding some and even filled some alcohol in a balloon.

Hearing the sounds of approaching Avengers, you quickly grabbed the balloons along with the other men and stationed yourselves at hidden corners.

"What?" Bucky screamed as he entered, the water pouring all over him from the top of the door. He fell to the ground dramatically as the other Avengers charged.

Some of them slipped and fell. Mostly Pietro.

You started throwing the balloons of water at your unsuspecting friends, grinning madly as they hit them accurately. Loki and Wade were also throwing the balloons as Peter sent a few webs here and there.

One web caught Tony's feet and he plummeted to the ground. Loki used this opportunity to empty the alcohol-filled balloon on his face as his mouth was partially open.

Tony choked a bit and then swallowed, humming as he immediately became tipsy. He started struggling again and Loki decided to feed him more alcohol. He looked like a madman by the time he emptied a bottle of whiskey down Tony's throat.

The billionaire swayed lazily from side to side as Steve managed to remove the webs, all the while protecting himself from the splash of balloons with his shield.

Peter shot another web, which unfortunately hit Pietro in the place where the sun-don't-shine, and the speedster fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

"Of all the places, why there?" He asked with a moan.

"You hurt my brother!" Wanda exclaimed and her eyes turned red, making you look in fear.

"Time's up! Get out!" You shouted and Loki ran with you, Wade and Peter taking another corridor out.

"Every man for himself! Lady-Hulk is going to go nuts!" Wade said comically and sped down the hall, skidding to a stop as he reached the rooms of the Avengers. He quickly hid in the room labelled 'Romanoff'.

Peter was caught again and the Avengers left the torture to Wanda. The poor guy had his webs used against him.

You and Loki were being chased by Bucky and Natasha. Clint and Bruce were looking after Tony since drunk Tony was not a very obedient person. Thor and Steve were searching for Wade, as Pietro ran to get ice for his injury.

You and Loki ran faster, hoping that the Avengers would stop pursuing you. Instead, Loki grabbed your arm and dragged you to a hidden room.

"Whoa! Where are-" you started but your mouth was clamped by Loki's slender hand. He put his pointer finger to his lips and you understood the message, nodding as he removed his hand.

Bucky and Natasha quickly passed the room where you were hidden in and you breathed out a sigh of relief. You looked around, spotting a few drawers and no windows. It was a small room, enough to accommodate a few drawers and two people at least. There were three chairs.

"You have unfortunately found out my candy stash. " Loki said grimly as he sat on one chair and opened the drawer closest to him, bring out a huge bar of Dairy Milk. "No one knows but you. And if you dare tell anyone or even try to steal a single mortal candy, I will make sure you will regret it "

You gulped and nodded, taking a seat opposite to Loki as he delicately bit off a piece of chocolate and started chewing it. You licked your lips, giving him your most irresistible puppy dog eyes.

"What are you- oh that's good. " His eyes widened. He was impressed by your pitiful look and groaned, hesitantly handing you the chocolate.

You grabbed it, grinning madly. You shared the chocolate with Loki and he smiled the whole time as he saw you happily eating.

After five minutes, you both exited the room and ran to the residential area, where you and Loki found the most ridiculous thing ever.

Wade had somehow got hold of fluorescent paints and decorated Natasha's room with those colors, making it so bright that you had to shield your eyes. Wade was also dressed in high red and black heel shoes and a short black dress over his suit, and kept tripping around.

The funniest thing was that Thor and Steve were also in the room, watching Dead-pool with surprise but not doing anything to stop him.

Loki pulled on your arm and you faced him. You raised your eyebrow and he pulled you quietly away from the room. After a few moments, you winced as you heard Wade's shrieks echoing.

You and Loki went to the lounge, to find out completely empty. It was so quiet that it frightened you a bit, but the only thing you could concentrate on was Loki's hand still holding onto yours. He was smiling since you didn't pull away.

He suddenly stopped. "Something's not right. "

Pietro came speeding in the room with a rope and tied you both within a second. You screamed and struggled with Loki when the rest of the Avengers entered with evil smirks plastered on their faces as they dragged in Peter and Wade.

Wade was crying childishly as Peter attempted to head-butt Bucky, only to receive a slap on the head.

"We can explain!" You stammered out until Wanda shook her finger.

"It was Wilson's fault!" Loki pointed out and Wade gave out a retorted groan.

"I wanna go home!" Peter cried out but stopped as Tony spoke.

"When we're done with you guys, you can go home." He said darkly and the Avengers advanced menacingly.

"Say goodbye to your chocolates."

NO!"