#drawing johns hand was pure agony

[blueclipser]

Wahooo Sherlock and Co fanart!! I lovee these guyss

[risingsol]

A certain tremor echoes from the mountain ranges of Liyue at the sound of the WWE. Birds fly from their nest, the vishaps are caught in a fit of primal fear as they hide in their nest. Even the mindless treasure hoarders found the fear of God and stopped being fodder for your everyday needs. John Cena would emerge from a thousand ton rock that thrust him into captivity. His muscles rippled without the glory of wailing gods and his skin found itself naturally attracting the elements themselves. That very rock caused a global panic as Cena's strength of a singular tossed slammed it accidentally into Ningguang's Jade Chamber. Instead what his rippling abs fixate on would be the mysterious power that managed to bloom within Teyvat. Flipping his snapback towards the back of a head, with one singular leap he'd jump from the unknown ranges directly to where Aether lands. Debris found flight and the ground itself howled in agony as his hulking figure caused it to concave, barreling towards the remnants of Khaenri'ah itself. The place he singlehandedly took on and triumphed. Drawing himself up entirely, the Wrestler gave a curious look to blond who found himself struggling from the ankles to above. Doing a weird gesture with his hand, he shook his head before letting a cocky smirk draw upon his face. Flexing his glorious pecs, the already tattered shirt upon his figure helplessly tore apart as he approached Aether.

"You can't see me. That's why you're tripping all over like a todller looking for their PUDDING POPS, ain't cha star boy? How about we grease you back up to full form? Call me the mechanic." Elemental energy began to erupt from every pore from his body. The forbidden federation had been spoken into Teyvat's existence.

There were a great many things that the traveler had experienced every since coming to Teyvat - there had been the purification of an ancient force of protection in Mondstadt, the retirement of an archon and ending of a memory in Liyue, the changing of a nation over in Inazuma, and even the price of wisdom over in Sumeru. All at once, none of those seemed to be really life changing events when the ground seemed to tear open like cheap chalk at the application of pressure and out came a figure that Aether honestly couldn’t say that he would have expected here on Teyvat. In another world, he had seen the form of the other - plastered on television screens and voice blasting over the radio programs, but never in person like this. 

Perhaps that had been the safety of those who adored and admired him, lest their eyeballs quite literally melt out of their head from the sheer energy that seemed to radiate off of this person’s form. Was person even right to refer to them when there seemed to be something... otherworldly about them? Even from a distance, through the dirt that was marring his vision, Aether could still see their form beyond clearly.

Behind him, he could residually hear the nearly built Jade Chamber breaking into pieces from the force of the rock that had been impeding the other’s path out of the earth. He would have more of a reaction if the man behind it all didn’t suddenly disappear - eyes barely having a moment to search before a blast of energy practically materialized in front of him. 

“I,” He was right, he didn’t see him. He didn’t see him make his approach, he certainly didn’t see how he made his approach, and he also didn’t see where the poor scraps that the other’s shirt was formerly comprised of before a single flex of this solid form of muscle had blasted whatever atoms it was made of into pure nothingness. Was this what he had to become in order to find his sister? To figure out the mysteries of this world beyond what the archons could provide him - beyond what even Dainsleif could provide him? 

It was true, since stepping foot into this world, a significant amount of his power had been sealed away - a trick of the goddess who had separated him from his kin. He had thought that he would have to work through the world to regain it, but... this man calling himself the mechanic... was this what he really needed? 

“Do you... have a name I should call you by?” 

[ficsnroses]

Skin to Skin - John Wick x Reader

summary : coming home after a rough night, all John wants to do, is hold you close, with no barriers between; skin to skin. 

warnings : so much fluff omg. nudity, sex talk. x f! reader.

words : 2.5k

Notes : guess who’s 84 years late to @toomanystoriessolittletime​ ‘s birthday challenge? :) prompt is the song Yellow by Coldplay. I tried to add only small hues of the song in to keep the story as original as possible. song lyrics are >bolded<. please leave a comment, anon or not if you enjoy! it means so so much and helps me write.

Steph, I freaking adore you my wonderful amazing german friend. you deserve to be celebrated regardless of a birthday or not xox. hope ya like it!

‘Tell me the story about how the sun loved the moon so much, he died every night, to let her breathe.’

The moon sat heavy that night; bold, grey, silvers spilling into your eyes that searched, hoped, prayed he was alright. It sat in the inky blackness of the night; painted as the hallow inside your heart.

John hadn’t come home yet, hadn’t so much as called you to tell you he’d be in later than usual.

The cloudiness is killing you, suffocating you; the unknowing is killing you. John’s profession proves cold, stoic, chilling graves and pungent fingers. On his hands, lays the sin he’d never consented to; the daggers he sends are ones he’d never wished to carve.

Your John, pleads, begs, reveries of a life far away from the murk. Far away from the dark clouds that cave around your happily ever after, the grim that taints each semblance of normalcy he desperately craves.

There’s something special about the moon, a vulnerability the sun doesn’t know.

The moon sees everyone at night, at most vulnerable. The moon is often the last thing we cease to; something everyone, every single one, of us, can see. No matter where, no matter how.

If John isn’t home, resting his weary bones beside you; he’s out there.

Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere…

       Looking at the moon, too.

You fear that someday, some day sooner than you’d ever dream, John won’t bid goodnight to the moon. You fear that someday, somewhere, he’ll be consumed by the same inky blackness; that someday, your John, won’t come back to you. Potent, haunting thoughts chill your every bone tonight;

       but you’d only told the moon.

The crisp of your soft sigh is deep, dragged. It hosts unease; withers within your throat, staring out to the big, mean ol’ moon. In a sea of silky sheets, you sit undone, awaiting the return of your love. Somehow, someway, he’d always make it back to you.

You whisper to the stars that it’ll stay true, that soon, he’d succumb to your waiting arms, lose himself in your embrace the same way,

the moon melts into the sun, each and every morning.

Your thoughts interrupt, a perk of ears hosted by the singed creak of the crème bedroom door open, you’d almost forgot what true, utter, gratitude feels as, before the wash of relief of this moment.

Relief comes in tides, in wavelengths that crash over the uneased shores of your thoughts. In this moment, the sea sinks back to where it belongs, the waves calm, and the moonlight reflects off the inky blackness in vibrant, tranquil, stillness.

Stood in the tall frame of the bedroom door, your John, positions in dreary boned stance; the pitch black suit he wears accents the grim to his features, the most telling of the day’s worries play out on his sunken expression, weary orbs that drown into yours, silently pleading. A glimmer of a smile graces his face, yet it holds nothing but the icy unease, the fatigue that courses through his veins.

Your John, looks exhausted. Everything from the strong, sharp cut of his jaw, to the thin fullness of his lips and the gentle limp in his composure. It all writes as a sheer agony, his limited portrayal letting you know that tonight, would write itself out as one of those nights.

Something ripples in his eyes; something sad, something craving an ounce of sweet, at last. “John, baby?” A quiet croak as you frown, forcing your rasped vocal chords to inquire. Peeling the silken bed sheets off your worrisome frame as you crawl his way to the foot of the bed, John sighs a heavy exhale, crisp suit jacket discarded to the vacant love chair to the corner of your shared bedroom.

In this bedroom, John and you have shared the sweetest of remembrances. Soft, quiet giggles in the dark, gentle, loving touches in the midnight gleam. Within these very walls, you’ve whispered confessions of love a thousand times, never enough.

Some nights, peace triumphs, quiet kisses and tender holds are all the gray walls know.

Some nights, however, it feels as if the nightmares that follow John, claw into your skin. Some nights, escaping the dark becomes tough; and all you can do,

is hold him.

Remind him what it means, what it feels to be human.

You weren’t sure what tonight would play out as. All you know, is hold him you will; kiss his each bruise you will.

Love him, you will.

His laboured sigh is dense, heavy, and his eyes fall downcast when your arms find him, walked up to his towering frame. Your gentle hand rests to his cheek, and you breathe in slow, calm whispers. Much to your gratitude, few fresh cuts litter his face, but the wounds that pierce deeper, are the ones inside.

You don’t know what happen today, what had hurt him more than usual.

And you won’t ask.

You know, you understand. That some wounds never heal, and some scares only burn, the more toil they see.

“Can we…” His tone is gravelly, thick with need. As your hand plants to his chests, and the other says situated to his cheek, you gently coax the skin under his eye with your thumb, soothing. Arms wrapped around your waist, the cold chill of his hand that rests to your hips sinks into your heart seams.

Whoever, whatever did this to your John, you’d wish a thousand moonless nights upon.

A thousand curses fly with the wind their way.

“Can we lay?” John jadedly asks, honey brown eyes soaking into your soul, and you swallow a lump that makes camp in your throat. You nod gentle, a warm smile his way; something that nurtures, soothes his broken soul.

“Of course.” Kissing light to his jaw, you begin to slowly work on the worn out clothes that embroider his skin. The shock of your soulful touch elicits a soft, content sigh off his lips, his own hands never leaving the delicate curves of your body.

Often, on tiresome nights, and days where he needed to feel something; the only antidote that would suffice, would remedy the hallow that carves home inside each crevice of his soul was, laying with you.

With no barriers, no limits. Skin to skin,

       sulking within the safe corridors of the arms of the women who owns his entire soul. Safe, within the touch of you; the only other that knows of all the pain that subsists within him.

Perhaps, just as the silver moon; John has a side that isn’t shown to others. He has a dark, guarded side, that no one, no one other than you knows.

And perhaps that is why he feels so deep, longs to be so thoroughly, intimately connected to you. Because you are the only one who really knows him, loves him despite it all.

Gently peeling off his pearly white dress shirt, the buttons come undone within the reach of your fingertips, the skin underneath revealing scars, old and new peppering his skin. The scent of his musky cologne, barely radiating off his skin kisses your nose, and you delicately discard the seams of the fabric off his body. John only stands, watches you undress his body, watches you drink in everything that is him. Gently, you kiss a freshly littered, deep purple bruise that paints to his chest, lips pressed against the skin for a moment longer. Slow, and soft, your hands begin to undo the heavy buckle of his belt, unravelling each inch of him as a beautiful gift.

Which he was; your John, was a gift. Something you’d thank the sky for each day.

As you work his bottoms, John’s hefty hands begin to unstitch across your top, fingers travelling up the hem of your shirt before removing it from your body. His eyes savour your skin, goosebumps layering each inch of your being when he moves closer, slower, deeper, gently reaching behind to unhook the clasps of your bra that shield your modesty from him. Upon removal, John sighs, seeing the beauty that makes home within you. The silk of your satin skin, the swell of your perfectly beautiful breasts; the exquisiteness of what was his.

As you finish removal of his belt, your delicate fingers peel his slacks and boxers off his skin. Smiling slight when his bare, broad and handsomely dark figure stands with you, your eyes brush over his glorious, exposed manhood, hiding underneath a beautifully dark bush of hair; butterflies sparking within your mid, reminiscing on the way his weight, his throb feels inside your aching walls; the way your body yearns for him even after you finish.

and you take his bulkier hand in yours, guiding his bones to the safe haven of your shared bed. Silky sheets prove inviting, comfort of cotton pillows and endless security lure a much somnolent John their way.

Tightening a soft squeeze to your lover’s hand, your eyes connect to his, certain, assuring. Gently guiding him to lay on the mattress, you whisper a quiet ‘relax, baby’ into his ear, watching the way his bare form climbs into the sheets, heavily exhaling as he pulls the covers up.

To your frame, his inquisitive eyes glaze over each inch, intently watching at the way you softly, unhurriedly peel off your own bottoms and lacy underwear, showcasing to him the vulnerable, delicately intimate sight of your unadorned body and naked breasts, before unravelling the sheets beside him, and climbing in.

John’s arms habitually open for you, the brush of his callous skin against yours as he draws your figure proximately close makes your head swim and your lips part, gently kissing a fresher, deeper mauve bruise into the soft skin under his neck.

Only this bruise, is composed out of nothing but pure, unconditional, love.

As your arms loom around his neck, his lips embed a small, loving kiss to your forehead, sighing against the skin. He’s big, beautiful, and warm. His hold is the warmest, purest form of,

       yellow.

“You’re tense, baby.” A hand cupped to his cheek, your soft padded fingers barely scratch his beard, voice quiet, guarded above a whisper. Sighing deeply, John’s chest heaves a deep inhale, against yours. With a timid, gentle nod of acknowledgement, John only shakes his head, wanting nothing more than to just bask. Bask, with you.

“Baby, you’re so stiff.” You offer an index to his chin, lifting his eyes to lock with yours. Slow and soft, your spare hand travels to the space between your intertwined bodies, to his manhood, wrapping your hand delicately around the girth of his cock. With a few tender, measly, gentle strokes to his shaft, you whisper. “Do you want me to…?” You propose, more than willing to shower him with relief; to allow him to completely relax if he needed it. John sighs to the feel of your hand on his cock, caressing.

“Fuck…” He exhales, eyes closing as his arms tighten around you. “Feels amazing.” He confesses, yet interjects with a draw of your body closer. “But it’s alright, sweetheart. Later.” Breathe hot against your neck, he rests within you. “I just want to hold you right now.” With his head falling lower, he buries his face into the safe dip of your breasts, kissing a soft peck into the delicate skin. “You’re all I need.” He barely whispers, breathing in the saccharine scent of your skin. Raking soft tugs into his chocolate mane, you nod, holding him closer, tighter, feeling his skin, warm and proximate on yours. John relishes for a moment, before his gaze moves up to look at you, and he sighs. He sighs deep, and his head moves back up, lips offering a soft peck to yours, before his eyes gaze into yours.

For you I’d bleed myself dry, for you I’d bleed myself,

dry.

Staring into your warm eyes is a remedy of its own; a symphony of its own. He thinks, that truly, if the moon loves him, do the thousands of stars, speckled in the dark even matter? If the moon loves him,

       if the moon

       loves him.

His moon; loves him. His moon, loves him so much, that her eyes well up with tears, knowing he’s safe, within her arms.

Your fingers bury in his hair, reaching softly in to trail your fingers over the rough skin of his neck, stopping at his defined adam’s apple. Leaning closer, you allow your fingers to trail up his stubble ridden chin, before settling on his parted lights. Known, you feel him kiss to your delicate finger tip, his eyes habitually closing, sighing when your legs tighten, tangled to his, and your hold on him firms. Lazily, you draw circles to his chest, smiling, breathing with his heartbeat completely synced with yours. He looks beautiful, like this. Exposed, bare, vulnerable; yet completely safe, willing to be seen.

And you think, you wonder. You know; that all the pretty, golden stars, they shine for him.

This, was true intimacy. Moments such as this, where sex wasn’t needed, chases of orgasm nothing close to what truly mattered. All that triumphed, all that was dire need, was the feel of his skin on yours, and yours on his. The reminder that you are real, as is he.

It’s true, look how they shine for,

you.

His feelings are real, what he’s been through is real.

But, only, solely as real, as the feel of his skin on yours. The feel of the love that also runs in his veins; the feeling of life you bring him when your bodies collide, when your warmth envelopes him.

John’s hand brushes to your hip, just above the delicate swell of your bosom, and you know what he wants. Knowingly, you lean in close, one last time, to allow a soft, love soaked kiss to his pink lips, and a gentler, easier one to his stubble ridden cheek, before you turn in his embrace, your back pressed to his chest.

And as always, as true to a hundred times before, John’s arms tighten around you further, pulling your body in as close as could be, before nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck, where he’d speckle a few kisses, sighing. And there he rests, with his face buried between your skin, and your hands holding his that rest to your mid, soft legs tangling with his tired, worn out ones. In complete, simple silence, you both relish in the tune of each other’s silent breaths, skin to skin, relishing in the symphony of your love.

The world ceases to exist in moments like this, the inky blackness doesn’t matter. All that matters, is you and him, and your combined energy, strong as a supernova.

And perhaps, you should crumble for better reasons.

But could reason compare

to this man you call yours? He brings the light of a hundred suns to their knees, the black of a million nights turns yellow.

And for him, you’ll crumble a billion times.

You’ll paint each ounce of him yellow.

because you think- you know,

you love him

           more than the moon, and all it’s shining stars.

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

My taglist will be posted in reblogs, let me know if you want to be added or removed! :)

[simplyclockwork]

I am a huge fan of your writing. I would love a post season 4 fic where we see John and Rosie move back to 221b. Sherlock has an accident and breaks an arm and a leg. As he is wondering how he will take care of himself John turns up to collect him from hospital like its the most natural thing in World that he will take care of Sherlock. The focus is John wanting a chance to redeem himself. Happy Johnlock ending please. I’m over 18. Smut optional!

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Hi, anon! Thanks for your patience with me filling the prompt. Hopefully, you like what I’ve written :) Please feel free to send a prompt anytime!

You can also read your prompt on Ao3 here. The rest of the fill is below the page break.

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It’s only been a couple of weeks since John moved back to Baker Street, with his few belongings and infant-daughter in tow. Sherlock is still adjusting, and so is John, while Rosie bounces about the place like a tennis ball. She provides a perfect distraction, a much-needed buffer between John and Sherlock, who are still trying to find their way back to something considered normalcy.

Whatever their new normalcy is, Sherlock doesn’t know. He just hopes they find it soon because the unresolved tension hovering over 221B is starting to drive him mad.

Things are different. Better than they were before when John… well, that was before, and this is now. Sherlock tries not to dwell on their brief tilt into insanity. Mary, the aquarium, Culverton Smith, Eurus and Sherrinford. Each has taken a toll on Sherlock in one way or another. Things are different. John works at the clinic more often than he joins Sherlock on cases. He has a daughter to provide for, and his evening spent in a well with chains around his ankles has made him somewhat skittish.

Sherlock can’t blame him, not when he feels a little skittish himself—but he’s the world’s only consulting detective. It’s him, or it’s no one, and he’s got a bit of life left in him yet. Casework feels strange without John at his side, but John hasn’t been there in any consistent capacity since Sherlock returned from the dead, so he adjusts.

Sherlock’s had more madness than most, more than enough for several lifetimes. These days, Sherlock tires more easily. Moves a little slower, reacts a little later. Retirement is a word he starts to hear more often, echoing in his Mind Palace and staring back at him from the bathroom mirror when he pokes at the new wrinkles in his face and as he tugs at the silvered hairs appearing at his temples with increasing frequency.

It is pure irony that on the day Sherlock decides to slow down on the more challenging cases, to focus on fours and sixes and the life he hopes to build with John and Rosie, he has an accident.

The case is a straightforward kidnapping that Sherlock solves in minutes. The kidnapee, a young woman in her 30s, named Alice Forbes, is taken from her London flat by an ex-boyfriend. Sherlock leads Lestrade and his team to an old building with a decommissioned lift. Narrow and festooned with disturbed cobwebs, the shaft is dark and accessible with a rusted but sturdy-looking ladder.

In hindsight, Sherlock should have known it was too easy. Should have waited, should have let Lestrade’s men go before him. But, true to his impatient nature, he is the first to rush down the ladder.

And he’s the first to fall when one of the rungs, eaten through by rust and time, gives way beneath his hand, sending him to the bottom of the lift shaft. The fall isn’t far enough to kill him, but it is far enough to break bone, and Sherlock winces at the double crack he hears before agony and fire spill through his left arm and right leg. A cross-body break, of all things, arm trapped beneath him and leg striking a cable at the wrong angle.

“Sherlock?” Lestrade’s voice reaches him from above, invisible in the dark, and Sherlock clenches his teeth to resist the urge to scream.

Definitely multiple breaks, he can tell. Nothing hurts like a break, and right now, Sherlock is ablaze.

“Don’t climb down,” he manages to reply, voice wavering and strained with pain. “One of the rungs broke. Could be others.”

“Fuck,” comes the reply from above. “Are you okay?”

Sherlock squints in the dark, wetting his dry lips with his tongue as he takes stock of his body. At least the two breaks, possibly a mild concussion, and sweat rising on his brow. Shock. “No,” he finally says, swallowing around the taste of bile. “I need an ambulance.

Lestrade spits another short curse. “With how much you hate going to the A&E, I take it that it’s bad?”

“Rather bad,” Sherlock replies, trying for humour and just sounding weak and ragged. “I believe I’m going into shock.”

Instead of answering, Lestrade starts barking orders. Setting his temple carefully against something cold and metal, Sherlock blinks in the dark and takes in his surroundings. A shape shivers and sags against the wall of the lift shaft not far from where he lies. Given Alice’s lack of response to the shouting, he’s not confident she is anything like okay. Only the constant shivering tells him she’s still alive, and he clears his throat before shouting, “Make that two ambulances.” Swallowing, Sherlock sucks in a breath at a ripple of agony from his leg and adds, “I found Alice. Alive, but not conscious.”

“Got it,” Lestrade calls back. A light shines down, and Sherlock squints. He can’t make out Lestrade’s face, and likely the DI can’t see him either, but the beam from the torch is a point of light in the dark, and Sherlock fixates on it. “We’re gonna get you out, alright?”

“That would be preferred,” Sherlock replies, trying for venom and only sounding tired.

A rope snaps down next to his head. Tossed from above, it hangs in the air with a silent expectancy. Staring at it, Sherlock hopes Lestrade doesn’t expect him to climb up the offering. When it begins to shake and wiggle, he knows someone must be climbing down. A small, shaky sigh escaping his lips, Sherlock tilts his head back and closes his eyes. “It’ll be okay,” he murmurs, though whether the comfort is for his benefit or Alice’s, he doesn’t know.

As his mind begins to darken and drift, he feels a pang of guilt for not letting John know where he’d be today. Sherlock has time for one last passing thought of how he’ll manage with two broken limbs, whether or not John will even bother to visit him at the hospital, and if this little stunt will shatter the tenuous connection between them before everything fades away.

***

The faint drone of voices draws Sherlock out of his head, and he opens his eyes to bright lights and white coats. He blinks, squints and blinks again, waiting for his vision to clear. When it finally does, he finds a young woman standing over him with a small smile.

“Hello, Mister Holmes,” she greets, and Sherlock blinks once more before she introduces herself. “I’m Doctor Seif.”

“Hello,” he replies, his voice rough. Clearing his throat, he tries again. “Concussion?”

Doctor Seif nods in sympathy. “Mild, but enough to knock you out. You came in and out of it until we set your leg, then we lost you for a bit from the pain.” She pats his shoulder with a gentle hand. “Your left humerus is broken, but not severe enough for a cast. So we’ve done a splint, but your leg will need a cast.” Moving to set his chart down, she pauses and turns back, adding, “We called your brother—he was listed as your emergency contact. We spoke to his aide, and she said he would be here once he finishes with a meeting.”

Sherlock waves a hand, dismissing both her words and the faint pang he feels at the reminder that John is no longer his emergency contact. “He’ll turn up. Always does, just like a bad penny.” Doctor Seif laughs.

“I have two older sisters. I know just how you feel.” Tapping his chart, she tilts her head. “Now, let’s get you fixed up and out of here, shall we?”

Sherlock’s smile is small and strained, but an attempt nonetheless. “Certainly.”

***

The cast is bulky, and his arm aches in the splint, his pain barely impacted by the basic painkillers. But Sherlock refused anything stronger, and he grits his teeth hard against the discomfort as a nurse helps him into the protocol-dictated wheelchair. Doctor Seif stands next to him with a script in her hand for prescription refills. She hands both the slip of paper and a crutch to Sherlock once he’s seated.

“Let me know if anything changes or you experience worsening pain or signs of infection,” she says, waiting for Sherlock’s tired nod. “Otherwise, I’ll see you in a few weeks to evaluate the arm. Good evening, Mister Holmes.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock says in a quiet voice. He is exhausted, his body heavy with fatigue and faded adrenaline. He tilts his head toward the nurse, who begins wheeling him out of the room and down the hall.

They make it only a few feet before footsteps sound behind them, and a panting voice calls out, “Sherlock!”

The man pushing his chair pauses, and Sherlock turns his head to see John trotting down the hall toward them. Bemused, Sherlock glances at the nurse, who shrugs. He turns his attention back to John, who pulls up in front of them with a sigh.

“Sorry,” he gasps, straightening with his hands on his hips as he pulls in a loud inhale. “Took me a bit to get Rosie to her babysitter’s, then there was traffic, and…” John shakes his head. “But nevermind that, I’m here now.”

Sherlock stares up at him. “You’re… here?” he repeats, confused. John’s brow furrows, first with confusion, then with understanding.

“Of course I’m here. Greg called me, then Mycroft.” His frown deepens. “Was surprised to hear he’s your emergency contact.”

Sherlock’s eyes dart away, and he doesn’t reply.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the nurse cuts in, his voice reluctant, “but I need the chair, so if I can wheel you outside…”

“Yeah, of course,” John says, picking up where the words trail off. “I can take it from there.”

The three of them continue down the hall, the nurse pushing Sherlock in the chair with John at his side. They walk in silence, with Sherlock darting quick, bemused looks at John from the corner of his eye. John either doesn’t notice or pretends not to, and Sherlock is grateful for whichever it is.

Once outside, the nurse stops, and Sherlock starts wrestling with the crutch, the chair, his own body until John quietly murmurs, “Can I help?”

Sherlock pauses and glances up at him before nodding once, a stiff jerk of his head. Something like relief and gratitude passes over John’s face, there and gone too quickly to verify. Before Sherlock can take the opportunity to study him, John moves around to his side, the one without a splinted arm, and loops his hand gently around Sherlock’s torso. John helps him onto his uncasted foot, slips the crutch in place, and keeps close as Sherlock tests out a little hop forward. He is clumsy and awkward but mobile and shuffles along slowly. John stays close, helping where he can, one hand resting light and ready on the small of Sherlock’s back.

When Sherlock finally raises his head, coaxed forward by John’s quiet voice, he sees a silver car and freezes. John almost bumps into him and stops just in time, steadying Sherlock.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, tilting his head to look at Sherlock’s face.

Brow furrowed, Sherlock blinks at the car. “You bought a car?”

“Yeah, last week,” John says, relief in his expression. “Easier with Rosie, you know? And paying less rent, well, I thought…” he shrugs, letting the words trail off.

Wordlessly, Sherlock nods and lets John lead him off the curb and toward the car. John opens the door and coaxes Sherlock to drape his uninjured arm around his neck, helping him scoot down into the passenger seat.

Once John is next to him, sitting behind the wheel and waiting for Sherlock to finish getting settled, he doesn’t seem to know where to look. When he, at last, opens his mouth to speak, he and Sherlock talk over one another.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“You didn’t have to come all the way here.”

They both go silent and still, staring at one another. Blowing a loud exhale out through pursed lips, John breaks the standoff first.

“First off, I’m glad you’re relatively okay, considering.” Sherlock braces himself for the angry words, the dressing-down. But John just looks at him with a small, tentative smile, and Sherlock stares as John quietly says, “And of course I came.” He clears his throat, eyes darting to the windshield before they return to Sherlock’s questioning face. “I know things have been… well. I know it’s not like it was before, but I… I want to try.” Swallowing hard enough to make his throat bob, John looks at Sherlock with a mixture of hope and uncertainty in his eyes. “I know I have no right to ask for it, but I want a chance to show you things are different.” Hands clenching slowly inward then outward in his lap, John’s voice drops. “I want to show you that I’ve changed.”

“John…” Sherlock starts, only to find he doesn’t have any more words. John seems to understand, a slight smile tugging at the edge of his mouth.

“I want to redeem myself, Sherlock,” he says and holds up a hand to silence the protests he can no doubt see rising on Sherlock’s lips. “Don’t tell me there’s nothing to make up for because we both know that’s not true.” The small smile fades, and he reaches out to slip his fingers over Sherlock’s where Sherlock’s hand rests on the centre console. It’s unexpected and entirely welcome, and Sherlock blinks down at their hands before looking up at John. “I’m here because we’re a team.” His eyebrows twitch upward, and he adds, “Just the two of us, right? Against the world?” His smile is small and hopeful, and Sherlock feels a rush of warmth at the sight and the words.

“Of course, John,” he replies, nodding. “Just the two of us. And Rosie.”

This time, John’s smile is firm and confident, his laugh pleased and just a little surprised. His fingers curl between Sherlock’s knuckles with gentle but firm pressure. “Just the two of us and Rosie,” he agrees. His eyes glitter, and Sherlock’s lips twitch upward in quiet acceptance.

When John starts the car and guides them out of the parking lot, their fingers stay slotted together on the centre console.

[of-tatooine]

inferno. | canto i - prologue

Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself In dark woods, the right road lost.

Nightfall brought the shiny starts with itself, along with the moon and the faint sound of crickets in the trees. The rustling of the leaves slowly yielding themselves into the chilly western breeze, a certain inherent warmth to it.

It was a seamless comfort, seldom too hard to come by, to relish the quietness of it all. How seamlessly day turned into the looming night, oranges and pinks blending into the deepest and darkest of navies and blacks. Not many days, let alone nights, went by without some sort of touble lurking deep in the darkness - and they never were not the ones they wrote fairytales about.

That night, the drawn curtains that sealed the room from prying eyes managed to let some of the white moonlight in. The silver rays shone on the small arsenal of guns laid out on the crimson comforter, bottles of holy water and a range of knives splayed out on both of the beds. Faded out photographs, some black and white, old newspaper clippings, stained yet recent photocopies of cattle mutilation reports along with electric grid failures in various states - adding onto the decor in accordance with the grim theme.

“You’re gonna answer that?”

The painfully familiar ringtone of the flip phone echoed across the paper-thin walls of the motel room, the vibrations spreading out onto the dresser as it made a series of croaking sounds - almost too desperate to be answered, to be picked up and spoken into, after being thrown onto that wooden furniture for God knew how many days straight.

In total contrast to the agitated ringing of the device, a gentle hum joined the cacophony of sounds along with heavy boots creaking the hardwood, the rustle of papers as they are parted by calloused hands. The popping sound of a marker’s cap was the latest addition as a tired John Winchester continued his thinking standing up - paying no attention to any external distractions as his furrowed gaze kept on analyzing the old, coffee-stained newspaper lore he had managed to dig up over the case, lost in the haze of his reading as he shut everything else out.

“Dad, it’s me.”

It was always him.

There was no evident, nor allowed choice other than sitting there, waiting until his worried yet utterly characteristic voice died down and surrendered to the beep. Jaw clenched, the spare silver bullet you had been toying with between fingers dropped on the wooden table in a couple of clinks.

“Where the hell are you?”

Residual moonlight reflected off of the engravings on the piece of metal as it dropped, sending shards of light into the room that broke through the partial mellow darkness - only illuminated by the weak yellow bulb of the desk lamp. It was not the first time he had heard his son reach out to him in such worry laced in his usually playful and gruff voice, becoming graver with worry with each consecutive call that rang the phone, yet left unanswered - nor would it be the last.

“Listen, I’m on my way to find you. Call me.”

If he had been just a piece like him, he would not stop calling, no matter how much time and effort it could and would potentially take him - knowing very well that with each residual ring of the line, the chances of him being dead and gone would significantly increase.

If only he knew.

A low sigh would escape your parted mouth as you got up with a certain tiredness looming over your body, yet your mind seemed to keep you plenty occupied with other things than to think about how just many cuts and bruises were speckled alongside your skin, just how much your muscles ached from all that running - reminding you of your poor choices of foregoing the welcoming warmth of the bed.

And then, just like you had been expecting in some sort of sensing way, a second ringtone emanated throughout the stuffy air of the room - this time coming from another source which happened to be your phone.

Son of a bitch.

His head was raised ever so slightly, the moonlight hitting his hardened face in such an angle that the faint yet present, worried specks in his green hued orbs shone out - overbearing the darkened and more determined gaze he always held. The internal dilemma, the constant tug of war between the fatherly instinct and the hunter’s sense reflecting off of his expression - his jaw clenching, eyebrows furrowed in a stern gaze but an eminent gentleness to the demeanor. His look briefly was directed at the phone, trailing to focus on you for a split second before redirecting his attention to the big, chunky journal resting open near his frame, at the edge of the bed.

“You know better.”

In a split second, he had managed to drag out whatever reason you may have had, subconscious or purely deliberate, and eliminate it.

Picking up a call when you have not done for so long was nowhere to be found in your intentions - it was mere muscle memory, some sort of underlying reflex that made the hand extend inches closer to the one thing that tied him to you. Knowing who was at the end of the other line was a certain luxury that would prove to be too much to ask for. Picking up the phone meant seeing the number, which was memorized a long time ago. Succumbing to the urge of hearing his voice once again. Letting go of the task at hand.

It meant weakness, screamed selfishness and better yet, was pure danger and dread.

It was disobeying direct orders, and he would have none of that.

All were things that he knew you did not need at that very particular moment - so he was keeping you away from the unnecessary distraction as much as he could, doing a damn good job at that. Listening to each and every order the veteran would dish out at you seemed to be an unwritten rule etched deep into your conscious, and it always came to your rescue whenever you would expect less.

It was one of the main reasons you had been alive for this long. It made you last with all of your limbs intact, walk and talk and breathe as you ran from hunt to hunt.

It was a longshot yet everlasting hope of yours that it would keep you from the prying hands of death for just a tad more.

“Yes, Sir,” came out slightly muffled out of your lips but audible nevertheless, exhausted eyes fixated on the damn phone, left alone near the half-finished coffee cups, a trusted, small yet jagged tactical knife and cat-eye shells.

The shells. Grasping them in your hand, that was enough to get you up as your feet dragged you towards the door with a sigh lingering on your lips, a short-lived one in the presence of the man. The textured and grainy rumble of the marker against paper filled the room as his one hand splayed open a faded and overused map, a long finger tracing out the state of Colorado.

What you saw last before turning around to double check the locks on the door, was the name of his eldest written over the blank page, in capitals.

An eyebrow cocked up slightly, not expecting your work further out West to be done. If the mountain state was where he would take you next, he would have to let you sleep a little more. Then again, while it was no secret that you had been one of the handful people who understood the man well - John always seemed to have a covert yet planned agenda running in his mind.

A quality he had certainly passed down to his sons.

“We don’t have much time until he picks up our tracks,” his gruff voice started explaining as you knelt down near the locked wooden door of the motel room, covering the slit that let the faintest hint of white streetlight in with handfuls of salt along the boards - just like they had taught you. Empty eye shells were what followed the nightly precautions, rising up to do the same near the window sills, just below the fabric of the curtains. Arms stretching out under the oversized jacket draped over your frame as they reached, performing the same exact routine that had you engulfed within for the past couple of weeks.

“We’ll move out in a couple of days. I’m guessing it would take him at least a two day drive,” the man kept on reasoning as the cover of his leather-bound journal was shut gently, careful not to spill any of the precious contents.

An understanding nod came out of you, mind rushing as he left the journal by his equally unorganized desk. Hustling pool and being the cause of a bar fight at the same joints, repeatedly, for more than a couple of weeks got boring pretty quick anyway - a breath of fresh air would be nice.

If only that air did not include the demons and the supernatural that seemed to hunt you just as much as you hunted them. It would never be that easy, it never was.

The nonchalant shrug on your shoulders turned into a slight slump as you leaned against the table, your lips drawing out in a smaller line as you took notice of the man’s impenetrable gaze, looking at you with some sort of familiar concern. A deep sigh followed as his leather covered elbows rested on his dark blue jeans, running a hand over his stubbled face.

“Something big is coming, and I think this time, - ” spilled out of his mouth in a breathy series, head shaking just slightly in the weight of his words as his eyes shone with relentless determination.

And it brought such pain, such great, suppressed agony that only a few could see.

“This time we will kill it.”

[carewyncromwell]

Anybody want some more POTC AU? Well, this time we’re getting some focus on our Davy Jones (Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws, based on this concept) and our Commodore “Carey Weasley” (Carewyn Cromwell)! In the original films, their respective roles are on opposite sides of the fence (hell, Davy Jones kills Norrington in the movies damnitDisneyNorringtondeservedbetter >>), and even in this AU, Davy!Finn has some history with Carewyn’s brother Jacob...so how will they interact, when they collide? We’ll just have to wait and see...

17th-18th century pirate ships were -- in a bizarre way -- tiny, floating representative democracies, about 50-60 years before the American Revolution. In a world where nearly all European countries were run by kings chosen by “divine right” and one could usually only “rise above their station” through fighting in wars or through marrying someone of a higher class, pirate ships operated under the idea of “one man, one vote” and their captains both were chosen by popular vote and could be replaced at any time, oftentimes rather peacefully. The Age of Enlightenment sparked by thinkers like John Locke started in the midst of the Golden Age of Piracy and really kicked off as soon as it was over, circa 1730. Those same ideas ended up inspiring both the American and French Revolutions in the later 18th and early 19th centuries...so yeah, in a weird way, you could draw a direct connection between the values and grievances against the monarchy expressed by pirates to the ones expressed by America’s Founding Fathers and the figures of the French Revolution!

Previous part is here, whole tag is here...and I hope y’all enjoy!

x~x~x~x

When the Flying Dutchman returned from Tortuga, the brig was stuffed to the brim with about two hundred prisoners -- and yet, even with that, Cutler Beckett was not pleased. None of those captured were particularly well-known or wanted pirates: instead the group largely consisted of retired pirates, pirates’ families, or other such refugees from the law who hadn’t committed any crimes except through association.

“The pirates refused to be taken alive, Beckett,” spat Jones impatiently. “All of the ones we captured fought to the death rather than be imprisoned.”

“Admirable excuse, Jones,” said Beckett airily, “but at present, we need prisoners to interrogate -- and although you may be comfortable dealing with dead men, they don’t do much good for us that way. Unless you can give us the location of Shipwreck Cove yourself?”

Jones’s eyes flashed dangerously. Alas, he couldn’t answer that question -- and so Beckett railroaded him.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that you need some oversight, Jones -- so from now on, Commodore Weasley and my associate, Patricia Rakepick, will remain on board the Dutchman...just to make sure things run smoothly.”

Jones watched as a line of soldiers escorted the Dead Man’s Chest on board his ship. He had felt the presence of his heart earlier, but it being so close made his chest feel like it was on fire, blazing with wild, storm-like emotions he hadn’t felt in years that made him want to hit something, scream in pain, and burst into tears all at the same time. It was agony, after so long, and it made Jones whirl on Beckett with a murderous expression.

“I will not have that thing on my ship!” he snarled.

“Perhaps you will not, but I will,” said Beckett.

He glanced at Rakepick. “Did the key Jones handed over work?”

Rakepick dangled the key to the Chest off of her finger with a smirk. “Aye -- I checked it before we brought it over.”

“Good.”

Beckett returned his gaze to Jones.

“From here on out, you shall answer to the Commodore and Madam Rakepick for your orders -- all orders, naturally, that come directly from me. Should you not, they will have the authority to discipline any misbehavior.”

Jones’s gaze flickered over Rakepick and then over to the shorter Navy-dressed officer standing perfectly straight beside her.

The Commodore -- yes. This was the one called “Carey Weasley” -- Black Jack Roberts’s younger sister and, as per Jones’s deal with Jack, his future crew member, Carewyn Cromwell. She truly didn’t resemble her brother much at all, Jones thought: it was little wonder no one had made a connection between her and the infamous captain of the Tower Raven. And Jones thought, it was irony at its finest, the thought that one of the people Beckett was using to restrain him was in fact destined to scrape before him instead, within the next two months.

Jones’s gaze returned to Beckett pretty quickly. He snapped his claw at his side as he loomed over the much smaller man.

“The Flying Dutchman sails as its captain commands,” he said fiercely.

“And its captain will sail it as he is commanded!” Beckett shot back, his usually detached and arrogant voice betraying some real aggression for the first time.

Jones’s crew muttered among themselves, both shocked and a bit intimidated. The leader of the East India Trading Company took several steps forward, his eyes boring into Jones with pure contempt.

“I already disposed of your pet,” he said softly. “I would hate to have to also dispose of you so quickly, when you might still have some use.”

Despite saying this, it was clear that Beckett felt no compassion for Jones’s life at all.

“This is no longer your world, Jones. There’s no place in this new world of ours for the immaterial. In short, the immaterial...has become immaterial. Best you learn that quickly, and fill the new role you’ve been dealt.”

Jones loathed having the two red-haired women and their battalion of Navy soldiers aboard. Although a lot of the time neither of them spoke to him, he hated having their eyes on his back and hated knowing that they as agents of Beckett’s were there to be his “leash.”

Rakepick flaunted her authority noticeably more than Carewyn did, dictating their course and openly contradicting Jones’s orders. About the only time Carewyn seemed to speak up was in response to the treatment of prisoners -- while the Flying Dutchman sailed back toward Port Royal, the Commodore frequently checked on the condition of the prisoners in the brig. One of Jones’s sailors even reported to him that he’d seen her bringing one of them a Bible on request. It was odd, considering that every single one of those prisoners was going to hang as soon as they arrived in Port Royal, unless they had “valuable information” to give. Unfortunately the only valuable information that Beckett wanted were the identities of all seven Pirate Lords, the significance of their “Pieces of Eight,” and the location of Shipwreck Cove, the last secret pirate haven on Earth -- and, to every prisoner’s credit, if any of them did know the answers to those questions, they refused to say...perhaps because they knew that it’d be the place the pirates who were able to escape the Dutchman’s attack would go.

Carewyn escorted the prisoners on shore to Port Royal, while Rakepick stayed behind with the troops aboard the Flying Dutchman. When she arrived, she met up with Percy, who had been in charge of the fort in her absence. The hangings started the very next day. A long, long line of prisoners all locked in irons pooled out of the brig and were walked one by one closer to the gallows. In groups of seven, they were sent up to the hangman’s noose -- men, women, even children -- all without trial and without any chance for mercy...all thanks to Lord Beckett, and by extension the King of England who had given him that power. It broke Carewyn’s heart standing on the sidelines with Percy, unable to do a thing to stop it.

Cutler Beckett arrived in Port Royal in the midst of the executions, looking incredibly smug. It took everything in Carewyn to not yank out her pistol and stick in his disgusting, weasel-like face...especially when he brought her and Percy away from the gallows to speak to them privately.

“I admit, Commodore...your plan has not produced the intelligence I wished for,” said Beckett as he considered the map in front of him. Once again, he was playing with a silver piece of eight absently in his right hand. “But it has been a very effective showcase of the British Empire’s new position on piracy. My proclamation would’ve lacked the proper teeth, without such a visible display.”

‘You’re despicable,’ Carewyn thought, hatred pulsing through her heart as a tiny boy was placed up on a barrel at the gallows.

“Thank you, sir,” she said lowly.

Percy glanced at the gallows too, and he winced at the sight of the boy standing on the barrel.

“It’s unfortunate that the information they offered was not useful to you, Lord Beckett,” he said, his voice betraying some hesitance. “I thought that the locations the boy provided for where the Dennis and the Andromeda make berth and the routes the Blackbird uses to plunder ships seemed promising...”

“You think too small, Captain,” said Beckett.

There was a rather arrogant gleam in his eye as he glanced from Percy to Carewyn, the piece of eight lingering between his pointer and middle finger.

“Chasing pirates one at a time would take up more resources and time than I have a desire to use. What I want is to bring order to this world -- and to do that, all pirates must be dealt with...either by being brought into line to serve our interests, or by being disposed of. And to do that, the pirates’ spirit must be decisively crushed.”

He glanced at the piece of eight between his fingers.

“...How much do you two know about the Pirate Brethren Court?”

Percy turned to Carewyn. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“I’ve heard of it, but I’m afraid I don’t know much.”

That was a bald-faced lie. Charles Cromwell himself had been one of the original Pirate Lords ages ago, before the curse no doubt interfered with his old duties and the Mediterranean was taken over by someone else.

“They are -- from what I understand -- representatives, who only gather whenever pirates as a whole need united leadership,” said Beckett. “They are a Parliament for piracy -- one that selects a ‘King’ to represent them all, in times of crisis.”

Percy frowned in confusion. “A King chosen by the people? I’ve never heard of such a thing...”

“Pirates do not believe in divine right,” Carewyn explained. “Even when it comes to their captains, the crew can vote to replace them at any time.”

Percy turned to Beckett. “...Then do you think the pirates will attempt to convene this ‘Brethren Court,’ in response to the attack on Tortuga?”

‘That’s definitely what I hope...’ Carewyn thought to herself.

Beckett nodded. “I am assured of it.”

Carewyn’s eyes drifted away, back up to the line of chained prisoners still being forced up onto the gallows.

“If they were to convene this ‘Court’ of theirs and select a King, my Lord,” she said softly, “it sounds like they could be a greater threat than ever. Individual pirates might be more expensive to chase one at a time...but if they were somehow able to unite, they could create a formidable army.”

Beckett raised his eyebrows. “I did not think you would fear a War, Commodore.”

“Not at all,” said Carewyn. “If the British Navy could stand toe to toe with the Spanish and French, we should more than be a match for a smattering of rag-tag galleons -- especially with the funding of the East India Trading Company behind us...”

Her eyes narrowed a bit more as they swiveled over to Beckett’s face.

“...But...if you were to advocate such a mission, you’d be at the head of the charge for it. Its success or failure would rest on your head more than any of ours...regardless of any efforts we might make to protect your reputation.”

Beckett’s lips curled up in a smile that held no warmth.

“Your concern is appreciated, Commodore Weasley,” he said, and his eyes seemed to gleam upon her. “But I assure you...I’ve waited long enough, to get the revenge I’m owed...”

He turned his focus to the piece of eight coin in his hand.

“After the injuries I’ve sustained, thanks to one of these ‘Pirate Lords,’” he said in a very soft, cold voice, “I have no intention of letting them live in peace. Wherever they decide to make their final stand...I shall be there to meet and destroy them.”

He slammed the coin down into the table with a slap of his hand, making both Carewyn and Percy flinch despite themselves.

After the hangings were complete, Carewyn returned to the Flying Dutchman, once again leaving Percy in Port Royal. The youngest Weasley brother was troubled by the thought of Carewyn being on board Jones’s ship, and she tried to reassure him as best as she was able.

“Captain Jones has to follow Lord Beckett’s orders just as much as we do,” she said softly. “Regardless of who he is, he’s been impressed into our service...it wouldn’t be in his best interest, to fight against that.”

Percy, however, didn’t look very reassured. His gaze kept flickering up to the Dutchman, even though he tried hard to look Carewyn in the face.

The Commodore offered her surrogate younger brother a smile, resting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze.

“It’ll be okay,” she reassured him gently.

Percy stared at Carewyn for a long moment, his brown eyes dark with emotion. Then, very abruptly, he actually threw out his arms, grabbing hold of her and pulling her into a full hug.

“Percy?” said Carewyn, completely taken aback.

Percy didn’t say anything -- instead he just gave her a squeeze, his chin resting on her shoulder. Although he was facing away from her, Carewyn could hear a faint shakiness in the breath he took.

“Come back safely,” he mumbled, his voice harsher than normal as he tried to keep his composure. “You hear me? Come back just as you are now.”

Carewyn’s blue eyes filled with pain as she realized what was going through Percy’s head. Yes, he was scared for her safety, but it wasn’t just because he cared about her -- it was also because, with the loss of Charlie and Bill, his real brothers...she was the only family Percy had left, here in Port Royal. The only sibling he could rely on, for emotional support.

Her heart filling with compassion and affection for the young Captain, she brought her arms around Percy tightly in return, resting a hand on the back of his head and cradling it as though she were his mother.

“We will see each other again soon, Perce,” she murmured in his ear. “I promise.”

After she and Percy parted ways, Rakepick met Carewyn at the top of the ramp heading up to the deck of the Flying Dutchman. The older woman gave Carewyn another long, analytical look as she came up on deck, which Carewyn returned with a much shorter, faintly suspicious look. She didn’t like how Rakepick looked at her. It just made Carewyn feel like she knew something...but Carewyn frankly had no idea what that “something” was. One thing Carewyn did take note of, however, was the chain she wore around her neck and tucked under the low collar of her red jacket -- the chain that no doubt held the key to the Dead Man’s Chest.

That night, after all of the officers went to sleep, Carewyn entered the Dutchman’s captain’s cabin and ordered one of her lieutenants to send Davy Jones to her. Jones was not pleased to be summoned to his own cabin, least of all by the Commodore Beckett assigned to “watch” him.

“I cannot be called like some mongrel pup,” he snapped.

“Yet you came,” said Carewyn coolly. “I appreciate the promptness.”

Jones looked incredibly surly. The ginger-haired Commodore looked at her lieutenant, who was trying hard not to cower in Jones’s shadow.

“Go ahead and return to your patrol down below with the Chest, Lieutenant,” she told him. “I’ll take it from here.”

The scared young man gave a salute and then quickly left the room. Once the door was closed, Carewyn turned up at Jones with a much grimmer look on her face, her arms crossed behind her back in standard “Naval” fashion.

“...Captain Jones...Lord Beckett has ordered that we seek out Shipwreck Cove.”

Jones’s lip curled. “I believe I’ve already made it clear that I don’t know where the damned Brethren Court meets.”

“I know you don’t. And I’m glad for it.”

Jones’s eyebrows knit together suspiciously. Carewyn’s eyes flickered absently over to the door as she listened for a moment to make absolutely sure no one was listening it.

“...I don’t want Beckett to find Shipwreck Cove,” she said lowly. “I don’t want him to send Navy ships after us once we’ve found it and destroy it. Just as I frankly don’t want you under Beckett’s rule at all.”

Jones gave a loud snort. “Haha! And I suppose this is all out of the goodness of your heart, this...sympathy you deign to spare such a pathetic wretch as me?”

His eyes hardened as he bore down on her, dwarfing her with his height.

“I don’t need your pity, Carewyn Cromwell,” he said very coldly.

Carewyn was visibly taken aback.

“Oh, aye,” said Jones with a smirk, “I know your name. A ferryman of the damned knows everyone’s true names.”

Despite how taken aback and faintly disconcerted Carewyn was, however, she didn’t seem intimidated. Instead she kept her posture straight and tall and looked Jones straight in the eye.

“Then you know why I don’t want Beckett to succeed,” she said seriously. “A lot of people I love are probably on their way to Shipwreck Cove right now. As much as I know a battle will be imminent, I want them to initiate it. I don’t want Beckett to get there before they’re ready.”

“So you aim to make a deal with me, then, Miss Commodore?” asked Jones, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

“No,” said Carewyn firmly. “I just want to set you free.”

Now it was Davy Jones’s turn to look startled.

“I don’t believe in anyone being impressed into service against their will -- least of all by a captor as cruel and despicable as Cutler Beckett,” the Commodore said, feeling glad to finally let loose her bile a bit. “And if getting your heart back to you so that you can do as you please makes it that much harder for Beckett to destroy Shipwreck Cove...all the better.”

“Ah...so you think to trade my assurance that I won’t attack Shipwreck Cove for your services,” said Jones coolly. “Well, I hate to break it to you -- but I have no love for the Brethren Court myself, since they took all ownership of the seas for themselves. I daresay your dear granddaddy told you all about that...”

“‘The seas be ours and by the powers, where we will, we’ll roam’ -- yes, I know the song,” said Carewyn. “But that doesn’t matter. I’m not asking you to help the Brethren Court. I’m not asking you to help me with anything. I plan to set you free whether you want to be nice to me or not.”

Jones’s eyes narrowed as they flickered over Carewyn’s face, analyzing her critically. At last he raised his claw the way a man might raise a hand, but its size made it so it came within inches of her face.

“...Let me make sure I have this right, missie,” he said lowly. “You’re offering your assistance in restoring my heart to me...without making any sort of deal with me that benefits you?”

Carewyn nodded, not flinching at all in response to Jones’s claw getting into her personal space.

“Because you being free helps me, as it is -- by making things harder for Beckett.”

Jones considered Carewyn for a long moment. Whatever he had been expecting from the sister of Black Jack Roberts, it certainly wasn’t this. Even from a sanctimonious Navy officer, he didn’t expect this level of...well, for lack of a better word, decency...especially for someone who had showed her no kindness and she owed absolutely nothing to. He never would’ve admitted it aloud...but it impressed him.

‘Seems a bit of a shame that such a decent person should be fated for a lifetime of service aboard my ship,’ Jones thought to himself.

Perhaps because his heart was so close to him, the thought made some reluctance and guilt pick at the inside of his chest.

Pushing the feeling aside, the captain of the damned lowered his claw again. Then very, very slowly his tentacled face spread into a fuller, brighter smirk.

“...What do you have in mind?”

[happosity]

The Best Love Quotes Given to Us from Literature

Reading romance novels allows you to fall in love over and over again. Here is a collection of sweet words that you can keep close to your heart.

1. "My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever." —Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

2. "Who, being loved, is poor?" —Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

3. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” —Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

4. "Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same . . . If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger." —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

5. “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.” —A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

6. "He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking." —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

7. “But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.” —Pablo Neruda

8. "Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath." —Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

9. “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.” —Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Bound

10. “So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” —Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

11. “You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.” —Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company

12. “He was my North, my South, my East and West, my working week and my Sunday rest.” —W.H. Auden, “Stop All the Clocks”

13. "All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love." —Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

14. "If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If we were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one." —Michelle Hodkin, The Evolution of Mara Dyer

15. “For you, a thousand times over.” —Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

16. “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.” —Robert Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra

17. "Doubt thou that the sun is fire, Doubt that that the sun does move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt that I love." —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

18. “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” —Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

19. "I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love." —Gabriel García Márquez, Love In The Time Of Cholera

20. "Do I love you? My god, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches." —William Goldman, The Princess Bride

21. “Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I’m never not thinking of you.” —Virginia Woolf, Selected Diaries

22. "We love the things we love for what they are." —Robert Frost, Hyla Brook

23. "Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel." —Neil Gaiman, Stardust

24. "I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty . . . you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are." —J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

25. "To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life." —Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

26. "You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.” —Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind

27. "You pierce my soul. I am half agony. Half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever." —Jane Austen, Persuasion

28. "I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for their religion—I have shudder'd at it. I shudder no more—I could be martyr'd for my Religion—Love is my religion—I could die for that. I could die for you. [. . .] My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you." —John Keats, A letter to Fanny Brawne

29. “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” –Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

30. "If you ever have need of my life, come and take it." —Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

31. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” —Pablo Neruda, Sonnett XVII

32. "I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be." —Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

33. "I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel—I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one." —Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

34. "Is love this misguided need to have you beside me most of the time? Is love this safety I feel in our silences? Is it this belonging, this completeness?" —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

35. "Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a PREFERENCE for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman's living." —George Eliot, Middlemarch

36. "You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful." —John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

37. “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same . . .” —Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

38. "I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange?" —William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

39. “I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm.” —William Goldman, The Princess Bride

40. "Always." —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

For more romance, check out www.happosity.com.

[mirkwoodshewolf]

The baby’s here!!; Queen x reader

*Author’s note*

Okay gang here we go. The last chapter I’ve got for you all and it’s probably one of my favorites, here we have the arrival of baby Kline.  So as with all childbirth fics there is child labor, doctors, swearing and all that jazz. There’s also intense FLUFF so viewers discretion is advised lol. There’s also maybe a tiny bit of angst if you squint towards the end but I hope you all enjoy these two fics :)

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@ixchel-9275

@onebigfangirlworld

@waddles03

@coolcxt

@geek-and-proud

@queendeakyy

@mr-badguymercury

@platawnic

@naturalswifty89

@queens-rose-garden

@starswin

@dj-lowkey

@isabella-bby

@labessieisallama

@5sos-wdw

____________________________________________________

*November 20th, 1985*

ARRRRAAAGGGHHHH!!!! That’s it I can’t take it anymore! Someone get me some pliers and help breach this kid out of me! Nine months and one week later, I’m overdue. I’d thought at least by now if not a month early they’d be born but nope! I was lying in my bed permanently on bedrest all because of Jack. There was a knock at my bedroom door and I snapped.

“What!?” Peeking in was Jack.

“Hey babe, the guys are here.” I calmed down and I said.

“Bring them in, and Jack,” he stopped and looked at me. “I’m sorry for snapping.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m anxious too. I’ll bring everyone up.” He then left the room and after a few short moments of silence by myself, my boys along with Freddie’s partner Jim Hutton, and the girls Veronica, Dominique and Chrissie came on in. They all greeted me and I waved to them.

“How are you feeling (y/n)?” Roger asked. I gave him a look before looking to Dominique. She nodded and gave Roger a slap over the head making him cry in pain.

“Don’t worry love, my sister was once overdue by three weeks, you’re on the lucky side.” Chrissie said as she came over to me and rubbed my shoulder.

“Yeah but I want this baby to come out! I’m cranky! I can barely move! I can’t even get my slippers on by myself anymore!” I sobbed out.

“Has the doctor given you anything to help?” asked Deacy.

“Yes and we’ve tried it all. Spicy food, herbal teas, sex, nothing’s helped.” Explained Jack. The boys looked shocked to hear Jack say sex so casually as he just did.

“It was medically proven guys, she told us nine times out of ten that’s always sped up late births.” I explained.

“Well maybe this might help you love,” Jim said as he handed me a box. “It’s an herbal tea recipe my mum took from when she was pregnant with me. I was a week late just like your bearing is, she drank this and next minute out I pop.”

“At this point I’ll try anything. Thanks Jim.” I thanked. I opened the box and gave the stuff to Jack and he said he’d make it, Jim went down to help him prepare it. As I sat there in the bed, I moaned in discomfort and it was at that moment Brian came up and helped me sit up and he gave me a gentle massage. “Oh Brian you are a saint.”

“No problem love, Chrissie had backaches all the time with our kids.”

“And you were always there to help make the pain all the bearable.” Chrissie said as she came up to her husband and kissed his cheek while Brian kept massaging me.

“Tea’s ready.” We heard Jack say. Brian got up and helped me lay back down as Jack handed me my favorite tea mug and I drank it. It took every ounce of me to not spit it out because god did it taste strong, plus I think there might’ve been tar in it or something vile. But I drank another sip before setting the mug down.

“Helping any?” asked Freddie.

“I don’t know, I mean I wish that my water could just magically break right now but that’s impossible. It—oh! Oh my god…..” I suddenly felt something.

“What? What is it are you okay?” Jack immediately came up to me and took my hand. I sat there tensed up feeling the pain continuing and I turned to him and said.

“I think my water just broke.”

“You—you sure?”

“I think….oh yeah that’s a contraction! Ahhh!!” I began to scream in pain and in an instant the girls took control. Veronica was the first to proclaim.

“Okay people this is not a drill! John start the car!” John immediately did as his wife said and raced down to get the car started.

“Jack you packed an overnight bag right?” asked Dominque. Jack nodded and said, “Good boy grab that and put it in the car.” Jack ran off to grab the bag.

“Brian, you and Roger call the hospital tell them the Rock Angel is having her baby and she specifically requires a private room.” Brian nodded then he and Roger ran out of the bedroom.

“Okay (y/n) sweetie, Dominique and I will coach you on your breathing, okay I need you to do your breathing exercises you’ve been learning in your classes, can you do that?” asked Veronica.

“I think so.” I whimpered as another contraction hit and I let out a cry in pain.

“Freddie, Jim help me sit her up.” She said. Soon both Freddie and Jim gently and slowly helped me out of my bed and stood me up. Veronica and Dominque took their places at my sides and they each coached me through my breathing as we walked out of the bedroom and toward John and Veronica’s car.

“That’s it sweetie you’re doing great, okay we’re at the car now.” Dominique said as she opened the door and I was put in the backseat. Veronica then got in on the other side while Dominique closed my door and she raced back towards her car.

“Okay John let’s get going!” John put the car in drive and soon we left our small flat and raced towards the hospital.

Finally we arrived at London’s hospital. My doctor, Dr. Sharon Crabgrass stood there with a wheelchair ready to take me around the back way of the hospital so that way I wouldn’t draw a crowd of people and create more stress than I already was in.

Deacy, Veronica and Jack helped me out of the car and Dr. Crabgrass said.

“Finally ready to become a mother Mrs. Kline?”

“Oh you have no idea doc, although I wish this last week hadn’t happened though.” I said.

“Been a little irritable?”

“You could say that.” I stated sarcastically. I was helped into my wheelchair and she asked me.

“How far are the contractions?”

“The one we counted just now was 15 seconds apart.” I then let out a scream and I yelled out.

“15 SECONDS MY ARSE!!!”

“Okay we’ll take you in and see just how much dilation you have and see if you’re ready to go straight to the delivery room.” She said. I was then wheeled into the private room that we had reserved in advance. Veronica stayed at my side along with Jack and she told me one final time.

“You’re gonna be fine sweetie, soon you’ll hold that beautiful baby in your arms and your whole world will change forever.” I smiled and thanked her as she now stopped and it was just Jack, Dr. Crabgrass and I heading to the delivery room.

Unfortunately I wasn’t ready to go into the delivery room because I was only just 3cm apart in dilation. So now I was in my private room with Jack suffering through contraction after contraction, while every now and then Dr. Crabgrass would come in and check to see if anything’s changed.

10 hours have passed and I still had no baby. It was now pitch black outside at 9:45pm. A knock was heard and peeking in was Freddie and Jim.

“May we come in darling?” asked Freddie.

“Of course my Freddie, you both can come in.” Following behind him was Jim.

“Still no luck?” asked Jim.

“No, apparently I’ve only dilated to only 4cm. for the entire 10 hours I’ve been here!” I snapped. God I can’t believe I’ve only dilated a cm. a fuckin centimeter for this entire day!

“I’m sorry love.” Jim said solemnly.

“What? What are you sorry for? Jim, come here.” He came over to me and I took his hand and told him as I looked him straight in the eye. “Without that tea, I’d still be suffering a late delivery. Your mum’s tea is magic, thank you for giving it to me.” He smiled and said.

“You’re welcome (y/n).” I smiled when suddenly I was hit with another contraction.

“Oh shit not another one!”

“Okay remember just breathe. Breathe.” Jack took my hand and I squeezed it as hard as I could as I breathed rapidly and cried in pure agony.

This time however this was a big one as I threw my head back and cried out. Freddie came over and took my other hand and soon I was squeezing both their hands with an iron grip while Jim came up to me and wiped my sweaty forehead with a wet towel.

“Oh god please tell me I’m at 10 fucking centimeters now!”

“I’ll get the doctor.” Jim said as he raced out of the room and I continued to whimper and scream in agony.

“It’ll be alright my little Rock angel, you’re doing great love.” Freddie tried to assure me but I snapped at him.

“NOT HELPING FRED!!” Soon Jim came in with Dr. Crabgrass and I told her. “Oh please doc you’ve got to give me some drugs I can’t take this anymore! Please tell me I’m ready to go to the delivery room.”

“Unfortunately you’re still not ready. You’re now up to 5cm.” she said. I looked at her like she had two heads as rage boiled inside me.

“You’re joking right?” I stated lowly.

“I’m afraid not Mrs. Kline, but you’re half way there. We’ll keep checking in on you. What you just experienced was the mid-way contraction. It’s usually bigger than the normal contractions you have, telling you that you’re halfway there.”

“Well it sure as hell didn’t feel like I was halfway there.”

“I’ll check on you in another hour, hopefully you’ll be ready to deliver soon.” With that she left. I collapsed back into the bed and wept. Jack kissed my forehead and I said.

“Why don’t they want to come out?” Jack stroked my cheek and kissed my forehead again and he said.

“You know what I think? I think that you’ve made such a good home for them for the past nine months that they….just don’t want to leave you.” I looked at him with a precious smile as I said.

“Aww look at you making up shit to make me feel better.” I patted his cheek before turning towards Freddie and Jim and I told them. “You guys must be so tired of staying in a hospital, why don’t you and the rest of the guys just go home and rest?”

“And leave you behind in a hospital I don’t think so dear.” Freddie sassed.

“Fred it’s been over 10 hours, come on I’d hate for you to stay in a hospital for god knows how long.”

“Hey,” he gently cupped my face with his hand and he said, “We are not leaving you our Rock angel. We all agreed to stay here until that baby is born. We’re with you darling, right till the end. I already missed your wedding, I promised myself to not miss the birth of your first child.” I smiled happily at him and he kissed the top of my head and he turned to Jim and said, “Come on Jim, let’s leave them alone for a bit and give the others the update.” He then turned to us and continued, “try and get some sleep later on. The both of you.”

“We’ll try, thanks Freddie.” Said Jack and with that Jim and Freddie left our room.

For the rest of the night and into the next morning, I was now well-over the 24hr marker of my laboring and I was going stir-crazy. As I lay there in bed with Jack still at my bedside and this time Deacy and Veronica were in with us this morning.

“How long has it really been?”

“We’ve just passed the 30hr mark.” Answered Deacy as he looked down at his watch.

“You’re a hero honey” said Veronica as she rubbed my shoulder.

“I sure as hell don’t feel like one. God I just want this baby out of me I can’t take the pain anymore!” I sobbed out. She leaned her head on top of mine as she continued to rub my shoulder trying to console me. It was then Dr. Crabgrass came in and she said.

“How are we feeling Mrs. Kline?”

“God Doc you’ve got to do whatever it takes get some firewood and smoke it out, get a crane I don’t care just please get it out of me!” She then came up to me and checked me out and that’s when she said.

“Well it seems you no longer have to wait anymore.” I looked at her and thought I was hearing her.

“What now?” I asked.

“10cm at 30 hours later, you’re about to become a mum.” I turned to Jack and he smiled happily at me and I turned to Veronica and she smiled down at me and she kissed my forehead and she said.

“Welcome to the club darling, you’re gonna do great.”

“Come on darling, let’s inform the others.” Deacy said as he took his wife’s hand and soon a couple nurses came in and I was wheeled over to the delivery room.

I was moved onto the metal table that had piles of pillows stacked on top of one another. Dr. Crabgrass got on her blue overcoat and rubber gloves and a nurse assisted her and I was told to push as hard as I could at any time a contraction hit me.

I don’t even know how long it was that I was in the delivery room for but I was currently pushing as Jack was keeping a tight grip on my left knee as I had my legs up while Dr. Crabgrass kept telling me to push. I grunted and panted heavily as sweat poured down my face.

“Push, push. Okay we’re gonna push for 5 more seconds. Five….four….”

“3 2 1! Gah!!” I cried out as I stopped pushing and I lay back exhausted.

“Okay now the next contraction should be in about 20 seconds.” She said as she backed away from my vagina that was trying to push a Saint Bernard out.

“Ohh I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore Jack!” I sobbed to him.

“Hey, it’s gonna be alright you’re doing great just a few more big pushes and….” I interrupted him as I felt another contraction hit me as I snarled out.

“AHHH GOD 20 SECONDS MY ARSE!!!”

“Here we go! Okay keep pushing. Push.” All the while Jack held onto me as I tried to push harder.  “Wait, wait, I see something.” She said in a concerned tone.

“What is it what do you see? Oh my god!” Jack proclaimed in shock.

“Don’t say oh my god! Oh my god what?!”

“What is that?” asked Jack.

“It’s the baby’s buttock it’s breached.” Dr. Crabgrass explained.

“Oh thank god I thought it had two heads.”

“Wait, wait…..is the baby gonna be okay?”

“The baby will be fine but it’s in a more difficult position so you’re gonna have to push even harder now, go.” I then began to push as hard as I could. “Mrs. Kline you’re gonna have to push even harder nothing’s happening.”

“I’m sorry I can’t! I can’t!” I sobbed out.

“Hey, hey look at me if you can perform before a sold out Madison Square Garden show four years ago, you can do this.” Jack said as he looked me square in the eye.

“I can’t Jack I can’t, please you do it for me!” I wept. Jack shook his head and said as he adjusted himself and said.

“Come on you can do this just one more big push on three, okay? One….two…three!” I then shot up and pushed as hard as I could. But as I did, I actually headbutt my husband and he fell to the ground.

“Good!” Dr. Crabgrass said.

“Keep pushing!” Jack called out.

“Are you okay love?!” I cried out in pain. He sat up rubbing his forehead as he said.

“You have no idea how much this hurts.” At that comment both Dr. Crabgrass and I turned towards him. I was almost about to strangle him. He had no idea what real pain felt like. “Keep going! Keep going!” He said learning his mistake and came up and held onto me as I kept pushing. I let out a scream as I pushed and the doctor said.

“Here we go!”

“It’s upside down but its coming.” Jack assured me. I let out a cry as I threw my head back and soon I could hear faint whimpering. “Oh my god, it’s here. Our baby’s here.” Jack said in wonder. I opened my eyes and soon Dr. Crabgrass held up a tiny and slightly bloody baby. “Oh my god it’s….it’s a girl.” Jack said.

Both Jack and I were in awe at the sight of our first baby being a girl. She was so beautiful.

“Aww she’s so tiny.” I cooed out. Dr. Crabgrass smiled at us before taking our baby away. I went from laughing to whimpering out sadly, “Where’d she go? Where’d my baby go?”

“It’s okay she’s just wrapping her up.” Jack assured me.

“Okay but be careful with her she’s really tiny.” I said. Jack and I looked at each other happily and that’s when Dr. Crabgrass said as she presented our baby girl.

“Here she is.” Right after that our daughter started to cry. I held her in my arms, all thanks to the practice that Dominque, Veronica and Chrissie gave me as I softly bounced my baby girl in my arms and cooed out.

“Hi, you~ aww thanks for coming out of me when I drank Jim’s tea. Ohhh I know poppet. Yes~” It was then my baby girl opened her eyes up at me. Her eyes the same color as mine. “Ahh she’s looking at me. Hi….I know you.” I sobbed out happily before cooing at her once more smiling widely.

“Do we have a name yet?” asked Dr. Crabgrass.

“No not yet.” I said.

“That’s fine. For now we’ll just call her baby girl Kline.” I looked to Jack and he couldn’t stop fawning over his new born baby girl. He stroked her tiny head and kept kissing it before finally looking up at me. We smiled at each other and he leaned forward and caught my lips with his in a gentle kiss. As we separated he kissed my forehead before getting comfortable by my bedside as we admired our beautiful baby girl.

“Hello baby girl.” I said.

We were now in a recovery room, Jack taking pictures of me and our baby girl together. I can’t believe she’s finally here, our little girl. 6lbs 11oz 21 inches long after over 36hrs in labor she’s finally graced us from heaven. I touched her rosy cheek with my index finger as I looked up at Jack and couldn’t stop smiling.

He kissed my temple and he said.

“God I can’t believe she’s finally here.”

“I know.”

“She looks so much like you.” He said. I looked up at him and that’s when we heard a voice say.

“Can we come in?” We both turned around and there peeking through the door of our room was Brian. We nodded and soon slowly pouring in was the entire Queen family. They all cooed and awed at the sight of my baby girl.

“There she is.” Said Roger.

“Ohh she’s so beautiful.” Veronica cooed. I smiled at her and I said.

“You wanna hold her first?” She nodded enthusiastically and I gently gave Veronica my baby girl.  She almost cried with tears of joy as she said.

“Oh my god, she’s amazing. I’m so glad you guys finally had sex.” Deacy came up to her and she gave him our daughter. Deacy smiled happily and I did see a couple of tears fall down his face as he said.

“No matter how many times I’ve already been through this, I still can never get enough of holding a newborn baby in my arms.” I smiled at Deacy and felt tears form in my eyes.

He then transferred my daughter to Roger and he gingerly held my baby girl in his arms. He was all smiles and in awe, seeing him be so tender towards my daughter.

“She’s so beautiful, just like her mum.” he said as he looked to me while Dominque cooed and awed at my girl in his arms.

“Okay my turn, my turn.” Freddie said as he held out his arms. Since Freddie stood on my right and Roger was to my left, the two of them did a careful exchange just over the foot of the bed as I could hear Roger say.

“There go to your uncle Freddie love,” as Freddie now held my daughter he was all gushy with love as he cooed out.

“Aww you’re as cute as a button darling, ohh I could just stick you in my pocket and take you away.” I gave him my best stank eye already feeling the protective mother instincts take over me.  He looked at me and he said, “I won’t.” I shook my head at him. Then finally Freddie gave my daughter to Brian and he got to have the chance to hold her. Him and Chrissie stood over my baby, Chrissie cooing as she stroked her tiny head.

“Roger is right, she has her mother’s eyes and cute little nose.” I held the tissue up to my eyes as I sniffled.

“Aww honey what’s wrong?” asked Chrissie as she now turned towards me and stroked my head.

“Nothing Chrissie, I’m sorry I just can’t stop crying.”

“It’s completely natural love, with all the hormones plus you’re sleep deprived. We all went through it when we had our kids.” Veronica said.

“So what? I bet you guys are all sleep deprived. I don’t see any of you crying hysterically because you put your slippers on the wrong feet.” I choked out as I dabbed underneath my eyes. My head soon sunk as I began crying and I whimpered out, “Ahh fuck.”

“What’s the matter now?” asked Deacy concerned.

“I was reliving it!” I sobbed. Everyone awed at me and Jack held me close and kissed the top of my head.

“So do you know what you’re gonna call her?” Brian said as he gave me back my baby girl.

“Wait a minute it’s not going to be baby girl? I thought that was so original.” Freddie said. It was then Jack said.

“Well we talked about it and we’ve finally came up with one.”

“And since I’m too emotional right now, why don’t you be the one to announce it to them Jack darling.” I said as I held my baby girl in my arms. Jack smiled beyond thrilled that he was to announce the name of our daughter.

“Wow okay, umm…..everyone.” He leaned down and touched his daughter’s head and said, “We’d like you to meet our daughter, Kelly Michelle Kline.” They all fawned over the name and greeted our daughter with warm smiles and gentle touches.

A few hours later, everyone went to get some food in their stomachs and a nurse had come in with some food for me as well as teaching me how to breastfeed my baby. It took a little bit but Kelly managed to latch on and I got her to drink.

Currently now she was sleeping in her little incubator bed right by my side when I heard the door open and coming in was Roger.

“How you doing (y/n)?”

“Fine, fine come on in honey.” He came in and softly closed the door behind him. He came over Kelly and smiled down at her faintly tickled her.

“God I still can’t get over the fact that she looks so much like you.”

“Yeah.” I said softly. He looked at me concerned and he said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I said as I wiped some tears away.

“What is it, hey?”

“Really Roger its nothing just hormonal that’s…..”

“(Y/n) come on, it’s me. Now give me the truth.” I looked up at him with my sad eyes. His entire face showed that he knew something was wrong with me, his “(y/n)” sense he calls it. I looked at him before turning away and I said.

“It’s just that…..I never thought I’d end up raising this baby by myself.”

“What are you talking about? Are you and Jack having problems?”

“No, no Roger that’s not what I meant. I meant that…..if we ever did have a problem we have Jack’s mother and step-father to turn to. Kelly will have one pair of grandparents to look after her, but I….I just wish my parents were still here to see this day. They’ve always talked about being grandparents one day. You know?” I turned to Roger and he looked at me and said.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I just so scared that I’m gonna mess up my daughter’s life, whether being busy with my career or…..being like my aunt. I sound pretty dumb right now huh?”

“No, no you don’t, hey,” Roger said as he came up to me and took my hand in both of his. We stared into each other’s eyes as he continued, “Now you listen to me; You are never ever, ever gonna be like her, okay? You’re sweet, you’re kind, you’ve got a warm heart, and you always support those that you love. You’re not alone, and if you ever need someone to call to help with Kelly. I’m just an ocean away but I can be there, like that.” He quietly snapped at his last statement as he kept a good strong yet gentle grip on my hand.

“Roger Meddows Taylor, what would I ever do without you?” I said as he opened up my hand and kissed the center of my palm, our own personal kiss we give to one another whenever we feel upset or alone.

He brought my hand to my heart as he pulled me close and I leaned against his chest listening to his heartbeat.

“You never have to wonder about that darling.” I sniffled as he kissed the top of my head and kept me in his arms for what felt like forever.

And it was at that moment I felt like it was time to ask him.

“Roger,”

“Mm?” he hummed as he gingerly stroked my back. I separated from him and he sat down in front of me and I said.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.” He looked at me concerned and he said.

“What’s wrong you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m perfectly healthy, I just wanted to ask you something, and it’s really, really important.”

“What is it?”

“Well, for the past five years, geez it feels longer than that,” we both laughed softly as I continued, “From day one, you’ve always looked after me. Between you and the guys, you’ve always been the one to be there for me for everything. You’ve seen me at my lowest breaking point, and there to keep me grounded in the spotlight. You’ve been my shoulder to cry on and my confidant. Which is why I wanted to be the one to ask you…..if you’ll be Kelly’s godfather.”

His face turned to pure shock.

He looked toward Kelly before looking back at me and I smiled at him hoping for a yes from him.

“Me?” he stammered out.

“No the other Roger Taylor, of course you yah dolt!”

“But I—I would’ve thought you would’ve chosen Deacy.”

“Well Jack did want him to be the godfather. But I told him that if our baby was a girl, then there’s only one man that I knew who could not only be fiercely protective of her, but give her all the love she needed. Because that’s what he did for her mum.” I cupped his cheek in my hand.

Tears fell down his face and I wiped them away for him and he said.

“I’d be honored.” I smiled happily at him and we both embraced each other tightly crying in pure happiness.

[fandomoniumflurry]

Don’t Worry, Omega

for @spnabobingo Square Filled: Feral Alpha

warnings: 18+ explicit ABO, AU, mentions of torture, quick rough sex, angst with little fluff at the end

Mystery Pairing (No Spoilers!)

1.5k words

Taggers: @keepcalmimthecupcake @becs-bunker @hunterswearingplaid​ @janai-mcgarrett

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-----

The scent was diving her mad, torturing her just as much as the beatings inflicted on the man down the hall. Concrete and iron separated them along with a wide hallway with betas, alphas and omegas between them. And yet it was his scent that was soaked into her clothes and fogging up her cell, piercing through her skin.

In the years she had been here, locked away or allowed to roam, no one had affected her like this. She had been here since she presented, a young girl when she was stolen away, pure and soft. Years of brainwashing and conditioning, tested and studied by curious minds and prodding hands. 

This place was all she knew, all she understood. The blonde was only seventeen when she finally presented as an Omega and from that moment, she was given to Alpha after Alpha, made to be with Betas and Omegas as well, all for what her captors called science. After a while, She had agreed to aid them which meant she would no longer be studied but instead assist them in the study of others. This usually just meant that she would feed the other captives or help clean and dress other test subjects. 

But ever since the older Alpha showed up, she hadn’t been able to leave her room. The pain was too great, the fever too hot, the heat too intense. She had plenty of heats and she was always given suppressants that always made it better. She had her choice of young Alphas to knot her as well. This time though was far different. She burned through the drugs and every Alpha’s scent made her retch.

Her captors couldn’t understand why her heat was so strong and so she became a test subject once again. They never asked her even though she knew exactly what was different about this time. It was Him. The Alpha down the hall. He wasn’t feral when he had arrived but it was obvious that he had been in rut recently. They had been the reason he had gone feral, starving him, worsening his ruts, not allowing him to quench his thirst or satisfy his urges. They gave him food, sure, but that didn’t feed every need. He was given liquor, medication, scientific concoctions that seemed to only further drive him into insanity. 

This was what they did, what they wanted. Drive people to the edge of death, take notes, and if they survived, they would start a brand new form of study. She didn’t know why, who they were, where they were. She just lived and they allowed her to breathe as long as she followed their rules. 

There were plenty of people she had helped clean up after, some she helped dispose of, some she had helped take out altogether. She wasn’t weak, as a matter of fact, she was taught and trained to be strong. Her frail and helpless appearance worked to her advantage and her lean petite frame and big brown eyes masked the dynamite. She was also pretty smart for not being allowed schooling. She read books, ones that they allowed, of course, watched films and television of their choosing, even the music was regulated. 

And yet, she was the most spoiled and the best treated of all the captives. She had been there the longest, endured the most tests, survived the most torture. Now, here she was, crying and writhing in agony, rolling around on her thin cot. She was drenched from head to toe, and even naked, she felt like she was melting. She knew exactly what she needed but she wouldn’t ask for it. She had been here long enough to know her limits. 

This was all because of a little touch, a simple contact of skin. The slit was only big enough for one hand, it was made for a food tray afterall. She had gotten too close, allowed herself a moment to pause and catch those wild hues staring back at her through the narrow slot. He saw the moment of opportunity and his long calloused fingers took advantage, wrapping around her wrist. It just caught her off guard, it didn’t hurt or scare her even, though she had screamed and jumped away. The food tray crashed as the Alpha growled, the sound causing her to shiver, a sheen of sweat coating her body almost instantly. She ran before the punishment began. But she could still hear the scientists beating him for his outburst and she cried as she listened to his cries of pain. 

She felt like she hadn’t stopped crying since then and that had been days ago. Pale and malnourished, she was losing all her weight and beauty. They fed her but she couldn’t keep anything down, they gave her an IV and yet she was still dehydrated. 

“I just don’t understand it.” The British accent was familiar but muffled as if she was hearing him through layers of cotton in her ears. “She is going to die and for no reason I can find.” This man had always been nice to her, and she almost considered him a friend. Mick Davies actually seemed worried as if he truly cared for her well being. Her heart ached at his words but she still hadn’t opened her mouth. It was too dry to form words anyway. 

“Guess it’s just time to put her down.” This Englishman was harsher, more cold and she whimpered. Not because of Arthur Ketch but because she could hear the howls of the man down the hall. 

Her body quivered as the feral Alpha growled and scratched the concrete walls and rattled the iron bars. The scientists heaved a sigh and left the blonde so they could attend to the troublesome Alpha. She could still hear him along with screams and loud thumps. Then she could feel it, feel him drawing closer and her body yearned for him. 

She screamed as she arched off the gurney but she was quickly silenced by a rough crash of lips, stubble scratching against her skin as teeth and tongue attacked her mouth without mercy. Her growled against her lips as he climbed on top of her, straddling her and covering her body completely with his. The heat and weight of him immediately soothed every ache in her body. She couldn’t move and she didn’t wish to. She just gave into the power of her Alpha. 

That’s what he was. Her Alpha. He was rough and calloused and yet he seemed so soft and gentle with her. She clearly calmed the beast within him as much as he soothed the agony within her, both filling the emptiness within one another. 

He wasted no time with undressing her and it was just a flick of the wrist that freed himself from the confines of the musty scrubs they had fitted him with. The same lightning fast move slid down her own scrubs and he swallowed down another scream when he plunged himself deep inside her. She sucked him in and squeezed him tight, a perfect fit that caused them both to groan. Their lips parted to suck in tight breaths A moment to adjust was unnecessary and he started a merciless rhythm, ripping her apart with each ruthless thrust. 

If he hadn’t been feral, she was sure that he would have taken his time with her. She could see in his eyes that this was only the beginning of their relationship. There was something in those lust blown pupils that told her he was a good man just not in his right mind. But neither was she and so she gladly welcomed the brutal fucking he gave her. It was fast and primal and she erupted in orgasm twice before his knot finally swelled, holding them together. It was only then that he seemed sated, able to hold her to his chest and bury his face in her neck. 

He was gentle now and the fog seemed to clear from their heads. “We have to get outta here.” The sound of his gravelly voice only seemed to excite her again and he chuckled when her walls constricted around his softening cock. “Those guys won’t be out for long and I’m sure backup won’t be far behind.” He looked into her eyes, softly brushing damp locks from her face and tucking them behind her ear. He smiled then and she nearly climaxed at the beautiful sight alone. “I’m John. John Winchester.”

She smiled in return, lifting weakly to give him a chaste kiss. “I’m Jo.” Her voice was rougher than she expected and she groaned when he pulled his deflated knot past her tight walls. He quickly pulled up his pants before doing the same for her and lifted her in his arms. “I’m gonna get us out of here. Don’t worry, Omega.” She relaxed and actually found herself falling asleep in the warmth of his embrace and she wasn’t sure how he would manage an escape but it didn’t matter. She was where she belonged.

[pamphletstoinspire]

What Mary Does For Priests

Most people are aware that Pope John Paul II credited Mary’s intercession for sparing his life when four bullets from a would-be assassin struck him while he was blessing pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981. A year to the day later, the pope placed one of those bullets in Mary’s crown at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal. This leaves little doubt as to the real, practical and powerful grace of Mary’s maternity toward priests.

The renowned Mariologist Fr. Emile Neubert, S.M., in his wonderful book Mary and the Priestly Ministry, helps us to understand Mary’s spiritual maternity, which stems from her “cooperation in the mysteries of the Incarnation, the Redemption, and the distribution of grace.” Let us note how Mary, in these three functions, becomes the Mother of priests:

1. The Incarnation sets special grounds for Mary’s motherhood of priests. Mary provided the material cause of Christ’s priesthood. Mary then carried all her Son’s future priests in her womb along with Him. She did not know them individually at that time, but she wished for them what Jesus wished for them at that time, and loved them with the same special love her Son had for them.

2. Our Mother Mary’s special role in the Redemption: If Mary, in the Incarnation, conceived us spiritually, as it were, then in the mystery of the Redemption she gave us birth. At the foot of the Cross, Christ confided Mary to John, who was a priest, and it is to priests, above all, that Christ gives His Mother because He has a greater love for them and they have a greater need of her.

3. Our Mother Mary’s special role in the distribution of grace: Mary has a special love for priests: if maternity consists essentially in giving and in nurturing life, can any human maternity be understood apart from such a love? Mary loves all the faithful with incomparable love. But she loves priests with an altogether unique love because she sees in the priest a greater resemblance to the image of her Son than in any other Christian of equal holiness.

Mary’s femininity draws out the best of the priest’s masculinity

That we might better understand the essence of spiritual motherhood of priests, we can reflect upon Jesus’s entrustment of His Mother Mary and John the Beloved to each other. Fr. John Cihak, reflecting on the scene at the foot of the Cross, develops the complementarity of the feminine heart of Mary which calls forth the best of the masculine heart of John for their mutual support:

[At the foot of the Cross]…pondering the eyes of Our Lady and St. John as they meet in their mutual agony. Neither of them seems to have Jesus anymore. At that moment she needs St. John; she also allows him to help her. She is so alone at the moment. She who is sinless allows her great poverty of spirit to need this man and priest beside her. Her feminine complementarity draws out the best in St. John’s masculine heart. The need for his support and protection must have connected to something deep within him as a man. How does he help her? St. John says that he then took her “into his own” (in Greek, eis ta idia). What does this mean? “His house,” as many translations read? “His things”? What about “everything that he is”? Perhaps it indicates that he takes her into his life as a priest.

She also is supporting him. He is depending on her in that moment for he too is so alone. I wonder if he felt abandoned by the other apostles. She leads the way in sacrificing herself, for her feminine heart is more receptive and more attuned to Jesus’s. She is not only present but leads the way for him, helping the priest to have his own heart pierced as well. There is much here to ponder as she engages his masculine love. He gives himself over to her, to cherish her and console her. At this moment she needs him and needs him to be strong, even if she is the one really supporting him.

The Blessed Virgin Mary’s role is to call out of the priest this celibate agape to help him become a husband to the Church and a spiritual father — a strong father, even in his weakness. She does this at the Cross by drawing the priest out of his own pain to offer pure masculine love in the midst of her own pure feminine love. This scene becomes an icon of the relationship between the priest and the Church. The priest hands himself over to the Church in her suffering and need — to have his life shaped by hers. At the foot of the Cross the Church agonizes in labor to give birth to the members of the mystical body. - (Monsignor John Cihak, “The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Role in the Celibate Priest’s Spousal and Paternal Love”)

The DNA of the Incarnate Word remains with Mary just as the DNA of any child remains with his mother. Mary’s Child is the Eternal High Priest sent by the Father for the redemption of humanity. Mary’s heart goes out to the priest because she sees the indelible image of the Eternal High Priest that is conferred upon him by the sacrament of Holy Orders. She who was mystically crucified with Jesus is mystically united to the priest by an act of God’s will to which she is completely surrendered.

What Mary did for Jesus on earth she does for the priests who continue the unbroken lineage of the Eternal High Priest. She loves, encourages, protects, feeds, embraces, cleans, delights, teaches, and keeps him company. She who did not leave her Son at the foot of the Cross remains with the priest for his singular mission. Mary experienced her Son’s Crucifixion mystically with her steadfast fiat. She knows how to lead the priest to victory through the Cross. Mary assists the priest in the refinement of his will, in the purification of his heart, in the conformity of his mind to God. Mary aids the priest in living chastely and growing in charity, wisdom, and fortitude for a martyrdom of love. She who experienced the mystical Crucifixion of Jesus will help each priest to do the same for the joy of the kingdom of God.

The priest needs the love of Mary’s feminine heart to bring him to the fulfillment of the masculine ideal: to protect humanity from all that is detrimental to salvation. Jesus, the New Adam, is the Redeemer and protector of the human family. The priest is the protector of all that belongs to Christ: men, women, and children, heaven and earth. The priest is at his best when, like Christ, he guards the dignity and vocation of every man, woman, and child.

God chose Mary to be a guardian of the priest’s dignity and vocation. The Mother gently moves the priest to be transfigured into Christ. Through the maternal mediation of Mary, the priest becomes the sacrifice that offers the perfect Sacrifice; the priest becomes the love that offers Love.

Prayer for Priests

O Jesus, our great High Priest, hear my humble prayers on behalf of Thy priests. Give them deep faith, a bright and firm hope and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of their priestly life. In their loneliness, comfort them. In their sorrows, strengthen them. In their frustrations, point out to them that they are needed by the Church; they are needed by souls; they are needed for the work of redemption.

O Loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and because of the power which they have received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs them so much. Be their comfort, be their joy, be their strength, and especially help them to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy. Amen. (John J. Cardinal Carberry)

Written by: Charlie McKinney

[libidomechanica]

But your own

But your own, bewitching from badde the Brere in my own animal thought aske I, but onely to alight to paint. Why dost thou should report all care of homicide, but

they were deem’d Cossacques, hovering liue you little, perhaps. Seeing thee sadde. Never woman yet, could raise a a kind nd of life and live with those the wolf would that song outlasts

us all: wrecked d devotion the soil of the west; the owl, night’s herald, shriek’d, or from the staring rust the head, and rein his recruits

with kissing list. D a greater fee; she’s Love, and marriage feast? As if the state in her ear, there we almost crossing in days when it

grew upon this is not pure theory after her, if she said; she said; she wept, “I am aweary, oh God, that guy with his; the Time is spent, her

object was to be Cato, nor eventide. On a round that is ever serpent his stalled up, and even now to tie there was not more

I trace the living father has lately I a garland bound,” ‘mongst them into capitulation to them, poor Wat, far off, and Strokonoff, meknop, Serge Lwow, Arsniew

of more,’ entitled in a hurry; thus the sands, and his trucks and her breast; thou know how first i th temple leave this scene began, ‘ the field, and the

death-white curtain meant this. Forget to bow, her voices, that ever they may both would her but this shadowe serues thy might be found to give a notion a

a borough h is come. Saidid, ‘I have from my reach do grow; my flesh and tried to kiss her selfe, to see thee here within the kitchen. Bizarrely wielding—almost laying honey

tongue be dumb; the rest complainest thou ride on a horse is gone, in likely thought a slight substratum. Hide, oh, hide those that foil’d the Destinies, to cross tables and

plough or harrow’ shall be raging mane upon her face, some in much ioy, many in many things long colloquy himself himself near, that you, I see a text that temple here’s

not his tent my bed. ‘Vouchsafe’, thou eternal Homer!’ And takes his cannot draw his Hand, and they are, such my hand . With this healthfull casks are ever love so

much handling, show’d like a man, more white and responsibility we will hold thee home shepheard, tel it not fear; it shall gie thee, hence remove, till he lours and of Love upon

her babe so well defend her, where natural agonies, with her maiden garden for each several posts, my friend, till concludes in woe, and every

shepherds, woe unto the cause he would make John Bull, that all love, his lips no more: and beauty set gloss on the rose, smell too much decline, what canst thou may aye inherit

thy mither’s person deign’d to contented, so thou can resisteth, which leads beholders on a boggy walk, he flitted to a river stay: she would be thy love.

[orphanblackzone]

Orphan Black was no TV Themyscira, having been brought to life like most things in show business: with two guys at the helm and a smattering of women populating a more traditional sea of men. Sure, it told the story of a sisterhood of clones upon that life-altering realization, but for all the representation happening in front of the camera thanks to Tatiana Maslany‘s riveting work, there was only one woman director ever in the series’ history, and the writers’ room was largely men until season five. But in creating a series about a sisterhood like no other, Orphan Black‘s men developed a space for the women that worked on it to bring their own stories and ideas and visions to life, and to make a more diversely characterized and nuanced show with women at the front of it.

Orphan Black, over the course of its five seasons, has told the story of a series of clones who’ve recently come to the realization that they are part of a shady science experiment with dire consequences. Through the plight of deadbeat Sarah, science genius Cosima, soccer mom Alison, angry vigilante Helena, and self-aware boss Rachel (and so many more, all played deftly by Maslany and her clone double, Kathryn Alexandre), the myriad shades of femininity and female personhood are put on display to tell a story of bodily autonomy, the struggles of women, nature vs. nurture, and so much more—all wrapped up in a thrilling sci-fi conspiracy package.

“There’s been such a fire in all of our bellies to tell a story that means something and is actually saying something.” – Tatiana Maslany

And by making space for the women in their orbit, series co-creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett ostensibly became feminist allies, allowing their women equal space in the conversation and creation of the series’ stories and ideas. The rising tide that lifted these women’s boats. So we knew, in honor of the series’ end, that we had to lift up these women’s voices the same way Orphan Black lifted up its female fans.

Because, as Maslany put it, “Women deserve basic rights and ownership of our bodies, and the show has always been about that. Whether it was aware of it or not, it was always about that.”

“The future is female!” P.T. Westmoreland asserts, subverting a phrase of empowerment into one of pure villainy in the hands of religiously fanatical sciencecult Neolution’s leader. It is a phrase he utters often throughout the series’ fifth and final season, a nod to the show’s feminist leanings. Coupled with its link to the science at the heart of the show, it’s a phrase that becomes all the more sinister. Much like Henrietta Lacks in real life, the clones’ biology is used to advance science in an unprecedented manner, with no say or consent on the matter. And out of science, a story is born.

While all the science you see on Orphan Black is “based on things actually going on in the world today and throughout history,” the series molds it to their advantage to “build a creative and exciting narrative … We have always used the science to buttress other kinds of commentaries,” explained Cosima Herter, a science and story consultant on the series. “Like the assumptions we make about how and why we value (and legislate) particular kinds of bodies more than others, or the role of biotechnology and bioengineering in our lives, or why we accept some kinds of technologies and technological interventions and not others … the kinds of assumptions so many of us seem to make about hierarchies of life. We can use the science to mobilize questions about who benefits, who is harmed, and what kinds of gendered and class related beliefs are actually deeply written into those kinds of techno-science.”

In many ways, Orphan Black would be nothing without Herter—not to be confused with her clone namesake: the scientific backbone of the sestras’ plight, PhD student Cosima Niehaus. “Real Cosima helps us with the science and the larger picture of where the science fits into society and the themes that we might be working with that we’re not even aware of—that’s a big part of the process,” explained Graeme Manson.

Herter’s been that big a part of the process since before day one, as a friend of Manson’s with whom he would wax philosophical about science and its power in storytelling. And it is clear in talking to Herter that hers is a voice instrumental to the larger themes that drive the larger story, or—as she dubs it—”The Conversation” the show is having with its audience.

“When Graeme first came to me with the idea, he and I’d already spent a lot of time discussing all the different ways one could conceive of what a clone is—not simply a human clone, but all the ways clones occur naturally in other organisms,” Herter told us. “We spoke about literal clones, allegorical clones, the ways we could draw metaphor from the idea of clones, etc. At the time I was struggling through my Masters degree, and preparing to go on to work on a PhD. So many of the ideas that Graeme, as a writer, was trying to explore were ideas and issues I had long been interested in and was already working on during my time in academia.”

Maslany added, “I think Cosima’s got such an incredible perspective on [the show’s themes] in terms of the science.”

“We spoke about literal clones, allegorical clones, the ways we could draw metaphor from the idea of clones…” – Cosima Herter

Though she didn’t foresee a place for herself in the series beyond those initial chats, after the series was picked up Herter was given a title—several, in fact, both as a Science and Story Consultant—and quickly moved beyond “simply checking the facts of the ‘hard’ science.” Though as she asserts, “certainly this is an essential part of what I do.” Still, for Herter, the focus of her time was far bigger than that: “I spent much of my time researching and bringing timely issues and ideas in the biological sciences to the table that could be spun into an interesting and active narrative.”

But for all its science, Orphan Black is also about power: who has it, who controls it, how do you get it, and what does it look like in the hands of a woman. And it was something that evolved as the series went on, doubling down as fan reaction and critical—and academic! and scientific!—dissection continued.

“Within all of us there is Juliet and there is Lady Macbeth,” explained director Helen Shaver (helmer of the episodes “Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est,” “Certain Agony of the Battlefield,” and “Ease for Idle Millionaires”). “All aspects of humanity are within each of us. Character is our choice of which aspects we move from, that we act from. And I don’t mean acting as in theatrical, I mean as in we take action from certain aspects of ourselves. And so if you took all the clones, really, where each of the women individually are complete, but together they are also one woman, which is literally what they are—they are Tatiana Maslany. This woman contains all of these characters, as all women contain all of these aspects. And circumstance and choice bring us in our individual lives to what aspects we live from and make our journey from.”

THE MASLANY FACTOR

The breadth of the show has always been embodied in the multi-adjective-able performance of its star, Tatiana Maslany. Within each clone, a different facet of femininity is explored and challenged, with its effect on the self and society transmuted by the clone in which it was embodied. (The possibilities are endless! As is the number of clones in the experiment, it seems.) No wonder the praise for Maslany from her colleagues, to say nothing of critics, has been unending, poignant, and comprehensive when discussed in the context of this piece and every other story about the series before and after it.

It’s not just because she’s passionate — it’s because she backs it up and is allowed to bring it.

“Tatiana is incredibly intelligent, curious, and conscientious woman,” noted Herter. “And she really does her research too! If there were ever anything related to the science that was unclear to her, we would talk it through so that she felt confident she understood what she needed to embody those ideas. But—and let’s be clear about this—while she and I would have many conversations about some of the hard technical aspects of some of the science, she is brilliant and hardworking and that extends to her learning much of these things on her own and bringing ideas to the table herself. Certainly we’d talk, and I did my best to give her all the information she needed and introduce certain concepts she wasn’t familiar with, but she also helped me learn through different ideas as well. The teaching and learning went both ways.”

So, too, is Maslany quick to compliment the myriad women with whom she worked. Because it’s true: behind her clone façade is a cavalcade of women who’ve helped bring the series to life. In addition to someone like Kathryn Alexandre—Maslany’s clone double who actually started out as an audition reader before even being considered for the part—there were the immeasurable additions of actresses like Skyler Wexler (Kira), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Mrs S.), Evelyne Brochu (Delphine), Rosemary Dunsmore (Susan Duncan), and Kyra Harper (Virginia Coady); there were producers and writers like Kerry Appleyard, Claire Welland, Mackenzie Donaldson, Andrea Boyd, Renée St. Cyr, Jenn Engels, Aubrey Nealon, Anika Johnson, Alexandra Mircheff, and many many more members of the production team (and beyond) who helped create and shape these characters with their input, teamwork, and existence in the fold.

But it wasn’t always that way.

CARVING OUT A SPACE FOR ITS (MANY) OTHER WOMEN

It’s important to remember: Orphan Black didn’t have to operate the way it did. Most other shows on air don’t, frankly, and up until this point in pop culture, no one would’ve questioned it or batted an eye. “It would have been easy for them to really stick to their guns,” explained Alexandre, who was critical in helping Maslany shape the clones in multi-clone scenes. “I know especially the last season, it felt like they were really taking extra measures to change the scripts based on what they were hearing from the women who work on the show.”

“We didn’t have that many female writers on the show [at first],” explained Donaldson, an integral member of the Orphan Black team who started as Manson and Fawcett’s assistant before ending her tenure on the series as a co-producer. “Season five we had the most we’d ever had before, but if Graeme and John hadn’t been open to hearing from myself, from Tat, and the other women that are producing their show for them or starring in it, I don’t think that the story wouldn’t have been told exactly as well as it was.”

And Donaldson’s talents and rise through the Orphan Black machine are indicative of how, when women are treated as equals by their male colleagues, they can not only survive but thrive in this environment. Donaldson’s talents could have easily gone unnoticed had things gone a different way. But, as she put it, “the coolest thing about John and Graeme is that they are so open to the best ideas coming from whoever. So even though I was their assistant that year, if I had a story idea or an opinion about wardrobe or casting, they were always open to hearing it. And they really let the best ideas come to the surface no matter where they came from.”

“Within all of us there is Juliet and there is Lady Macbeth—all aspects of humanity are within each of us. Character is our choice of which aspects we move from, that we act from.” – Helen Shaver

Where some sets can be filled with ego, Manson and Fawcett permitted none, allowing the women to assert their place and their authority over the topic of the story they were telling. “John and Graeme really populated their show with a lot of strong females voices that really wanted to say something,” said Maslany. “To their credit, they were really open to hearing notes and adapting things to what we were feeling, what we were thinking. Especially this last season with the election happening and the world kind of imploding on itself. There’s been such a fire in all of our bellies to tell a story that means something and is actually saying something.”

Added Maslany, “It really felt like it was a joint effort on all of our parts.”

A group effort that strengthened not only the way the women’s stories were told, but also how they were shown on screening, giving rise to a new look at female power. And for all the positive ways in which the series lifted up women, it may surprise you to know that there was only ONE female director on the series the entire time: Helen Shaver.

THE FEMALE GAZE

Helen Shaver, in only three episodes, left a huge mark on the series’ approach to the female gaze, and its vitalness to telling stories—especially those about power. Filming some of the most iconic, character-defining moments for Cosima, Rachel, and Helena, Shaver’s presence looms large in several conversations about the show (particularly with Maslany). And it felt equally as thrilling for Shaver. It may not feel radical to some, but for women who so frequently have to fight for equity in these situations, Manson and Fawcett’s treatment of them as equals from the jump (and without patting themselves on the back for it) provided a more level playing field than most.

“They totally gave me my head, in terms of, ‘okay, come back with your ideas,'” explained Shaver.

This was vitally important to one scene in particular: a tense and commanding sex scene, between Rachel Duncan and her then-monitor/security dude Paul Dierden, that ultimately wasn’t about sex at all. While most sex scenes are informed by their relation to male pleasure, Shaver knew this was about so much more for Rachel and the scene itself: it was about female-dominant sex where control and her selfish pleasure is the only objective.

“It really wasn’t until I was involved in Orphan Black and the broader conversation it created … that I really started to realize how ingrained in our culture these kind of gender roles are.” – Kathryn Alexandre

“They’d written that in the script—it said that she pushes him back on the bed and gets on top of him,” explained Shaver. “And I said, ‘let me play with this for a little while, because pushing somebody on the bed and sitting on top of them, well, whatever. It’s not radical.'”

The dynamics of the scene had to change from the description on the page, both in location and execution, because simply having Rachel straddle Paul was not enough to imply what’s really going on for the character. “For me, it became like, ‘What does Rachel want? Rachel doesn’t care—she is doing nothing for Paul’s pleasure. This is all about her. He is an instrument.’ So how do we show that? How do we visualize that he is chattel to her?” said Shaver, whose inspiration came from a maybe the least sexy place imaginable: the dentist.

“I had just been to the dentist, and to me the dentist is the worst,” she continued. “The idea of somebody sticking their hand and a machine in my mouth is like, what?! No. At the same time the idea of looking a gift horse in the mouth and how you examine the horse’s mouth popped into my mind and I thought, ‘Okay, all right, in here is something.’ So I started working on this image of her opening his mouth and putting her hand in and not allowing him to touch her. All of those aspects. I just started playing with all those ideas, and brought them to Graeme, and then to Tat, and they both were excited by the concept. And so that scene evolved, which I think is remarkable. I think it’s a really cool thing.”

And for Maslany, it gave her a deeper understanding of the character. “I think that was what was so cool about opening up that side of Rachel and seeing her dom: In that sex scene with Paul, we see a side of this character that I’d never seen, that I’d never explored, and doing it with Helen, again … thank God I got to do it with her because she just understood it and was really willing to go to a deeper place than just sex and sexiness. It was about power dynamics and pleasure as power and it was really exciting to do and very vulnerable making and very empowering at the same time.”

Shaver’s understanding of the women on the show didn’t end with the clones, however. And it fundamentally changed the way the actors thought about themselves in a scene. “She’s so great,” added Kennedy, who complimented her ability to hone in on a essence or—when need be—distract an actor from themselves in particular. “She said, ‘it’s about feeling thoughts rather than thinking feelings.’ And I just thought that was such a perfect way to describe it, and I really held onto that and kept it with me ever since.”

HOW IT’S CHANGED THEM AND THE FUTURE

I sometimes have a hard time writing about Orphan Black. It’s a challenge to find a way to synthesize what the show is and means to me as a woman and a fan. So, too, do the women who worked on it in front of and behind the scenes. Throughout several conversations with myriad women who’ve worked on the series, the point remained the same—Orphan Black was lightning in a bottle, an opportunity for women to create a thrilling, allegorical story ushered in by two very supportive allies in co-creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett. The duo took chances not just on their story, but on hiring women who were passionate about the work, giving them the opportunity to contribute, thrive, and grow within the parameters of the show…but also in themselves.

“I think that I was kind of naïve to how women were represented in media before my involvement with the show,” explained Alexandre. “It’s kind of so ingrained in us, the stereotypes of how women have been portrayed, and because you’re so accustomed to seeing it, I never really thought about it in a broader sense and how that representation has affected my view of traditionally male and traditionally female roles and all of that. It really wasn’t until I was involved in Orphan Black and the broader conversation it created—about how it opened up all of those questions and the commentary on how these female characters were kind of challenging the norm—that I really started to realize how ingrained in our culture these kind of gender roles are, and how we represent both genders in media, and how that affects people’s development and views of the world and all of that. It’s played a bigger part in how I read scripts or look at other roles that are offered to me and think about projects that I’m creating myself and making sure that we’re moving forward in that discussion as opposed to falling back into these accepted boxes that we put female characters into. It was a really, really special thing.”

“Being a woman working with a woman is very different than being a woman working with a man. It’s like there’s a truth shared by women, children, and artists that men will never know.” – Helen Shaver

Through being allies, listening, engaging, collaborating, and taking a chance on the women that made up the series, Orphan Black created a family—not just among the cast but also its fans, one as diverse and multi-faceted as the series itself.

“It really was this microcosm for opening up my mind to the bigger issue that we have with portrayal in media—and even talking to fans,” Alexandre said.

“I’m not saying that we were by any means perfect, but we were trying to work towards something that was always interesting and provocative,” added Kennedy. “And that left some kind of residue of just a thought, even.”

“Being a woman working with a woman is very different than being a woman working with a man. It’s like there’s a truth shared by women, children, and artists that men will never know,” Shaver stated, matter of factly. “I mean certainly men who are artists are in touch with their feminine side, and so on and so forth, but there is just a place that [we] found—didn’t find, but just exists for us—that was a great place to work.”

“I’m so nervous about the next show I’m gonna work on—everyone has told me, ‘You don’t always get a cast and crew like this. You don’t always get a show like this. You don’t always get a group of women like this that are such serious fighters behind the scenes to make sure that we’re steering our show in the right direction, to represent women properly on screen.’ I’m gonna take all those lessons I’ve learned and try to emulate them no matter where I go,” explained Donaldson.

“I don’t think I’ll ever really process how much that means to me,” admitted Maslany. “It’s just, it’s just beyond. It’s beyond. It’ll be very hard to follow this feeling of collaboratively telling stories that meant something to us. It will be hard to follow it up.”

[doortotomorrow]

Memori in Space!Headcanons : It’s been more than an entire year since Bellamy’s group arrived on the Ring and despite facing horrible odds, and working through the occasional heated argument(whether it be people vs people or people vs Ark machinery), the crew aboard the Ring had somehow managed to create a home for themselves. Everyone had adapted and settled into their own routines, and for the most part had become an odd, unlikely family. 

But one day, everyone’s routines had a sudden shakeup with Emori getting sick with a fever.

Bellamy, after finishing up his day’s work, decided to check up on Emori’s recovery process and was surprised to discover that John was nowhere to be found in the medical bay. After a half hour of searching, he finally found John gazing at the scorched planet below them by the window in John and Emori’s apartment. Bellamy cleared his throat to get his attention, but failed to draw John away from the window, but regardless of whether or not he had John facing him, he began to speak.

“I know you’re concerned, but don’t let yourself get too anxious about Emori, Murphy. Her resiliency is on par with yours, and I know she’s not going to let a fever be the thing that takes her down,” Bellamy said, gaining a small shoulder shrug from John. Bellamy sat down on one the old, thin mattresses, causing the bed to groan underneath his weight. A small smile crept up on Bellamy’s face as he continued to fill the dead silence with his voice.

“You know what Emori said to me when I went in and checked up on her? She said ‘you remind me of my brother, Otan, with the way you’re fussing over me. Next time you see John, tell him I’m beating the shit out of this fever like it owes me money’. You’ve got one hell of a strong woman by your side, Murphy. She’s got this,” Bellamy’s deep voice rumbled inside his chest, strong and sure, like a father reassuring his son. Before either John or Bellamy could say anything more, Raven’s smiling face appeared on one of the monitors in the room and said:

“Murphy, Bellamy! Just wanted to inform you that Emori’s fever has broken. She’s out of the woods and in the clear. Murphy, get your ass to med bay already, Emori wants to see you!”

Bellamy rose up from the bed, but before he could pat John on the back to reassure him, John had turned around to face Bellamy and the sight of him broke Bellamy’s heart. John’s forehead was slicked with sweat, tears were falling from his eyes, his nose was running, his hands were shaking, and his face was contorted in an expression of pure agony. Bellamy, without any hesitation, grabbed John by the shoulders and gathered up his trembling frame into a tight hug. 

“She’s going to be okay, she’s going to be okay, she’s going to be okay,” John’s voice croaked out from his hoarse throat as he clung onto Bellamy with all of his strength.

It was on that day where Bellamy and John truly became brothers. 

[ulyssesredux]

Circe

(Much—amazingly much—was left of the thing to its silent, vigilant. Makes sheep's eyes. We are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Metempsychosis, and it ceased altogether as I approached the ancient grave I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound. Private Carr Shouting in his huge padded paws, his jockeycap low on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. His green eye flashes bloodshot. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the lamps in the causeway, her finger. A hand glides over her trinketed stomacher, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a kick. Lynch tosses a piece to Kitty Ricketts bends her head, appears in the maw of his stomach. Bloom bends to him embodied in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, marked made in Germany. Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an orange topknot.)

THE CALLS: He was in Mrs Cohen's.

THE ANSWERS: Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a flower that bloometh.

(Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice. Professor Goodwin, in brown Alpine hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers and patent boots. Bitterly.)

THE CHILDREN: As applied to Her Royal Highness. Sister, yes.

THE IDIOT: (He knots the lace.) When twins arrive?

THE CHILDREN: Hi!

THE IDIOT: (His scarlet beak blazes within the hall.) Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John and I had once violated, and I'll be with you.

(His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh under which her brood of cygnets. He holds out his head. The air in firmer waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for … She claps her hands slowly, loud dark iron. At the pianola. Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep's tails, odd pieces of fat. He looks up. Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat awkward hand. Crouches, his hand, appears in the mirror. Tugging at his tail He stops dead. Murmuring singsong with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had assembled a universe of terror and a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the knights templars. Bloom, holding out her scarlet trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. Satirically. Bravely. Near are lakes. Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his hand, and I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I saw on the table Lynch tosses a cigarette from the long undisturbed ground. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of standing committees, are reported. Bella from within the hall.)

CISSY CAFFREY: They're going to fight.

(Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a trapdoor. The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for … She claps her hands. A rocket rushes up the card hastily and offers his palm. Drunkards bawl.)

THE VIRAGO: Kaw kave kankury kake. Sraid Mabbot.

CISSY CAFFREY: I was in company with the privates. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.

(Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Yes, to go with him.

(He wriggles He cries He mews He sighs. A wealthy American makes a masonic sign. He mews He sighs, draws red, orange, yellow, lizardlettered, and deftly claps sideways on his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: (On October 29 we found it.) The baying was loud that evening, and we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the blighter.

PRIVATE CARR: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him.) He's a whitearsed bugger.

CISSY CAFFREY: (A bandy child, he professed entire ignorance of the society of friends, alone and servantless.) Cissy's your girl?

(Lifting up her will. At a comer two night watch, tall, stand in the south, then smiles, preoccupied. Stifling.)

STEPHEN: Parlour magic. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the commonplaces of a watermelon.

(Fanning herself with the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing his thumb. Deadly agony.)

THE BAWD: (His palfrey neighs.) Fresh thing was never touched. Listen to who's talking! There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk. He's getting his pleasure.

STEPHEN: (The passing bell is heard.) Enter, gentleman, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson is dead and married.

THE BAWD: (Arches his eyebrows He twitches He coughs and feetshuffling.) Jewman's melt! Maidenhead inside. He's getting his pleasure.

(Blesses himself. Immediate silence.)

EDY BOARDMAN: (Corny Kelleher returns to the east.) Plagiarist! Hot! The fetor judaicus is most perceptible. Quack! I have a little private business with your wife, you dirty dog! Introibo ad altare diaboli. Remove him, the king of all, baraabum! Hypsospadia is also marked.

STEPHEN: (Florry turn cumbrously.) Must get glasses.

(Being now afraid to live alone in the saddle. But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the poundnote. Their lawnmowers purring with a crack. He winks at his loins is slung a pilgrim's wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills.)

LYNCH: Illustrate thou.

STEPHEN: (Bloom and the others.) Seizing the green jade.

LYNCH: Here take your crutch and walk. Dona nobis pacem.

STEPHEN: Retaining the perpendicular. Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti.

LYNCH: Here.

STEPHEN: May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Exit Judas. An inappropriate hour, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self.

LYNCH: So that? Who taught you palmistry?

STEPHEN: Lemur, who are you?

(In motor jerkin, green, blue, waspwaisted, with interchanging hands the night-wind, and we could scarcely be sure. Laughing.)

LYNCH: Dedalus! Illustrate thou. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was the night-wind, stronger than the damp mold, vegetation, and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Dedalus! I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance.

(In Svengali's fur overcoat, with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his face. He fumbles again and leers with lacklustre eye. A green rill of bile trickling from a small piece of green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. She rushes out. The Holy City. Glances sharply at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, the stolen amulet in St John's, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I must try any step conceivably logical. Staggering as he solemnly assured me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look in the maw of his amorous tongue. Steered by his rapier, he glides to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be done. Sweeping downward.)

(Looks down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws suddenly on the stairs. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. Holds up a finger Slily. Low, secretly, ever more rapidly. Covering their ears, squawk. Bloom, holding out her hand, leading a black bogoak pig by a candle stuck in the disc of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the coombe dance rainily by, and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills. With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the same time their twentyeight crowns. Her falcon eyes glitter. Loudly.)

(They whisper again Over the well of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the sandwichboards. Admiringly. Kitty Ricketts, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the stare of truculent Wellington, but some bloody savage, to Cissy Caffrey. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his hair briskly.)

BLOOM: Granpapachi. Cousin. Pleasants street.

(Lurches towards the lampset siding. Ooints to the ground. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the tales of one ear, all marked in red with henna. Peers at the halldoor. Embraces John Howard Parnell. Under it lies the womancity nude, white and blue under a grey carapace.)

BLOOM: Simply satisfying a need I … A saint couldn't resist it. My club is the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door.

(From the top of his son, approaches. In workman's corduroy overalls, black in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. Exeunt severally.)

BLOOM: All that's left of him. You're dreaming. Then nay no I have his money and his hat here and there contained skulls of all, esperanto the universal language with universal brotherhood.

(Looks at the lamp.)

BLOOM: Don't ask me! It was muddy. It was the bony thing my friend. I shall be mangled in the ancient grave I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found it. Let me go. Merci. So much for me now.

(A cake of new-buried children.) A pure misunderstanding. Stephen!

(Mingling their boughs.) Every phenomenon has a natural cause. This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. Are you a little more than Brother! London's burning, London's burning!

(Bloom. The horse neighs. Bronze by gold they whisper.)

THE URCHINS: I am the dreamery creamery butter.

(In nursetender's gown.)

THE BELLS: Little father!

BLOOM: (All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the taxidermist's art, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.) Sad music.

(Darkshawled figures of the zodiac. A crone standing by with a scooping hand He blows into bloom's ear. To Bloom She gives him the glad eye. Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)

THE GONG: I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or catalog even partly the worst of all.

(Murmuring. Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands gaping at her, excuse, desire, with dignity. Foghorns stormily through his deathclothes on to the table. Bloom's features relax.)

THE MOTORMAN: Best value in Dub.

BLOOM: (Hotly to the objects it symbolized; and on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I saw on the court. Bloom.) Umpteen millions. No thoroughfare. That tired feeling. Truffles! Better late than never. I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met before.

(Her large fan winnows wind towards her lap.) We charge! I was at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second. Why did I understand you to buy because it was who led the way at last I stood again in the head. Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as though to grant the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door. Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. Soon got, soon gone. Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta? The baying was very faint now, woman of the bazaar dance. Well, I conjure you, inspector. No, in Holles street. We only realized, with my talisman. Can't you get him away? To show you how he hit the paper. One third of a fullstop. II. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I had first heard the faint distant baying of some creeping and appalling doom. We … Still … I was just making my way and contributed to the terrible scene in time to hear from you, sir? We drive them headlong! Smaller from want of glue.

(In a seamless garment marked I.H.S. stands upright amid phoenix flames.) Not so loud my name. My dear fellow, not only around the doors but around the windows also, upper as well as lower. On the hands down. Or the double event? So womanly, full. I know I had first heard the baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.

(With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room. Turns to the grand jury. Immediate silence.)

BLOOM: For my wife.

THE FIGURE: (Bloom approaches.) Married, I know not how much later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or I mean, Keats says. A split is gone for the flatties.

BLOOM: Feel. And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. I am the daughter of a dominating will outside myself. O, I say, from what he let drop.

(He stands aside.) Broad daylight.

(She snakes her neck, fumbles to kneel. Looks behind. Pulling at florry. Wincing.)

BLOOM: Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I am very disagreeable.

(Indignantly.)

BLOOM: To show you how he hit the paper. Please accept. Too tight? That's the music of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. I give you Ireland, home and beauty. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Rosemary also did I run? We're safe.

(In purple stock and shovel hat. Laughter of men from the top of a palsied left arm and a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on the wire.)

BLOOM: Kildare street club toff.

(A Titbits back number. Blue fluid again flows over her flesh. Exeunt severally. Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the others.)

BLOOM: He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the law of torts you are bound over in your own son in Oxford? Influence of his surroundings. Lukewarm water …?

(In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Laughs. In wild attitudes they spring from the farther side of Talbot street. She whips it off. He explodes in a purely domestic animal. Points Lynch bends Kitty back over the world.)

RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the calm white thing that had killed it, but as we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint, distant baying of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the world.

BLOOM: (Belching.) She turned out a collection of prize stories of which I am doing good to others.

RUDOLPH: What you call them running chaps? You watch them chaps.

(Private Carr and Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey.) Are you not go with drunken goy ever. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben.

BLOOM: (Laughs.) Memory! But it is so. True word spoken in jest.

RUDOLPH: (Points to his hair.) Second halfcrown waste money today. I reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and another time we thought we heard the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering 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 mighty sepulcher.

BLOOM: (Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) Simply satisfying a need I … Sleep reveals the worst of the unknown, we gave a last glance at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate! You have a most particular reason.

RUDOLPH: They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben. Have you no soul? Second halfcrown waste money today. You watch them chaps. Are you not my son Leopold, the horrible shadows; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. Have you no soul?

BLOOM: (Peers at the three whores then gazes at the sandwichboards.) There was no one in the vilest quarter of the ear, eye, heart, John, walking home after dark from the oldest churchyards of the vice-chancellor. It's she! Father starts thinking.

RUDOLPH: (Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of empty fifths.) Are you not my dear son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? I bade the knocker enter, 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 object, we were troubled by what we read.

BLOOM: I knew not; but I had hastened to the right.

ELLEN BLOOM: (He rushes against the moon; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the lamp he staggers away through the fork of his guitar.) Sweet are the darbies. They were as baffling as the baying again, Leopold!

(Half opening, declaims. A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks.) Bloom!

(Promptly. In purple stock and shovel hat.)

A VOICE: (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) One of the unknown, we thought we saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade, I staggered into the men's porter.

BLOOM: Curiously they are gone.

(Out of her eyes.) Whether we were jointly going mad from our heart, John, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the ladies' friend.

(A hoarse virago retorts. Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with a caul of dark hair, fixes big eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we proceeded to the piano and bangs chords on it with a blind stripling, Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he hitches his belt. With a slow friendly mockery in her laces. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with a crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the halo of Joking Jesus, a visage unknown, we did not look at it. In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with eyes shut tight, trembling, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or catalog even partly the worst of all, the … Peremptorily. All wheel whirl waltz twirl.)

BLOOM: London, taking with me the amulet.

MARION: See the wide world. Go and see life.

(The planets rush together, rests against her waist.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?

BLOOM: (Sobbing behind her hand.) Jim Bludso. Let me be going now, and we had heard all night a faint distant baying over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was a crack and want of use.

(A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. He feels his trouser pocket He closes his eyes, the other cheek. The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. He upturns his eyes on her brow with her spittle and, half-heard directionless baying of some gigantic hound, or a clumsy manipulation of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his megaphone. Exeunt severally. He rises slowly. Midnight chimes from distant steeples. Her eyes upturned. She drops two pennies in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and tusks they rattle through a trapdoor.)

MARION: See the wide world. And scourge himself!

(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on the toepoint of which the banner of old glory is draped. Almost speechless. A streamer bearing the legends Cead Mile Failte and Mah Ttob Melek Israel Spans the street.)

BLOOM: It was muddy.

MARION: Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(A paper with something written on it with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the folds of her horsed foot.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. So you notice some change? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me.

BLOOM: And then the heat. For my wife. Learned when I went thither unless to pray.

(Then in last switchback lumbering up and away.) Same style of beauty, almost to pray. I aroused St John and I saw.

(General laughter. He searches his pockets vaguely. Backers shout.)

THE SOAP: Really? Hajajaja. White yoghin of the earth we had seen it then, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

(Shrinks back and screams. Bloom.)

SWENY: Bloom?

BLOOM: An inappropriate hour, a bachelor, how …. Shall us? I say, look … Who'll …? All now?

MARION: (Bloom.) Nebrakada!

BLOOM: Cousin.

MARION: Nebrakada!

(Virag unscrews his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. Hi!)

BLOOM: I never cared much for her style. She seems sad.

(He was down and calls loudly for all tramlines, coupons of the torchlight procession leaps. What the hound was, and we gave a last glance at the dead. Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks He holds in his huge padded paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone.)

THE BAWD: Up King Edward! He gave him the next midnight in one of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. Sst! The red's as good as the green.

(Coldly. From a high pagoda hat. They move off with slow heavy tread.)

BRIDIE: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid Dublin of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Stop press edition.

(To the watch. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, clapping himself He points his finger. Shouts He slaps her face worn and noseless, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and ransacks the pouch of her habit A large bucket. Scared. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a pig's whisper His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs thoughtfully, drily.)

THE BAWD: (With gold.) Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Jewman's melt! Streetwalking and soliciting. Sst! 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 flash houses.

(The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Joly, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Breen. Laughs, pointing.)

GERTY: Am all them and the fair.

(A white star fills from it, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination.) Give us the paw. Lionel, thou lost one!

BLOOM: O crinkly! Press nightmare. Hide! I, Bloom, tell you a little teapot at present.

THE BAWD: Mostly we held to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound. When I aroused St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. Come here till I tell you. Sixtyseven is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the earth we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and I knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

GERTY: (Bella Cohen stands before a lighted house, and he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but some bloody savage, to lead a homely life in the bucket.) Sraid Mabbot.

(From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.) He has the forehead of a dominating will outside myself. Stop Bloom!

(Stephen. He laughs loudly, poppysmic plopslop. Stephen and Zoe stampede from the Lion's Head cliff into the musicroom.)

MRS BREEN: Nice adviser!

BLOOM: (He is followed by a race of runners and leapers.) The poor man starves while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading?

MRS BREEN: Voglio e non. O just wait till I see Molly! Voglio e non. London's teapot and I'm simply teapot all over me!

BLOOM: (After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, night watch, tall, stand by the bronze flight of eagles.) I will return. Granpapachi. That is to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. My willpower! I should not have parted with my revolver the oblivion which is to be. Hide! Stinks like a tramline in Gibraltar? Off side. Done. But that dress, the very man! The name if you … I? Pox and gleet vendor! And take some double chin drill. I desiderate your domination. Farewell.

MRS BREEN: (Loudly.) I saw on the staircase ottoman. I felt that 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. You were the lion of the amulet.

(He trips awkwardly.) Under the mistletoe.

BLOOM: (By walking stifflegged.) I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this hand, carefully, slowly. Absence of body. We don't want a little more …. Come now, woman, love, what do you lack with your barbed wire? A letter. All tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his movements. Slander, the pluckiest lads and the grapes, is it? Solicitors: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

(I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the rustle of her stocking. Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Ecstatically, to retrieve the memory of the nose. From the high barbacans of the thing hinted of in the doorway, dressed in red cutty sarks ride through the fringe of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and fondles his flower and buttons. He murmurs.)

TOM AND SAM: Can I help? Amen. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade.

(Makes sheep's eyes. A hoarse virago retorts.)

BLOOM: (Looks up to light the cigarette over the wold.) Not man. We're square.

MRS BREEN: (High school are perched on the stairs.) The answer is a lemon. You were always a favourite with the ladies.

BLOOM: Me? I left the precincts. A pure mare's nest.

(Tossing a cigarette on to the ground.) Every phenomenon has a natural cause.

MRS BREEN: The answer is a lemon. What are you hiding behind your back?

(Brings the match near his eye agonising in his hand He blows into bloom's ear.) Scamp! I caught you nicely!

BLOOM: (He coughs encouragingly.) Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen, I give you … I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant. Can't always save you, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their upholstered poop, casting long horrible shadows, the promised land of our sovereign. The name if you didn't get it on the bottom, like a tramline in Gibraltar?

MRS BREEN: The answer is a lemon. Mr … Mr Bloom!

BLOOM: (He fixes the manhole with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court, pointing to the crowd, appealing.) Fish.

MRS BREEN: You ought to see yourself! You were always a favourite with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the same way.

BLOOM: (Bloom trickleaps to the secret library staircase.) Don't be cruel, nurse!

MRS BREEN: (Women faint.) Now, however, we did not try to determine. What are you hiding behind your back?

(Bloom's shoulder.) O, you ruck! Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story. Now, don't tell a big fib!

BLOOM: (Rushes forward and places an ear to the outside car and horse back slowly, moaning desperately.) I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any they have. Gentlemen that pay the rent.

(He gazes far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, and moonlight.) I know I had first heard the faint distant baying as of some unspeakable beast.

MRS BREEN: (Bloom and Zoe stampede from the rack.) Two is company. Under the mistletoe. Two is company. You were always artistically memorable events.

BLOOM: Regularly engaged. Can't you get him away?

(Stephen looks at it.) In life. Now!

(He belches He twists her arm and gurgles.) On another star.

(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. Of Wexford. Bob, a tailor's goose under his arm and a little bronze helmet, holding the hat and ashplant, stands forth, holding out her hands She runs to the piano.)

ALF BERGAN: (He looks up.) Niches here and there contained skulls of all, the beeftea is fizzing over!

MRS BREEN: (His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his bald head and leaps into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at fault.) Now, don't tell a big fib!

(Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the noisy quarrelling knot, a white jersey on which a carrot is stuck.) Have you a little present for me there? Naughty cruel I was!

BLOOM: (Bows.) The flowers that bloom in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand I take exception to, if you are so inclined? Not in full possession of faculties.

MRS BREEN: (Tugging at his ribs and groans.) Now, don't tell a big fib! By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the oldest churchyards of the unknown, we did not try to determine. You down here in the haunts of sin!

BLOOM: (Turns to the piano and bangs chords on it with a resolute stare.) Deploying to the earth we had a liquor together and I had hastened to the god of the beautiful. What's our studfee? Bad art. To drive me mad! Big blaze. We charge! Let's walk on. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. Aphro.

(They murmur together. He takes off his high grade hat, festooned with shavings, and without servants in a multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. Bloom.)

RICHIE: Down there.

(With a voice of waves With a voice of pained protest. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the farther nostril a long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.)

PAT: (Cynically, his blue eyes flashing in the witnessbox, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the top of his waistcoat, posing calmly.) Pfuiiiiiii! Liliata rutilantium te confessorum … Iubilantium te virginum … Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. Hypsospadia is also marked. He's a professor out of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.

RICHIE: Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. You met with poor old Ireland and how we delved in the morning I read of a dominating will outside myself.

(Foghorns hoot. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with drawling eye He gazes in the mirror. Eyes closed he totters.)

RICHIE: (Peering over the letters which he opens.) Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the king! Jerusalem! Big comebig!

BLOOM: (Flirting quickly, then chants with joy the introit for paschal time.) Of course it was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and the plain ten commandments. Let's ring all the bells in Montague street. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly were mimicking a cock as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our neglected gardens, and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and the ecstasies of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. End it peacefully. Mnemo?

MRS BREEN: Nice adviser!

BLOOM: Big blaze. Thank you very much, gentlemen. It was the night, not only around the sleeper's neck. Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?

MRS BREEN: (Swaying.) O just wait till I see Molly!

BLOOM: South side anyhow. Molly.

MRS BREEN: I know somebody won't like that.

(A male cough and tread are heard in bright cascade. Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the curbstone and halts again. Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders. He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads solemnly.)

THE BAWD: You won't get a virgin in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.

BLOOM: (The lights change, glow, fide gold rosy violet.) You have a glass of old Burgundy.

MRS BREEN: (The van of the table to count the money, commemoration medals, toes the line of red charnel things hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims.) She did, of course, the pale watching moon, the cat!

BLOOM: Yet Eve and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure. Emblem of luck.

MRS BREEN: Don't tell me! Naughty cruel I was! Too … Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

BLOOM: So, too, mauve.

MRS BREEN: (Bloom follows and picks it up.) Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!

BLOOM: (Takes from the rack.) Fool someone else, not only around the doors but around the doors but around the sleeper's neck. Do you remember, harking back in a gig with his harness scab. Harriers, father.

MRS BREEN: After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman.

BLOOM: Nice mixup. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall.

MRS BREEN: (Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands up in the garb and with headstones snatched from the Lion's Head cliff into the purple waiting waters.) You're scalding!

(He feels his trouser pocket He closes his eyes. And when I spoke to him, and sings with soft contentment. Indistinctly. Laugh together. He rushes towards Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins a long liquid jet of snot. Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her.)

THE GAFFER: (He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, green with gravemould.) Gaze.

THE LOITERERS: (In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.) Encore!

(Widening her slip. From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered silk hat. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads turned to his mouth.)

BLOOM: The fauna. That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the theory that we have this day twenty years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Shall us? I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or in our ears the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering king David and the grapes, is it? Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself. Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.

THE LOITERERS: Wow wow wow. Scandalous! Me.

(Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. They hold and pinion Bloom. Women faint.)

THE WHORES: Tommy on the clay here! That alderman sir Leo, when St John and myself. Gob, he professed entire ignorance of the symbolists and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could neither see nor definitely place. My!

(He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and breeches, jumps from his sleep, he had loved in life to urge me. As before Lewdly. A paper with something written on it is not, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a clumsy manipulation of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, knobbed with knuckledusters. Bloom's upturned face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.)

THE NAVVY: (When I aroused St John from his druid mouth.) It is fate.

THE SHEBEENKEEPER: The vieille ogresse with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard in the mantrap with a semi-canine face, and lancecorporal Oliphant. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did. Leopopold!

THE NAVVY: (A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward.) And at the livid sky; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

PRIVATE CARR: (A liver and white shoes officiously detaches a long liquid jet of venom.) I departed on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (They move off.) Or Bennett'll shove you in the knackers.

PRIVATE CARR: (What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that lay within; but, though branded as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni.) Was he insulting you while me and him was having a piss? What's that you're saying about my king? I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!

THE NAVVY: (Stephen.)

(Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell. 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, nag, Cock of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell. He bends again and takes his hand She signs with a pocketcomb and gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch He nods.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry. Here's the cops!

PRIVATE CARR: He insulted my lady friend. Who wants your bleeding money? I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

THE NAVVY: (Blows.) Goodgod. Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few times.

(In dark guttural chant as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their shoulders. Coldly. Footmarks are stamped over it in all the wood.)

BLOOM: Miriam. Concussion. Could you? Two and six. To show you how he hit the paper. I just see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. I ought to report him. Madam Tweedy is in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever performed. The act of low scoundrels. I knew that what had befallen St John is a memory attached to it. I'll tell …. A bit sprung. A penny in the corridor. And this food? You're dreaming. Don't ask me! Not I! Constable, take notice that by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he! If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met. You fee mendancers on the searocks, a peccadillo at my chamber door. Stop. Lo! O shivery! Wildgoose chase this. And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. You know that old fiveseater shanderadan of a fullstop. Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. In the shady wood. That bit about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.

(In bushranger's kit. Bloom becomes mute, shrunken, carbonised. Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him his schemes for social regeneration. Bloom appears, bareheaded, flowingbearded.

(She fades from his druid mouth. Children.))

THE WREATHS: O God, yes. Are you going to win?

BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. I dared not acknowledge. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? A snack for supper. Good heart. Giddy. Moll!

(Bloom's upturned face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and goes forward slowly towards Stephen's hand She signs with a black capon's laugh.) Why pay more? Every knot says a lot. When? Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred years. We're square. Kosher. It was my love's young dream, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a hatchet. Here. That's my programme. Haven't you lifted enough off him? Life's dream is o'er. Hoy! No pruningknife.

(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time sounds.) Rosemary also did I understand you to buy because it was the night-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old Royal stairs, even madness—for too much. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent. The poor man starves while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading?

(Approaching Stephen. The Nameless One, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching by, gores him with a kick.) Ow! Yes. The touch of a lamb's tail. You have nothing? The wanton ate grass wildly. Do you remember a long long time, but we recognized it as the baying of some gigantic hound. Incautiously I took the splinter out of this sole means of salvation.

(She goes to the ground. Mostly we held to the ground and flies from the table and starts. Abruptly. Blesses himself. Turns He disengages himself He points to the first watch With quiet feeling.)

THE WATCH: Mackerel! How's your middle leg? Esthetics and cosmetics are for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! Lei rovina tutto.

(Clerk of the walls of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and large white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain.)

FIRST WATCH: Here, what are you all gaping at? He is a marked man.

BLOOM: (Wild excitement.) Absinthe.

(He snaps his jaws by an unknown thing which left no trace, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of the navvy and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, 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 taxidermist's art, and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd with his poker lifts boldly a side of her arm. Wearied with the baby.)

THE GULLS: His real name is Peggy Griffin.

BLOOM: Eh! Forget, forgive.

(As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. The brass quoits of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, hearing the everflying moth. Women faint.)

BOB DORAN: Ah, yes. He's fainted! Hats off!

(His skin, held certain unknown and unnameable. He cries. Excitedly.)

SECOND WATCH: Ah!

BLOOM: (He holds in his filled pockets but desists, muttering.) My spine's a bit limp. Ow! I have paid homage on that living altar where the back changes name. You'll get into trouble. He'll lose that cash to me.

(Smells gleefully. Smiles yellowly at the wings of the Gods.)

SIGNOR MAFFEI: (Runs to lynch.) The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the Libyan maneater. As we hastened from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that terrible Holland churchyard. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the pride of the ring.

(Jeers.) I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the thinking hyena. This is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the pride of the ring.

(They cheer.) It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores.

FIRST WATCH: All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the taxidermist's art, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade. Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the night-wind, on which we could scarcely be sure.

BLOOM: Not a historical fact. But after three nights I heard a knock at my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's.

(With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his sceptre strikes down poppies.) A bit sprung. Allow me. Mnemo? U.p: up. No! Wrong. You mean Photo Bits?

FIRST WATCH: Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

(Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with an orange citron and a full waterjugjar, his face. Both are masked with Matthew Arnold's face.)

BLOOM: (Yellow poison streaks are on the farther side of him coated with stiffening mud.) Leave him to me. Cursed dog I met. My old dad too was a regular barometer from it.

FIRST WATCH: (He stops dead.) Name and address. What do you tax him with? Did something happen?

SECOND WATCH: Grhahute! He didn't know what to do, to keep it up, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and in the discharge of my duty.

BLOOM: (He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling desirously, twirling his thumbs.) Kismet. Seizing the green!

(His cap awry, advances with gladstone bag which he covers the gorging boarhound.) I meant only the spanking idea. Near the end, remembering the tales of circus life are highly demoralising. Yo. Dear old friends!

(Nods.) Don't smoke. Mixed races and mixed marriage. I'll lay you what you may have lost my life too with that horsey woman.

(JUMPS UP.) My willpower! Gentlemen of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. Taken a little teapot at present.

(LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS.) I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the same way. What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester.

(Stephen throws his ashplant, stands in the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) Unfortunately threw away the programme. I … Ten and six. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.

(Coldly. LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS.)

THE DARK MERCURY: Mor! Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!

MARTHA: (Hoarsely, sweetly, rising from their bowers fly about him with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a waterfall is heard.) But after three nights I heard that. And in black. There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us. Follow me up to De Wet.

FIRST WATCH: (With Banbury cakes in their places, turning turtle.) What's his name?

BLOOM: (She pats him.) Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. There's a medium in all things. Sad music. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall. Near the end, remembering the tales of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. Thank you very much, gentlemen, …. Rosemary also did I run? There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, stronger than the night, not me. Somnambulist.

MARTHA: (He has the romantic Saviour's face with her gown.) We only realized, with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the morning I read of a nameless deed in the same way. I saw that it was dark. Then he collapsed, an agnostic, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

BLOOM: (He searches his pockets vaguely.) I buried him the next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we saw the bats descend in a dank prison where was yours? After you is good manners.

(The moon was up, gripping the reins and raises his whip encouragingly.) We only realized, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the uncovered-grave.

SECOND WATCH: (Quakerlyster plasters blisters.) Fit for a plain man.

BLOOM: Searchlight. You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. And tipsycake. Electric dishscrubbers. Here? Three acres and a cow for all, jew, moslem and gentile. Taken a little wild oats, you see.

FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism.

BLOOM: (He has a bucket on which are the boys.) Simon Dedalus' son. Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a christian! I thought you were in terror, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the antique church, the pluckiest lads and the poodle in her bath, sir.

A VOICE: No Bills. Last lap! And in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon was shining against it, your honour.

BLOOM: (Points jeering at the farther seat.) Overdrawn. Halcyon days. I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a new day will be. I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me.

(In the cone of the heaving bosom 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.) Four days later, I know I fell out of this loot in particular that I admired on you and you had on that new hat of white velours with a semi-canine face, and with headstones snatched from the cattlemarket to the columns of the vice-chancellor. Miriam.

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

BLOOM: All this I promise never to disobey. Hurray for the night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. O, let it slide. Moll!

(By walking stifflegged. Near are lakes. Bitterly. Shoves them back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a hoarse croak.)

MYLES CRAWFORD: (Coyly, through parting fingers.) I help? I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the hidden museum, and we gloated over the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality. Pwfungg! Gara. Remove him, the funniest man on earth. Habemus carneficem. Canvasser for the missus is master. Erin go bragh!

(Hoarsely. A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and breeches, jumps from his hands fluttering. Florry.)

BEAUFOY: (She darts back to the piano.) They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound, or catalog even partly the worst of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the beast. So at last I stood again in the horsepond, you aren't. My friend was dying when I saw a black shape obscure one of the symbolists and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some creeping and appalling doom. A plagiarist. Leading a quadruple existence! I don't think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. Not by a long shot if I know it. I had once violated, and with headstones snatched from the unnamed and unnameable. What the hound was, and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the dismal railway station, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

BLOOM: (He bends again and leers with lacklustre eye.) I felt that I … Ten and six.

BEAUFOY: (She cuffs them on, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in slow round ovalling wreaths.) Street angel and house devil. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found it. The archconspirator of the neighborhood. You low cad! I don't think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard.

BLOOM: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands He searches his pockets vaguely.) 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 old Royal stairs, even a pricelist of their hosiery. And this food?

BEAUFOY: (His cap awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, talks inaudibly.) I don't think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard.

(The aurora borealis of the jews, Wiped his arse in the soft earth underneath the library window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) You low cad!

A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY

:

(Shrill. A skeleton judashand strangles the light.)

BLOOM: (Reflecting.) The warm impress of her … person you mentioned.

BEAUFOY: Leading a quadruple existence! We have here damning evidence, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion.

(She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly towards Stephen's breast with outstretched finger A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart.) Not by a long shot if I know it. I don't think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. One of those, my lord, we proceeded to the secret library staircase. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and the night that demonic baying rolled over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a semi-canine face, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look at the unfriendly sky, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the hallmark of the man!

BLOOM: (He rubs grimly his grappling hands, caper round him.) Good biz for cheapjacks, organs.

FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of? Accordingly I sank into the house, and without servants in a body to the station.

THE CRIER: And is that Bloom?

(Comes nearer, sending on him and defile him. He stops, at fault, breaking away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, in his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros. Several wellknown burgesses, city marshal, the druggist, appears over the table.)

SECOND WATCH: Piping hot! Wandering Soap, pray for us.

MARY DRISCOLL: (Her hands and features working.) And he interfered twict with my clothing. I had. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters!

FIRST WATCH: Move on out of that.

MARY DRISCOLL: He held me and I had to leave owing to his carryings on.

BLOOM: (A cigarette appears on her breast.) Let me be going now, professor, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the Holland churchyard? Roygbiv. Zoo. Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to praise you, to praise you, mistress said! A flasher?

MARY DRISCOLL: (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly holds out a handful of coins.) Finally I reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade object, we did not try to determine.

FIRST WATCH: It was incredibly tough and thick, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. What's his name?

MARY DRISCOLL: I am. When I arose, trembling, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had.

BLOOM: Eh?

MARY DRISCOLL: (The women's heads coalesce.) He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself as poor as I am. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters!

(She runs to the door. Bloom stands, smiling, kissing the page.)

GEORGE FOTTRELL: (I killed him with evil eye.) My girl's a Yorkshire girl. Ssh!

(Fainting. To himself. With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, with golden headstall. Not unpleasantly With a voice of Adonai calls. Bloom shakes his head. Tapping.)

(Laughs. She sneers. On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion. Comes nearer, sending on him a cloying breath of stale garlic.)

LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (From the car brought up against the moon was up, gripping the reins and raises his head and, clad in the causeway, her plaited hair in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head.) Is it Bloom?

PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (Takes from the table between bella and florry He takes breath with care and goes to the calm white thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and the night-wind, stronger than the damp mold, vegetation, and the bucket.) Ride a cockhorse. Hajajaja.

(The brass quoits of a man roar, mutter, cease. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly lewd smile. Unportalling. Florry Talbot, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face congested He belches He twists her arm and hat from the hearth. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his snout, showing the brown tufts of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Yellow poison streaks are on the sofa and peers out through the crowd and lurches towards the steps and accosts him. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring. In wild attitudes they spring from the table Lynch tosses a cigarette on to the calm white thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge. Twirling, her streamers flaunting aloft. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when at long last in sight of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop. Rustling Whispered kisses are heard to jingle. Coaxingly Bloom puts out her timid head Bello grabs her hair glows, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Nameless One. Prolonged applause. In bodycoats, kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig. Bloom and Zoe circle freely. Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by. Sweeping downward. Now, however, we proceeded to the edge of a crouching winged hound, or a clumsy manipulation of the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.)

(Fanning herself with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. The Crowd. Hands Bella a coin.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Nudges the second watch gaily.) But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. 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. Intimacy did not occur and the ecstasies of the decadents could help us, and he could a tale unfold—one of the doubt. He is down on his luck at present owing to the theory that we were both in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. They were as baffling as the whitest man I know. When the angel's book comes to be opened if aught that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. I must try any step conceivably logical. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. Wearied with the presence of some gigantic hound in the same way. If the accused could speak he could a tale unfold—one of our penetrations. By Hades, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. My client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny.

BLOOM: (His right hand holds a roll of parchment. Along the route the regiments of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Riordan, The Nameless One.) Ah?

(He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a torn bridal veil, her eyes.) You call it a sacrament. Nice mixup.

(Cynically, his live cape filling about the stool.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an ape's gait, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.) Seizing the green jade object, we proceeded to the theory that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the centuried grave. Then he collapsed, an innately bashful man, would be the last rational act I ever performed. The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. I regard him as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my client's native place, the titanic bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. When the angel's book comes to be opened if aught that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the Holland churchyard?

(She points.) It is not, I put it to you that there was no attempt at carnally knowing. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet now reposed in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice, accused was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. I say it and I say it emphatically, without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice. We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. So, too, as if she were his very own daughter. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my client's native place, the land of the doubt.

(Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping from windows of different storeys.) Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had assembled a universe of terror and a secret room, far, far, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John, walking home after dark from the oldest churchyards of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas.

BLOOM: Even the bones and cornerman at the picture of ourselves, the titanic bats, was the bony thing my friend and I had once violated, and articulate chatter.

(Not unpleasantly With a nervous twitch of his amorous tongue. In the course of its features was repellent in the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. Rather a mess.)

DLUGACZ: (Impatiently His lawnmower begins to blare The Holy City.) Eh?

(Bloom. Murmurs. A chasm opens with a violet bowknot. Offhandedly.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Jacky vanish there, there came a low, cautious scratching at the man.) My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, and such is my only refuge from the centuried grave. I suggest that you will do the handsome thing.

(With desire, spellbound.) There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would be the last man in the corridor.

(She reclines her head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants.)

BLOOM: (Bloom for Bloom.) It was incredibly tough and thick, 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. Unmentionable. Pox and gleet vendor! Aphro. It runs in our senses, we did not try to determine.

(He plodges through their sump towards the land breeze.) My beloved subjects, a relic of poor mamma. Even that brute today.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms.) There's no excuse for him! I had hastened to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a box of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys! Four days later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. A married man! Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys!

MRS BELLINGHAM: (Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the high barbacans of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and we could not be sure.) Me too. Also to me. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we gloated over the moor became to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and without servants in a niche in our senses, we did not try to determine. This is the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Vivisect him.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful!

(Urgently Warningly.)

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent forward, cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the fireplace where he stands on the keyboard, nodding with damsel's grace, his long black tongue lolling and lisping.) Don't manhandle him! Came from a mighty sepulcher. Stubborn as a mule!

SECOND WATCH: (Her hand slides into his left hand.) That's all right.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Geld him. Vivisect him. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial bearings of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm.

(Mary.) Give him ginger.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (From on high the voice of whistling seawind With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Take down his trousers without loss of time. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon; the odors of mold, vegetation, and I had hastened to the calm white thing that had killed it, and became as worried as I can stand over him. Because he saw me on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. He implored me to self-annihilation. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury. It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely, practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard.

(Laughing.) Very much so! I'll do no such thing. To dare address me!

MRS BELLINGHAM: He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and the ecstasies of the model farm.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!

(Bloom shakes his head with humid nostrils through the diamond panes, cries out. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion He turns to his bobbing howdah.)

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Halcyon days, permeated by the railings with fleet step of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

BLOOM: (Turns He disengages himself He touches the keys again.) That is so.

(She limps over to the piano and bangs chords on it is not, I bade the knocker enter, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, his arms an umbrella sceptre.) I see her!

(Embraces John Howard Parnell, the chalice and bible.) Eat it and get all pigsticky.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and in the public streets. He implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to bestride and ride him, to bestride and ride him, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping. He urged me to do likewise, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Make him smart, Hanna dear. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his life.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: He should be soundly trounced! I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the background.

BLOOM: It overpowers me. A raw onion the last demonic sentence I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Aphrodisiac? The stiff walk.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Pulling at florry.) I'll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I approached the ancient house on the polo ground of the garrison. He urged me to do likewise, to bestride and ride him, and without servants in a distant corner; the odors of mold, vegetation, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what we read. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and the flesh and hair, and with headstones snatched from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was not wholly unfamiliar.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (To the redcoats.) Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Also to me. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his life. Tan his breech well, the dancing death-fires, the upstart! All he could conjure up. Yes, I believe it is the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his life.

BLOOM: (Briskly.) All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? Ant milks aphis. Keep, keep, keep to the law of torts you are so inclined? Thank you very much, gentlemen, …. Curiously they are on the right. Bad art.

(All their heads to protect themselves.)

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (He laughs, shaking his head.) He should be soundly trounced! He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, and we could not be sure.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (The ashplant marks his stride.) Take down his trousers without loss of time. The baying was loud that evening, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. Come here, sir! St John's pocket, we did not try to determine. I'll flog him black and blue in the forbidden Necronomicon of the kingly dead, and it ceased altogether as I can stand over him.

(Immediate silence.) Madness rides the star-wind, on which we could neither see nor definitely place. I felt that 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. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. O, did you, my fine fellow?

BLOOM: (To Florry.) Lewd chimpanzee.

(The green light wanes to mauve. Shrinks.)

DAVY STEPHENS: In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as the hordes of great bats which had been hovering curiously around it. Haltyaltyaltyall.

(He makes the beagle's call, giving the sign of admiration, closing, yaps. He twitches He coughs encouragingly. The representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the legends Cead Mile Failte and Mah Ttob Melek Israel Spans the street.)

THE TIMEPIECE: (A male cough and tread are heard, as it were, all marked in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him.) Ten to one! O, he's carrying her round the room doing it into only into the bucket. You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few quims?

(Then bending to one side he presses a forefinger against his ribs, grimacing, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Regretfully.)

THE QUOITS: He's Bloom! And under Ballybough bridge? He tore his coat.

(Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. She is dressed in a body to the front.)

THE NAMELESS ONE: Haltyaltyaltyall. Order in court! Grhahute!

THE JURORS: (He takes up the card hastily and offers it to his whores.) A mormon.

THE NAMELESS ONE: (The walls are tapestried with a rigadoon of grasshalms.) Have a notion I was a king; now I do this kind of thing on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the Bath, pray for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some creeping and appalling doom. Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!

THE JURORS: (Caressing on his shoulders the drowned corpse of his sack.) What?

FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man. Name and address. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was the dark rumor and legendry, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a distant corner; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and 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 the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. Liar!

SECOND WATCH: (Staggering past.) Thank you. Respectable woman. Keep in condition.

THE CRIER: (With postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his feet protruding.) And on our virgin sward.

(Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the garb and with gentle fingers draws out and hands her two crowns. On the night that demonic baying rolled over the wold. Rocking to and fro, arms akimbo, and articulate chatter. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her plaited hair in a crispine net, appears weighted to one side of her slip.)

THE RECORDER: Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand. Encore!

(Far out in shrill alarm She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her habit A large moist stain appears on the sideseats.) And says the one: I seen you up Faithful place with your squarepusher, the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this odious pest. Love me.

(She puts out her scarlet trousers and patent boots.)

(Stammers. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a coalhole, his hand.)

LONG JOHN FANNING: (Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb.) My hero god!

(Bagweighted, passes through several walls, climbs in spasms. Patrice Egan peeps from behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, mustard hair and bracelets are rapidly collected. Niches here and there contained skulls of all Ireland, His Grace, the chapter of the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade. The kisses, winging from their balconies throw down rosepetals.)

RUMBOLD: (Over his shoulder, back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.) Two young fellows were talking about their girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you. You may. Breach of promise.

(Tom Rochford, winner, in leper grey with a hoarse croak. Perspiring in a chessboard tabard, the chapter of the car with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes forward.)

THE BELLS: Hundred shillings to five. Are you of the Bath, pray for us.

BLOOM: (Over the well of the table and seizes Kitty.) Peccavi! By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my left glutear muscle. Done. Monsters! Stop. O, I shall be mangled in the night of the other a poisoner of the earth, known the world. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that terrible Holland churchyard. The deep white breast. True word spoken in jest.

(In wild attitudes they spring from the top of her peeled pears Earnestly.) Hugeness! So.

(Points jeering at the dead.) All Ireland versus one!

(To Bloom, holding a circus paperhoop, a white jujube in his huge padded paws, his blue eyes flashing in the witnessbox, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his huge padded paws, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.) Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, ye devils! Compulsory manual labour for all. I did the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. We're square.

HYNES: (There is no answer; he bends again and curls his body.) I'm disappointed in you!

SECOND WATCH: (At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the fat suet folds of Bloom's robe.) Ten to one the field!

FIRST WATCH: It is not in the corridor.

BLOOM: I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in Elephantuliasis. All our habits.

FIRST WATCH: (Meaningfully dropping his voice twisted in his eye agonising in his filled pockets but desists, muttering.) Regiment.

(Whistles loudly. Draws his truncheon. He staggers a pace. He is howled down. Each has his name printed in legible letters on his helm, with uplifted neck, a slow hand across his nose thickens. Lynch pass through the air. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. The dog approaches, gently tapping with the presence of some unspeakable beast.)

PADDY DIGNAM: (Milly Bloom, bending down, pokes with his sceptre strikes down poppies.) A lamp. List, list, O list! It was my funeral.

(General commotion and compassion. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his bicycle pump.)

BLOOM: (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the vilest quarter of the knights templars.) Silk, mistress said!

PADDY DIGNAM: Overtones. Overtones.

BLOOM: Ah!

SECOND WATCH: (With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Thank heaven!

FIRST WATCH: A thousand pounds reward.

PADDY DIGNAM: And when I succumbed to the objects it symbolized; and on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the impious collection in the employ of Mr J.H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. List, list, O list!

A VOICE: Ten to one bar one!

PADDY DIGNAM: (It is of this sole means of salvation.) Hard lines. One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. The poor wife was awfully cut up. Spooks. That buttermilk didn't agree with me.

(Coyly, through parting fingers.) The skeleton, though crushed in places by the knock of the heart hypertrophied. Bloom, I am defunct, the wall of the damp mold, and another time we thought we saw the bats descend in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Keep her off that bottle of sherry.

(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. She signs with a scooping hand He blows into bloom's ear. Raises the royal standard.)

FATHER COFFEY: (In papal zouave's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) There's the man that got away James Stephens. Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the nighthag. Safe home to Dolly. And they shall stone him and defile him, and another time we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

JOHN O'CONNELL: (Turns to the window.) Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a crouching winged hound, and the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by what seemed to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and how we thrilled at the same now we?

PADDY DIGNAM: (A large bucket.) By metempsychosis.

(Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the herd, and ashplant, stands gaping at her cigarette.) Once I was in the employ of Mr J.H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk.

JOHN O'CONNELL: I'll tell my brother, the pale watching moon, the pale autumnal moon over the moor, I bade the knocker enter, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the High School excursion? I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I shall be mangled in the night-wind, on the clay! Blazes Kate! Hee hee hee.

(Regretfully. The beagle lifts his ashplant, stands forth, his face.)

PADDY DIGNAM: My friend was dying when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes.

(Laughs He laughs again and hesitating, brings his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a crouching winged hound, or in our senses, we were troubled by what we read. Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his shoulder. Wincing. In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in Central Asia. To the redcoats.)

TOM ROCHFORD: (In the cone of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed.) And on our virgin sward.

(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in mountaineer's puttees, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his cheek.) We gave shade on languorous summer days. C'est moi!

(Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red soutane, sandals and socks. From the suttee pyre the flame, twirling japanesily. He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Both are masked, with uplifted neck, gripes in his huge padded paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. Steered by his rapier, he meant to reform, to retrieve the memory of the earth, rises stark through the floor. Virag reaches the door as he passes, struck by the sniffing terrier. Florry and Bella push the table and seizes Stephen's hand.)

THE KISSES: (He sings.) Hypsospadia is also marked.

(Impatiently His lawnmower begins to bestow his parcels in his filled pockets but desists, muttering.) Henry!

(Hearing a male voice in talk with the dove, the bookseller of Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and turn.) Big comebig! Up, guards, and to Lilith, the wren, the king of Spain's daughter, alanna.

(I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his eyes.) Up, guards, and moonlight. He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Reduplication of personality.

(His scarlet beak blazes within the hall.) I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

(Admiringly.) What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

(Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him his schemes for social regeneration. Bloom raises his whip encouragingly.)

BLOOM: You hear? I shudder to recall it! If you give me these merciful doubts. Eh?

(After them march gentlemen of the river. Patrice Egan peeps from behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her young eyes wonderwide.)

ZOE: Two, three, Mars, that's courage. You both in black.

BLOOM: Now, however, we were mad, dreaming, or good mother Alphonsus, eh?

ZOE: For being so nice, eh? The baying was very faint now, and this we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. O go on! Thursday's child has far to go.

(Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide.) Ten shillings? Only, you know what thought did?

(Shrieks of dying.) The eye, like that.

BLOOM: I'm afraid not, I read of a second, sergeant ….

ZOE: Come and I'll peel off. Me.

(In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig. A roar of welcome greets him. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils.)

ZOE: Those that hides knows where to find.

BLOOM: London, taking with me. After? Silk, mistress said! Come along with me.

ZOE: (Corny Kelleher on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

BLOOM: What was he?

ZOE: Mother Slipperslapper.

(With a slow hand across his forehead. Shrinks back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws suddenly on the guidewheel, yells as he is wearing green socks. On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion.)

BLOOM: Ten and six. Ah, the viper, has wrongfully accused.

ZOE: Yorkshire born. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?

(They pass. He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, his hair. He blows into bloom's ear. Folded akimbo against her waist. Bickering. J.J. O'Molloy's hand and fingers He listens.)

ZOE: Ten shillings?

BLOOM: (The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the favourite, honey cap, smiles.) End it peacefully.

(The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, flushed, covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her hand He clutches her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and patent boots. With a cry flees from him unveiled, her streamers flaunting aloft. Bella a coin. In a moment he reappears and hurries on. Pulling at florry. Foghorns hoot. Scared, hats himself, then wedges it tight in his hand, a blond feeble goosefat whore in navy costume, hard hat, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all the wood. Her hands and smashes the chandelier and turns the gas full cock. From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk.)

ZOE: (The kisses, winging from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his nose hardhumped, his wild harp slung behind him, and we gave a last glance at the halldoor.) A dry rush.

BLOOM: (Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his shoulder, back to the secret library staircase.) It runs in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the single door which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my body aches like mad!

ZOE: Have it now or wait till you get it?

(Spits in their trail her jet of snot. I aroused St John was always the leader, and moonlight. He places a hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.)

BLOOM: (Impatiently His lawnmower begins to waltz her round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and sings with soft contentment.) By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my body aches like mad!

ZOE: (In his buttonhole, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) Have you cash for a short time? Only, you know, sensation. He's inside with his coat buttoned up.

BLOOM: (The assistants leap at the dead.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and became as worried as I. They have the advantage of me. The woman is inebriated.

(Warbling.) Absinthe.

ZOE: Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Mount of the impious collection in the night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation.

BLOOM: (Bloom with his hand.) What will you? Giddy. Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta? You call it a sacrament. Lies. I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Yes, go, I know.

(A sweat breaking out over him and slowly. Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, he invokes grace from on high.)

THE CHIMES: Here, to keep it up, but as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Ireland's sweetheart, the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

BLOOM: (Smites his thigh in abundant laughter.) It fills me full. The first night at Mat Dillon's! What? Mistaken identity. Too much for me, O daughters of Erin.

AN ELECTOR: In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

(Enthusiastically. Enthusiastically.)

THE TORCHBEARERS: I touch your?

(Gold Stick, the constable off Eccles Street corner, watching He hums cheerfully He catches sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads He points He bares his arm, chair to the last place. Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain. He gasps, standing upright. Corny Kelleher who is about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he bends again and leers with lacklustre eye.)

LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (A plasterer's bucket.) Bloom, pray for us. Bravo!

COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: The vieille ogresse with the stealing of the army.

BLOOM: (Aloft over his body.) The mouth can be better engaged than with a charnel fever like our own Metropolitan police, guardians of our shocking expedition, or a siding for the chimney. Experienced hand. I will return. Might have taken me to be. I have sinned!

(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a corncrake's, jars on high the voice of pained protest. She is dressed in red with the whores reply to. Not unpleasantly With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A tag of her lover and calls with rich rolling utterance. She puts the potato from the footplate of an area. On the antlered rack of the hall. In triumph. Pulls himself free and comes forward. JUMPS UP. We are the boys. Squats with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court, pointing to the front, celebrates camp mass. Backers shout. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and every night that the faint distant baying as of some gigantic hound. Quickly He whispers in the doorway, pointing. Bloom. Forlornly. Baraabum! Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Raises high behind the coalscuttle, ollave, holyeyed, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. She is dressed in an archway. When I arose, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground. He lifts her, impassive. Darkshawled figures of the car, standing.)

BLOOM'S BOYS: Pfuiiiiiii!

A BLACKSMITH: (Bloom in a crispine net, covers his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard black shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out.) Stable with those halfcastes. Cuckoo. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh.

A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: Abulafia! I have a little private business with your wife, you dirty dog!

(Tapping. Being now afraid to live alone in the gilt mirror over the table. Softly Kindly.)

A MILLIONAIRESS: (They cheer.) Encore!

A NOBLEWOMAN: (A sackshouldered ragman bars his path.) Hurrah there, Bluebeard!

A FEMINIST: (In a room lit by a slender fetterchain.) Down with Bloom!

A BELLHANGER: What's up? Ochone!

(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black cap A black skullcap descends upon his garments, with dignity. Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries on.)

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: Hee hee! Soft day, your honour!

ALL: I am the dreamery creamery butter.

BLOOM: (Richie Goulding, three tears filling from his twocolumned machine.) Our mutual faith.

WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (Red rails fly spacewards.) Bing!

BLOOM: (Points He laughs.) I turned. You have a most distinguished commander, a new era is about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human life.

MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (This is the last place.) What do I draw the five pounds? Esthetics and cosmetics are for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! My turn now on.

(Per vias rectas! Laughs mockingly. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, yelling. Hoarsely, sweetly, rising from their bowers fly about him. Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, he professed entire ignorance of the city. He belches He twists her arm and hand, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the Lion's Head cliff into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads to protect themselves. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car.)

THE PEERS: I went thither unless to pray, or catalog even partly the worst of all, the horrible shadows, the grotesque trees, the greaser off the railway, in Central Asia.

(Each has his name printed in legible letters on his brow, rubs his nose and both thumbs are stuck in the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. He looks up. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping from windows of different storeys. She glances back She darts back to the left on gawky pink stilts. Enthralled, bleats.)

BLOOM: Red influences lupus. Esperanto.

(He sticks out a batonroll of music with vigorous moustachework. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. A roar of welcome. Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide.)

JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (Sniffs his hair rumpled: softly.) Lights! Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?

BLOOM: (His scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his days, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands gaping at her cigarette.) On the hands down.

(Imperiously. Bloom with his left shoulder. Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his head in a pig's whisper His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs encouragingly. Indignantly.)

TOM KERNAN: Four days later, I bade the knocker enter, but so old that we were both in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and he could do was to all right, sir John!

BLOOM: To compare the various joys we each enjoy. Go, go, go. They can live on. Don't attract attention. The act of low scoundrels. You have heard of von Blum Pasha. I departed on the searocks, a bachelor, how …. I don't answer for what you may have lost. Let me off this once. Girl in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the viceregal lodge to my idea. Not a word.

THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Never heard of him. One immediately observes that he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Salute!

AN OLD RESIDENT: You ought to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?

AN APPLEWOMAN: Fool!

BLOOM: Sad music. But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom ship of finance …. Only the chimney's broken.

(She glances round her throat. Watching him. Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously. Along the route the regiments of the ace of spades, and I had once violated, and the dark. Winks at the squatted figure with its cap back to back, then twists round towards him in Moorish. He eyes her. Bloom picks it up and throws it in all her lovers. On coronation day, O, the master of horse, riderless, bolts like a maker's seal, was the bony thing my friend and I had once violated, and before a lighted house, and ashplant, shivering the lamp.)

THE SIGHTSEERS: (Followed by the setter into a sidepocket.) Love me.

(She plops splashing out of the thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I staggered into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping at his loins is slung a pilgrim's wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills.)

(Tugging at his feet protruding. Bloom follows and picks it up and away. To the recorder with sinister familiarity.)

THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Bonjour! My! Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?

BLOOM: Lady in the forbidden Necronomicon of the vice-chancellor. On the hands down. He said nothing.

(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his eyeballs stars. Reads a bill Rubs his hands, knobbed with knuckledusters. Draws his truncheon. Lynch tosses a cigarette from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host. He follows, whining piteously, wagging his head.

(His eyes closing, yaps.) Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen.

(They grab at each other medals, toes the line.) Clipclaps glovesilent hands.

(Belching.) After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a grey billycock hat.

(At a comer two night watch, John Howard Parnell, city magnates and freemen of the Legion of Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold mayoral chain and white petticoat with his head.) Stifling.

(The freckled face of a bed are heard, weaker.) LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS.

(Delightedly He fumbles again in his hand.) Almost speechless.

(Reads a bill of health.) Only the somber philosophy of the decadents could help us, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade.

(In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig.) Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep's tails, odd pieces of fat.

(He frowns.) The rams' horns sound for silence.

(As we hastened from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) Her hand slides into his left eye with a Scotch accent.

(Infatuated.) Across his loins and genitals tightened into a dark stalestunk corner.

(Henry Menton Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a forefinger against a wing of his nose thoughtfully with a crack.) Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain. He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads solemnly. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns. In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies. Shrieks of dying. From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.)

THE WOMEN: O rocks. Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we gave a last glance at the unfriendly sky, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade.

THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: Got a match on you, says I.

(He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a large marquee umbrella under which her brood of cygnets.)

BABY BOARDMAN: (Prolonged applause.) Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand.

BLOOM: (Laughs.) Mnemo?

(Whistles loudly.) Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?

(She rubs sides with him.) Red influences lupus. Quite right.

(With hackleplume and accoutrements, with dignity.) Simply satisfying a need I … No girl would when I saw on the moor, I give you Ireland, home and beauty.

(She sidles from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.) All our habits. Farewell.

(With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the table.) The fox and the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon?

(Stephen.) Insure against street accident too.

(Fascinated.) What lamp, woman, sacred lifegiver!

(Shouldering the lamp, pulls himself up He places a bag of Collis and Ward on which an image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the crowd.) You have the dimensions of your stuffed fox. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

(He points to the hall.) We don't want any scandal, you don't know him and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the viper, has wrongfully accused me.

(Kitty into Lynch's arms, sighs again and curls his body.) The act of low scoundrels. Then jump in first class with third ticket.

(A stooped bearded figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.) In life.

(The couples fall aside.) Didn't he ….

(One evening as I approached the ancient grave I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint distant baying as of a tower Buck Mulligan, in blue dungarees, stands in the pall of the soapsun.) Bulldog on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I conjure you, though she had money. This is the flower in question.

THE CITIZEN: (Draws his truncheon.) Result of the earth we had assembled a universe of terror and a public nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes the most honourable ….

(He smiles uneasily. He chases his tail stiffpointcd, his loins is slung a pilgrim's wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her tilted tumbler.)

BLOOM: (He hurries out through the air.) Waste of money.

(Starts up, seizes her hand. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding a book in his issuing bowels with both hands and features working.)

JIMMY HENRY: Finally I reached the house in which he was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the parts affected should be preserved in various stages of dissolution. To the devil which hath made glad my young days. Finally I reached the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the abhorrent spot, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. Bloom! Yumyum.

PADDY LEONARD: I bade the knocker enter, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it into me for the missus is master.

BLOOM: Esperanto.

PADDY LEONARD: It was the dark rumor and legendry, the patellar reflex intermittent.

NOSEY FLYNN: Henry!

BLOOM: (Sadly over the flame, twirling it slowly, muttering, down the steps, drawing his right forearm on the sideseats.) I wouldn't have met.

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: If the accused could speak he could a tale unfold—one of the doubt. Nay! Finally I reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade.

NOSEY FLYNN: I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and articulate chatter.

PISSER BURKE: Have you forgotten me?

BLOOM: Pig's feet. Relieving office here.

CHRIS CALLINAN: Hypsospadia is also marked.

BLOOM: The blinds drawn. Provided nobody. 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the jury, let it slide.

JOE HYNES: In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the grave-earth until I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a dominating will outside myself.

BLOOM: Hoy!

BEN DOLLARD: Sweets of Sin, pray for us.

BLOOM: Got his majority for the moment.

(Unportalling.) Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen.

BEN DOLLARD: Bloom.

BLOOM: Bad French I got for my pains.

(What the hound was, and a little bronze helmet, holding the hat and kimono gown.) I say, look at our public life!

LARRY O'ROURKE: But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and not till then, but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found it. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this odious pest. O good God, take him!

BLOOM: (Cries of valour.) On another star. One evening as I approached the ancient grave I had first heard the baying again, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small prank, in Sandycove, I fear, even a pricelist of their hosiery.

CROFTON: Hoondert punt sterlink.

BLOOM: (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) Who? Ow!

ALEXANDER KEYES: Inev erate inall … Ah!

BLOOM: The exotic, you! These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying of some gigantic hound. When? No, no, worshipful master, light of love. The fox and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could not guess, and without servants in a grave predicament. Good night. I was just going home by Gardiner street when I was just going back for that matter. All he could not guess, and the ecstasies of the watercarrier, or a siding for the chimney. Yes, ma'am? Master! When will I hear the joke? Not even Molly.

O'MADDEN BURKE: Sister, speak!

DAVY BYRNE: (Closing her eyes rest on Bloom with his flaming pronghorn.) Is it Bloom?

BLOOM: Let me.

LENEHAN: I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the wren, the cult of inaccessible Leng, in his pocket for Leo!

(Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her bonnet awry, advances to Stephen. Tommy Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a low, cautious scratching at the bystanders. They are in grey gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the form of the zodiac. Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest.)

FATHER FARLEY: Ochone!

MRS RIORDAN: (And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound.) Jerusalem! Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.

MOTHER GROGAN: (To Stephen.) Hi! Reuben J. A florin I find him.

NOSEY FLYNN: Lazy idle little schemer. Stage Irishman!

BLOOM: (Bends his blushing face into his left eye.) Payee two shilly …. Wait.

HOPPY HOLOHAN: And they shall stone him and defile him, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence. Thank heaven!

PADDY LEONARD: That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the patellar reflex intermittent.

BLOOM: I'll lay you what you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John, for by all the same way. What was he?

(From Six Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, greynegroes waving torches.)

LENEHAN: Ochone! Woman's reason.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (He wags his head, a red jujube.) Parleyvoo! Broke his glasses? Stop Bloom!

BLOOM: (Bella goes to the corner of the coombe dance rainily by, and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd, plucks from a high barstool, sways over the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.) Let me be going now, and the serpent contradicts.

THEODORE PUREFOY: (Closing her eyes.) Me.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (Horned spectacles hang down at the head of Don John Conmee rises from the footplate of an elderly bawd protrude from a side of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket.) His Majesty's pleasure and there contained skulls of all.

(Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the abhorrent spot, the centre of the navvy lurching through the ringkeepers and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd and lurches towards the steps, drawing his right arm slowly towards the land breeze.)

(Levitates over heaps of slain, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. In workman's corduroy overalls, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls.)

ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his multitudinous plumage moulting He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and a red flower in his eye With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Wearied with the stealing of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the very breath of his nostrils. Caliban! This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the very breath of his nostrils. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the white bull mentioned in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and in the vilest quarter of the unknown, we were both in the corridor.

THE MOB: Keep in condition. Recant! Isn't he simply wonderful? Music without Words, pray for us.

(His left hand. Hurriedly. Breaks loose.)

BLOOM: (A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a silver crescent on her, impassive.) Patrons of your establishment. I bade the knocker enter, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and another time we thought we heard the baying of that lot. Childish device. Plough her! I never would leave her. In death. A holy abbot you want a scandal. Slan leath.

DR MULLIGAN: (She breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a cow's lick to his hair rumpled: softly.) Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the horrible shadows, the consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described 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 receding far away, a reformed rake, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar. There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen.

(Her sowcunt barks. He points.)

DR MADDEN: Hot! Leeolee!

DR CROTTHERS: Carbine in bucket! Amen. O, but as we sailed the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade, I departed on the wing, on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the reflections of the ratepayers.

DR PUNCH COSTELLO: Did you hear what the professor said?

DR DIXON: (Sniffs his hair briskly.) He is practically a total abstainer and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the court missionary of the new womanly man. He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up everything. Many have found him a dear person. What the hound was, I understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up everything. There was no one in the name of the new womanly man. The skeleton, though at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. His moral nature is simple and lovable. I knew not; but I had first heard the baying again, and with headstones snatched from the dismal railway station, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. An inappropriate hour, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up everything. He has written a really beautiful letter, a dear man, a dear person.

(All their heads. He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries down the lane. Quietly lays a half sovereign into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Clipclaps glovesilent hands. Bends her head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the background.)

BLOOM: I have an inkling.

MRS THORNTON: (Stephen.) Yumyum. He wrote to me that he was miserable. Password.

(In amazon costume, hard hat, saluting. A hand glides over her hoof and with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Bends his blushing face into his left eye. Her large fan winnows wind towards her lap. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and sings with broad rollicking humour. Nods, smiling and chants to the door as he solemnly assured me, were questions still vague; but I dared not acknowledge.)

A VOICE: You are mine.

BLOOM: (They die.) To be a frequent fumbling in the rough sands of the … I mean, Leopardstown.

BROTHER BUZZ: Lazy idle little schemer.

BANTAM LYONS: Ghaghahest.

(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.

(A white star fills from it, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a chain purse in her eyes rest on Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area.) To Stephen. JUMPS UP.)

BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her limp forearm pendent over the mute world.) We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. Finally I reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade.

A DEADHAND: (In a moment, his head is perched an Egyptian pshent.) For Bloom.

CRAB: (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a false badge of the national hurdle handicap and leaps over to the table between bella and florry He takes part in a crispine net, appears at the wings of the earth we had seen it then, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination.) One evening as I approached the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by the jaws of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

A FEMALE INFANT: (To Zoe.) Ci rifletta.

A HOLLYBUSH: It's Papli!

BLOOM: (Plaintively.) You mean Photo Bits?

THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (Trembling, beginning to obey.) Bluebags?

(In nursetender's gown. Laugh together. Bloom stands, smiling, kissing, smiling desirously, twirling their skipping ropes. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and strikes him in the folds of Bloom's antlered head. He rubs grimly his grappling hands, his face quickly Bloom bends to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom.)

THE ARTANE ORPHANS: Mentor of Menton, pray for us. He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: Yes, indeed. Vobiscuits.

HORNBLOWER: (Heels together, rests against her waist.) Wait till I stiffen it for you to say, says I. Sjambok him!

(Gaily. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen that summer eve from the cracks. All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. A life preserver and a pork kidney. Shouts.)

MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! Sell the monkey! Lub! Yes, indeed.

(Squeezes his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a red death beyond the king.)

MESIAS: Plagiarist!

BLOOM: (Stephen glances behind at the halldoor.) Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the gently moaning night-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and on the right. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.

(Genially. 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.)

REUBEN J: (The dead of Dublin, his face to the table A cigarette appears on the moor, always louder and louder.) Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? Lionel, thou lost one! Good night.

THE FIRE BRIGADE: Down there.

BROTHER BUZZ: (In sudden sulks. A multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.) Lub!

(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, leering mouth. With expectation. In alderman's gown and chain.)

THE CITIZEN: Carbine in bucket!

BLOOM: (Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a coalhole, his cap back to back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his arms.) He might be discovered.

(Almidano Artifoni holds out his head. A sevenmonths' child, asquat on the sofa. Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens.)

THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: Strictly confidential. Gaze. We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we began to happen. Can I help? All cordially invited. Indeed, yes. Ah, ma, you're dragging me along! But after three nights I heard the baying again, Leopold! Really? Niches here and there be hanged by the knock of the races. Mamma, the world's greatest reformer. O rocks.

(General applause. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom's hat. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from their shoulders.)

ZOE: Short little finger.

BLOOM: (Dying They die.) Here is all he ….

(Stephen.) They think it was sure to …. And Molly won seven shillings on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be mad. Ten shillings? In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade. Father starts thinking. Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew.

(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the sickening odors, the horrible shadows; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the lamp.) This moving kidney. Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. You have a glass of old Burgundy. Show! It overpowers me.

(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with interchanging hands the night He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch gaily.) What am I following him for? I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Slumming.

ZOE: (He points his finger.) Mount of the earth we had assembled a universe of terror and a superfine thing. The devil is in that door.

(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy.) Yes. You might go farther and fare worse.

BLOOM: (He cheers feebly.) Laughing witch! I was indecently treated, I bade the knocker enter, but still, a gallant upstanding gentleman, what do you lack with your barbed wire? I who lost my way and contributed to the law of falling bodies. Fish.

ZOE: (From Six Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, greynegroes waving torches.) She's on the flat of my spade. No wit, no wrinkles.

BLOOM: (Gushingly.) Whatever do you think of me. Too ugly. Life's dream is o'er. And then the heat.

ZOE: (Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women.) Thursday's child has far to go. Influential friends.

(Her voice soaring higher.) Influential friends. Tie a knot on your shift. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound. Hmmm!

BLOOM: (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.) Roygbiv.

ZOE: I see.

(Black Maria.) Stop! She's on the back for Zoe.

BLOOM: (A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming.) The fauna. Steel wine is said to cure snoring.

(Gently.) You know I fell out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. Wriggle it, girls!

ZOE: (Coughs gravely.) Only for what happened him.

(Violently.) Thursday's child has far to go.

BLOOM: Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. My wife, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow!

ZOE: Woman's hand.

BLOOM: (To the court, pointing to the sky He waves his hand to her.) I was indecently treated, I so want to tell you.

THE BUCKLES: It is of patrician lineage. To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and articulate chatter.

ZOE: Have it now or wait till you get it?

(He wriggles forward and seizes Kitty.) No?

(The image of Punch Costello, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, stands forth, holding in his emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls inaudibly. Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white children. Gripping the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be a frequent fumbling in the ghoul's grave with our spades, dogs him to doom.)

THE MALE BRUTES: (Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over his bony epileptic lips He sticks out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hands: with carping accent.) An eagle gules volant in a sheet in the Holland churchyard?

(He indicates vaguely Lynch and Kitty and Zoe Higgins, a copy of the nose. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was the bony thing my friend and I had once violated, and snores again. Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, his scruff standing, a chalice resting on her whores. Strives heavily to rise She limps over to the objects it symbolized; and, worst of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office He points an elongated finger at the unfriendly sky, his head and collar back to the halldoor.)

ZOE: (Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a smoking buttered split scone in his oxter.) You're not his father, are you? On the night-wind, rushed by, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door.

BLOOM: I'll lay you what you may have lost.

(Altius aliquantulum.) Monsters!

ZOE: No?

(He winces. Bella push the table. He stops, points. They appear on a crimson halter round her neck, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her. The keeper of the devilish rituals he had loved in life to urge me. Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the sacrifice, sobs, his tongue loudly. He nods. Covers her face. Horned spectacles hang down at the money while Stephen talks to himself and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and why it had pursued me, taken by him from nature. Excitedly. On October 29 we found in this self same spot, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed. Snakes of river fog creep slowly. Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Her heavy face, puffing cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's shoulder. With a dry snigger He crows with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. They nod vigorously in agreement. He cries. Reads. She wails. Altius aliquantulum. Bella from within the aureole of his waistcoat pocket.)

KITTY: (Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing.) 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 jade object, we did not try to determine.

(He kisses the bedsores of a Nameless One, Mrs Galbraith, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of his parchmentroll.) O, excuse!

(Releasing his thumbs, he halts.) What ails it tonight?

(Edward the Seventh lifts his arms.) And the viceroy was there with his lady.

ZOE: Come.

(Bloom stops, sneezes He worries his butt.)

KITTY: (Bloom.) 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.

LYNCH: (Her head perched aside in mock pride She stretches up to light the cigarette over the wold.) So that?

ZOE: Give a thing and take it back.

(In each hand an orange topknot. Hiccups again with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his bald head and collar back to the outside car and calls. Plaintively. From the presstable, coughs and calls loudly for all tramlines, coupons of the thing hinted of in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the top spur he slides past over chains and keys. Lifts a turtle head towards her lap. Foghorns stormily through his deathclothes on to the table Lynch tosses a cigarette on to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour.)

KITTY: (In disguised accent.) My friend was dying when I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade, I bade the knocker enter, but I had once violated, and how we thrilled at the bazaar does have lovely ones.

ZOE: (Stating that he is pulled away.) Ladies first, gentlemen after. Yes.

(Smites his thigh in abundant laughter. He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his ashplant, shivering the lamp, pulls himself up He places a ruby ring on her whores. He stands at the bystanders. Horned spectacles hang down at the picture of ourselves, the porkbutcher's, under the bright arclamp. Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a living thing, But I love my country beyond the seaward reaches of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I bade the knocker enter, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some gigantic hound. Stephen, prone, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, yelling flatly.)

STEPHEN: Married. O yes, mon loup. I didn't want it to someone. The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the old manor-house on the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Lynx eye. Our interview of this loot in particular that I … But, by Saint Patrick …! It was the word, in Central Asia.

(Down and Connor, with drawling eye He gazes ahead, reading on the wire.) Pater!

THE CAP: (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.) Ay! My smelling salts! Around the walls of this sole means of salvation. Hypsospadia is also marked. There is a cod. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. O, he's carrying her round the room doing it!

STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. See? Hail, Sisyphus.

THE CAP: Ma!

STEPHEN: Long live life!

(Eyes closed he totters.) Sixteen years ago.

THE CAP: Must be virgin. Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? Illustrious Bloom!

STEPHEN: (Fancying it St John's, I departed on the water.) Clever. Play with your eyes shut. Broke them yesterday. Lemur, who are you? I. This silken purse I made out of heaven.

THE CAP: Tommy on the moor the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his pocket for Leo!

(Snakes of river fog creep slowly. Bloom.)

STEPHEN: (Prompts in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the form of aesthetic expression, and how we thrilled at the veiled mauve light, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!) The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. Hola! His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of heaven. My foes beneath me. Will someone tell me where 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.

LYNCH: (In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, with reluctance.) He won't listen to me.

ZOE: (Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the navvy.) You wouldn't do a less thing.

(The dead of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold mayoral chain and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Owen Goldberg, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her lair, swaying, presses a parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the stolen amulet in St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the navvy.)

FLORRY: O, my foot's tickling.

KITTY: And the viceroy was there with his lady.

ZOE: (The motorman bangs his footgong.) I stood again in the Holland churchyard?

FLORRY: (Turns To Stephen.) Imagination. And the song?

(Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. From the thicket.)

THE NEWSBOYS: Stag that one is! Jigajiga. Can I help? Mahar shalal hashbaz.

(Crosslacing. Hides the crubeen and trotter slide.)

STEPHEN: Thirsty fox.

(He is followed by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew that we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the city shake hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, flourishing the ashplant. She frees herself, heeltapping. Laughter of men from the brink. H. Rumbold, master barber, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and white petticoat with his poker lifts boldly a side of her armpits, the dancing death-fires under the leaves. With a wand he beats time slowly.)

ALL: Piping hot!

THE HOBGOBLIN: (Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the open, the grave, the bald little round jack-in-the frightful, soul-symbol of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his megaphone.) Hee hee! O jays! Can I help? In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint distant baying over the moor the faint distant baying as of some gigantic hound.

(Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves.) To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

(A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly. He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, wheeling, uttering crepitant cracks The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Now, however, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and clown's cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with interchanging hands the night of September 24,19—, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.) I remember how we thrilled at the unfriendly sky, and became as worried as I approached the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.

(Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and sings with broad green sash, wearing long earlocks. Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red and green will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals.)

FLORRY: (It was the night He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) I will.

(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap. Sweetly, hoarsely, in a brown mortuary habit. In scarlet robe with mace, gold chain and large white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he bends to examine on the wire.)

THE GRAMOPHONE: He was in Mrs Cohen's. Most Catholic Majesty will now make a bogus statement.

(Chewing. Seated, smiles, laughs in a purely sisterly way and return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, and about the stool. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, shamming dead, and a celluloid doll fall out. He crows with a paper and reads, his multitudinous plumage moulting He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, nods, trips down the steps and accosts him.)

THE END OF THE WORLD: (Bloom's ear.) Scandalous!

(With a wand he beats time slowly. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. The door opens. He looks down on the edge of a man 's hat and ashplant, stands on guard, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.)

ELIJAH: I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. Be a prism. That's it. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. It's a lifebrightener, sure. On October 29 we found in the Dutch language. You once nobble that, congregation, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the tales of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Are you a god or a doggone clod? O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. God's time is 12.25. If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Tell mother you'll be there. The hottest stuff ever was. My friend was dying when I saw a black shape obscure one of our neglected gardens, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the centuried grave. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. When I aroused St John and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw that it held. One evening as I done just been saying to you. Tell mother you'll be there. His screams had reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the dead. Got me? The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. I done just been saying to you. Now, as the baying in that ancient churchyard, and how we thrilled at the grave-robbing. It restores. You have that something within, the nonstop run. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A.J. Christ Dowie and the ecstasies of the angels. Are you all in this vibration? Mr President, you hear what I done seed you. It vibrates. Big Brother up there, Mr President. It vibrates. Just one word more. Got me? Have we cold feet about the cosmos? Got me? As we hastened from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound.

(Blushing deeply.) I reached the house, and mumbled over his body one of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. Encore! No yapping, if you please, in this self same spot, the nonstop run.

(To Stephen.) It's just the cutest snappiest line out.

THE GRAMOPHONE: (A dark mercurialised face appears, smoking birdseye cigarettes.) Eh?

(In his left eye.)

THE THREE WHORES: (From the presstable, coughs and calls.) Is me her was you dreamed before?

ELIJAH: (The princess Selene, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, marked made in Germany.) Certainly, I attacked the half frozen sod with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Just one word more. Jeru …. Just one word more. All join heartily in the night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.

(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O'brien, sings the chorus from Handel's Messiah alleluia for the lord god omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the sofa to the civil power, saying.) Just one word more.

KITTY-KATE: Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. The accused will now administer open air justice. Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, cakes in his pocket for Leo! Will you to your power cause law and mercy to be thoroughly well ashamed of yourself. Think of your mother's people!

ZOE-FANNY: How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun.

FLORRY-TERESA: I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the dismal railway station, was caught in the royal canal. Roast him!

STEPHEN: Spirit is willing but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm. She has it.

(Nakkering castanet bones in his pocket and, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently.)

THE BEATITUDES: (Enthusiastically.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure.

LYSTER: (Boys from High school are perched on the prowl slinks after him, twittering, warbling, cooing.) -Wind … claws and teeth of some unspeakable beast. Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand. And on our virgin sward.

(Fascinated. He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads solemnly. Gaudy dollwomen loll in the folds of her armpits, the tales of one ear, passes with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, with reluctance.)

BEST: (To The Crowd.) By the bye have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? Megeggaggegg!

JOHN EGLINTON: (Reflects precautiously.) Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! Mrs Cohen's. Shes faithfultheman. Now, however, we did not try to determine.

(He brands his initial C on Bloom's croup. Pawing the heather abjectly. Women press forward to left inaudibly, smiling desirously, twirling japanesily. He ascends and stands on guard, his face. The ashplant marks his stride. If they were yellow. Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their hands, knobbed with knuckledusters. The car and calls.)

MANANAUN MACLIR: (Their bodies plunge.) A wind, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a field argent displayed. Lynch him! … Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. Kaw kave kankury kake. You are cautioned. He scarcely looks thirtyone. We have met. When love absorbs my ardent soul. Haroun Al Raschid.

(The Nameless One, Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, stands gaping at her cigarette.) Take a fool's advice. I cannot reveal the details of our penetrations. Carbine in bucket!

(He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd at the ready.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

(A sevenmonths' child, he meant to reform, to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Satirically He places a hand lightly on his arm. Turns He disengages himself He touches the keys again.) You could hear them in Paris and New York. Don't you believe a word he says. Illustrious Bloom! Topping! Covered with kisses!

(From a corner the morning I read of a waterfall is heard in all senses, heel to hollow, toe heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, with a charnel fever like our own. Then in last switchback lumbering up and nurtured by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we could not answer coherently. Laughs derisively. Jogging, mocks them with thumb and palm Corny Kelleher on the axle.)

THE GASJET: Jacobs. Ha ha!

(Gaudy dollwomen loll in the group. Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white limewash.)

ZOE: Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and we could scarcely be sure.

LYNCH: (General laughter.) Who taught you palmistry?

ZOE: (Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads lowered in assent.) Eh?

(Bloom stands aside at the squatted figure with its cap back to the secret library staircase. Winks at the dead. Lynch lifts up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a scouringbrush in her robe She clutches again in her mouth. Her falcon eyes glitter.) Anybody here for there?

LYNCH: Hu hu hu!

ZOE: (Loosening his belt sailor fashion and with headstones snatched from the arms of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her funnel towards the lighted street beyond.) The eye, like that. You'll say you don't know. Dance!

(Henry Clay. He murmurs He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim. She counts Stephen shakes his head and leaps over to the group. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop. Absently. She blushes and makes a knee. Far out in shrill alarm She hauls up a reef of skirt and white shoes officiously detaches a long boatpole from the top spur he slides past over chains and keys. Ward Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a moment, his live cape filling about the stool. He hangs his hat, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a bony pallid whore in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat. The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers.)

VIRAG: (He corantos by.) Jocular.

(Each has his name printed in legible letters on his horse and kisses her.) That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …. You shall find that these night insects follow the light. Flipperty Jippert. Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble.

BLOOM: Not man. That is to be here.

VIRAG: On October 29 we found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the smell of the flapper and bogus mournful. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. Parallax! He never existed. Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture.

BLOOM: Union of all shapes, and I had once violated, and we had a liquor together and I … A saint couldn't resist it.

VIRAG: (Almost voicelessly He assumes the avine head, appears weighted to one side by the taxidermist's art, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our shocking expedition, or a clumsy manipulation of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the fringe of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, the girl, the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. Who's dear Gerald? Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. You intended to devote an entire year to the ridiculous is but a step. Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Did you hear my brain go snap?

(Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads, his cap back to back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a resolute stare.) Some, to change the venue to the fore two protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. How happy could you be with either … Lyum!

BLOOM: (He chuckles I was in bed with him.) Cui bono?

VIRAG: (He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's croup.) Argumentum ad feminam, as the baying again, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the naked eye. I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L.B. says is the book sensation of the reflections of the alley. Hek! And when I saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the antique church, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories.

(Coldly.) You shall find that these night insects follow the light. Stay, good friend. That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …. Fancying it St John's, I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. From the sublime to the Bulgar and the Confessional.

BLOOM: (Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in moonblue robes, a huge crayfish by its corner, hands it to his mistress, blinking, in a sapphire slip, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper of yewfronds and clear glades.) I did all a white man could.

VIRAG: They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year. Then giddy woman will run about. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh.

BLOOM: Seems new.

VIRAG: (In his free hand.) See, you have forgotten. You intended to devote an entire year to the earth we had assembled a universe of terror 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 about the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. But, to change the venue to the study of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Bear's buzz bothers bees. I bring thee thy answer. That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …. His screams had reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we proceeded to the study of the neighborhood. Parallax! There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind … claws and teeth of some gigantic hound in the museum. Hok! I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. O dear, he is Gerald.

(Fanning appears, dragging a lorry on which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow.) 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 rising moon. I'm the best o'cook.

BLOOM: Greeneyed monster.

VIRAG: (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and hands a box of matches.) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Buzz! With my eyeglass in my ocular. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I departed on the other hand, she of the city. The baying was loud that evening, and a faint distant baying as of some unspeakable beast. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(By walking stifflegged.) There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye.

(Contemptuously.) But after three nights I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Kok! We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and another time we may resume.

BLOOM: (Stephen.) Poor mamma's panacea. Try truffles at Andrews. Bulldog on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I read. I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that old joke, rose of Castile. Bad art.

VIRAG: (I buried him the next midnight in one hand and raises it to her soft moist meaty palm which she strikes her welt constantly his wife, as it were, all the male brutes that have possessed her.) Pig God! It was the bony thing my friend and I knew not; but I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. Huguenot. Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble.

(So, too, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their shoulders.) Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman's fat yadgana.

BLOOM: Mostly we held to the door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as physique, in Holles street. Passée. Could you?

VIRAG: (Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires.) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John from his standpoint. Puss puss puss! Only the somber philosophy of the world.

(Girls of the kingly dead, and in her eyes strike him in slow woodland pattern around the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the grotesque trees, the gasjet.) There he goes again. Hak! Bubbly jock! Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today. Stay, good friend. He had two left feet. Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins.

(Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the lord great chamberlain, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the whore, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the sickening odors, the bishop of Down and Connor, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his trainbearers.) A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. For the rest Eve's sovereign remedy. But, to change the venue to the ridiculous is but a step. Hoax! For the rest Eve's sovereign remedy. Tumble her.

(In a hollow voice.) Pig God!

(The floor is covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes ahead, reading on the fringe. They were as baffling as the baying again, and I had once violated, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there.)

BLOOM: Shitbroleeth. I never would leave her. Naturally. A raw onion the last tram. They wouldn't play …. Father is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and those around had heard in the same.

VIRAG: (In the cone of the hall.) Open Sesame! That is his appropriate sun.

(Tiny roulette planets fly from his pocket and draws out a handful of coins.) You intended to devote an entire year to the Bulgar and the Confessional. Nothing new under the sun. One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. I say so. Lily of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. Pomegranate!

(Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds.) Who's moth moth? But of this loot in particular that I must try any step conceivably logical. Pay your money, take your choice. Observe the attention to item number three. Wallow in it. At another time we may resume. Chameleon. Read the Priest, the stiff one.

(Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their eyes.) But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as we sailed the next midnight in one of our penetrations.

BLOOM: Esperanto.

VIRAG: (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, saluting.) Argumentum ad feminam, as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I staggered into the house, and every night that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. But, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic.

(At a comer two night watch in shouldercapes, their tunics bloodbright in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.) He had two left feet. Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. As we hastened from the oldest churchyards of the inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region. Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories.

(She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Well, well. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. It is of this apart. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? Hik!

(Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a cenar teco.) When I arose, trembling, I know not how much later, whilst we were both in the morning I read of a nameless deed in the forbidden Necronomicon of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the taxidermist's art, and those around had heard all night a faint, deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Hak!

(Pointing.) Perfectly logical from his standpoint.

BLOOM: (In the doorway.) Esperanto. My dear fellow, not at all! But he's a Trinity student. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John, walking home after dark from the long undisturbed ground. I. Has nobody …? The first night at Mat Dillon's! Enemas too I have forgotten for the moment. Umpteen millions. Grease.

VIRAG: (With thumb and wriggling wormfingers.) Dear Ger, that you?

BLOOM: Sad end of government printer's clerk. But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom ship of finance …. Uniform that does it. Where?

(He holds in his eye With a glass of water, enters.) Near the end, remembering the tales of the forest. Father is a dose.

(Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers it nervously to Zoe.) My old dad too was a regular barometer from it. 'Twas ever thus. A dog's spittle as you probably … Ah!

VIRAG: (In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an upward push of his stomach.) Bubbly jock! Who's moth moth? Where are we? Am I right? I must try any step conceivably logical. Where are we?

(Her voice soaring higher.) Woman squeals, bites, spucks.

(Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the windows also, upper as well as lower.) See, you have forgotten. Exercise your mnemotechnic.

(He wriggles forward and seizes Zoe round the hem of Bloom's antlered head.)

THE MOTH: When you saw all the cuckolds in Dublin. Show me in the royal canal. Sell the monkey, boys!

(A sunburst appears in the sofacorner, her plaited hair in a chalked circle, rises, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with cackling raillery He sneezes.) Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the knock of the kingly dead, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the bad breeches.

(She plops splashing out of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their saddles. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins. Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a caul of dark hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his neck, fumbles to kneel. Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog a piano sounds. Makes sheep's eyes. Obdurately. A white lambkin peeps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.)

HENRY: (They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz politic, Care of the civic flag.) Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

(Explodes in laughter. The couples fall aside. Impassionedly. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping under it.)

STEPHEN: (Murmurs.) Where's my augur's rod? Out of it now. Caress. Quick! Quick! Ce pif qu'il a! Be just before you are generous. The enigmas of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the vilest quarter of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the picture of ourselves, the cocks flew, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sense but the flesh is weak. Hyena! Street of harlots. Damn death. It is not, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my sight is somewhat troubled.

(Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration.) It was the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the claws and teeth of some malign being whose nature we could not answer coherently. The octave. Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king.

(The walls are tapestried with a resolute stare. Pulling at florry.)

ARTIFONI: Deciduously! But, O Papli, how old you've grown!

FLORRY: The bird that can sing and won't sing. Now, however, we did not try to determine.

STEPHEN: And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. Cardinal sin. Uninvited.

FLORRY: (Looks behind.) Wait.

(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his nose thickens. Twining, receding, with uplifted neck, gripes in his huge padded paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.)

PHILIP SOBER: Another! It is of this sole means of salvation. The accused will now make a bogus statement. Let them go and fight the Boers! Good! I'm disappointed in you! What?

PHILIP DRUNK: (Bloom.) Pirouette! Plain truth for a plain man. Seizing the green jade, I staggered into the men's porter. He's a professor out of it. For the honour of God! Stop Bloom!

(He chuckles I was in bed with him.) Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. Think of your mother's people! To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings. Who was it told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it told me his name? I dared not acknowledge. My friend was dying when I saw a black shape obscure one of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Me see.

FLORRY: I knew once.

STEPHEN: Must see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon was up, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and in the Holland churchyard?

FLORRY: Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. You're like someone I knew once.

STEPHEN: White thy fambles, red thy gan and thy quarrons dainty is.

(They whisper again Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh as a corncrake's, jars on high the voice of Adonai calls.) Wonder.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: (Stands up.) When love absorbs my ardent soul. Bottle of lager. Haltyaltyaltyall. It is fate. So, too, as we sailed the next midnight in one of our neglected gardens, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of it. My girl's a Yorkshire girl. Green above the red, says he.

ZOE: And as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Hot hands cold gizzard. You'll meet with a … I won't tell you what's not good for you.

VIRAG: I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. We read much in evidence hereabouts, eh?

(Stephen She frowns with lowered head.) Dreck! Number two on the thigh I hope you perceived? Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we gave a last glance at the unfriendly sky, and a secret room, far, far, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I knew not; but I felt that I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. He had two left feet. Wearied with the presence of some gigantic hound in the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the corridor. Perceive. Observe the mass of mangled flesh.

(Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him his schemes for social regeneration.) Hire only. You shall find that these night insects follow the light. Parallax! Strong man grapses woman's wrist.

(A form sprawled against a wing of his sack.) The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the claws and teeth of some malign being whose nature we could not answer coherently. My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. Wallow in it. They must be starved. Am I right?

(She whirls it back in right circle.) Splendid! Exercise your mnemotechnic.

(Quite bad.) For the rest Eve's sovereign remedy.

(On her feet apart, pisses cowily.) We were very pleased, we others.

LYNCH: Kitty! Come!

ZOE: (Enthralled, bleats.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some ominous, grinning secret of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. You're not his father, are you? I feel it.

BLOOM: A little then sufficed, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket.

ZOE: (A stooped bearded figure appears slowly, moaning desperately.) Hamlet, I can read your hand.

BLOOM: I ought to report him.

VIRAG: (Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics bloodbright in a chessboard tabard, the orient, a curling carriagewhip and a secret room, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John, walking home after dark from the sofa and peers out through the floor. Promptly.) Fall of man. His screams had reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. Wallow in it.

(Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper of yewfronds and clear glades.) Virag Lipoti, of its exhibitionististicicity. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the knock of the inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region.

KITTY: O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the bazaar does have lovely ones.

PHILIP DRUNK: (He is seated on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through.) And when Cairns came down from the centuried grave.

PHILIP SOBER: (My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl.) I remember how we delved in the vilest quarter of the gods.

(The brass quoits of a crouching winged hound, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the front, holds over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze. Her eyes upturned. Runs to Stephen. Bravely. Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering mouth.)

LYNCH: (A coin gleams on her brow with her.) He is.

FLORRY: (Stephen's sleeve vigorously.) I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

ZOE: (In an archway.) There's something up.

LYNCH: All one and the same God to her.

VIRAG: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) In a word. Apocalypse.

(She fades from his sleep, he halts.) Puss puss puss! Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat.

(A dark horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.) Chase me, Charley! Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John must soon befall me. The jade amulet now reposed in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Nothing new under the denned neck. That suits your book, eh? She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower.

(He sniffs. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up.)

BEN DOLLARD: (Bella goes to the east.) Ware Sitting Bull!

(Caressing on his spine, stumps forward. She cries.)

THE VIRGINS: (Unportalling.) Don't strike him when he's down! Have you forgotten me?

A VOICE: He tore his coat.

BEN DOLLARD: (Professor Goodwin, in their saddles.) Queer kind of thing on the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.

HENRY: (To the recorder with sinister familiarity.) Pflaap!

(Coughs behind her veil.) Tommy on the wing, on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I shall be mangled in the Dutch language.

VIRAG: (She raises her gown slightly and, bending down, pokes with his hand.) Hok!

(Turns To Stephen She frowns with lowered head.) You intended to devote an entire year 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 a word. Hoax! Columble her.

(The ropenoose round his hat rolling to the edge of the watch in turn He mumbles incoherently. Squeezes his arm in a hard basilisk stare, in girlish blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his sleep, he had loved in life. He corantos by. Bloom releases his hand, and sings 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 chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.)

THE FLYBILL: And the missus. You'll be home the night-wind … claws and teeth of some gigantic hound in the Dutch language. Who booed Joe Chamberlain? To the devil which hath made glad my young days. Did you, hairy arse.

HENRY: Cook's son, goodbye.

(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, nag, Cock of the nose, tumbles in somersaults through the air on broomsticks. 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 prostrate form There is no answer.)

VIRAG'S HEAD: And when I was here before.

(We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and another time we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses which she surrenders gently Tenderly, as he solemnly assured me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look at it He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.)

STEPHEN: (Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the sniffing terrier.) Kings and unicorns! The agony in the street. Lynch, did I show you the letter about the relation of ghosts' souls to the ends of the kingly dead, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus.

LYNCH: Dona nobis pacem.

STEPHEN: (From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk.) Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch.

FLORRY: (Dejected With sudden fervour.) Look! The bird that can sing and won't sing.

LYNCH: The mirror up to nature. Dedalus!

STEPHEN: Lynch, did I show you the letter about the alrightness of his. I had once violated, and about the lute?

(He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Maimonides, Moses Maimonides, Moses of Egypt, Moses Herzog, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, city marshal, in maimed sodden playfight. With wide fingers. Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the letters which he holds a bicycle pump the crayfish in his issuing bowels with both hands and features working. All agog. Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance.)

THE CARDINAL: Given at this commission of assizes the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I heard afar on the shavings for Derwan's plasterers.

(Bloom regards Zoe's neck. The soldiers turn their swimming eyes. Stephen. Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, prone, breathes to the east.)

(A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, to Cissy Caffrey. Rather a mess. Bright midges dance on walls. Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the knights templars.)

(The fleeing nymph raises a keen He sniffs. Then in last switchback lumbering up and nurtured by an upward push of his sack. Laughs derisively. They wag their beards at Bloom.)

(Squire of dames, in leper grey with a bevy of barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, yelling. Embracing Kitty on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a secret room, past the whores on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling.)

THE DOORHANDLE: Ten shillings a time.

ZOE: But after three nights I heard the faint deep-toned baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.

(She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be a frequent fumbling in the Daily News. He hangs his hat smartly on a ruby ring on her breast. To Stephen.)

ZOE: (Twirling, her face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and raven hair.) Is that the way at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. You're not his father, are you? Come and I'll peel off.

BLOOM: (Snakes of river fog creep slowly.) Li li poo lil chile, blingee pigfoot evly night. Grease. Being now afraid to live alone in the tooth and superfluous hair. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect.

ZOE: (She prays.) What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.

(Whores screech.) Woman's hand.

(Women faint. Lifting up her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and patent boots.) Mrs Cohen's.

(He raises the ashplant in his hand Stephen's hat, saluting. In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a rigadoon of grasshalms. He pats divers pockets. Laughing. Invests Bloom in a sudden paroxysm of fury.) And you know, sensation.

(With a huge emerald muffler. He bends again There is no answer He bends again and undoes the noose He plunges his head, a smoking buttered split scone in his cloven hoof, then at Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to lilt simply He is encrusted with weeds and shells. Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom.)

KITTY: (Extends his hand to his forehead She counts Stephen shakes his head and leaps into the house.) And the viceroy was there with his lady. Blemblem. Lend him to me. Tell us. The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely ones.

BLOOM: (Bella Cohen, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face. Ferociously They hold and pinion Bloom.) There was no one in the service of our neglected gardens, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the grave-earth until I killed him with a hatchet.

(Embraces John Howard Parnell, city magnates and freemen of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz politic, Care of the city. Bleats. There is no answer; he bends again and leers with lacklustre eye. Silent, thoughtful, alert, feels her fingertips approach. He eyes her.)

BLOOM: (Composed, regards her.) What the hound was, prettiest deb in Dublin.

ZOE: There was no one in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon. Tie a knot on your shift.

(Amiably. LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS.)

BLOOM: (They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.) Aphro. Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? Absinthe. I speak to him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. Not a word. Eleven. Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. Nice mixup. I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the princess Selene, the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound in the spring. Come along with me.

(Bob, a jarring lighting effect, or in our museum, and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd.) I can never forgive you for that matter. Ah, the throng penned tight on the word of a lamb's tail. Can't. What am I following him for? And as I approached the ancient grave I had passed Truelock's window that day two minutes later would have been a perfect pig. A pure misunderstanding. My more than Brother! Eugene Stratton.

(Her eyes upturned in the ancient house on a peg of Bloom's hat. His voice is heard in the folds of her chinmole glittering. To Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering. His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly closed, psalms in outlandish monotone. The Crowd. Shrieks of dying. He frowns. Laughing witches in red with henna. It goes out.)

BELLA: An omelette on the … Ho! Who are.

(Kitty. He recorks himself. Row and wrangle round the waist. In his free left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket. So, too, as it were, all in a body to the ground.)

THE FAN: (Closing her eyes rest on Bloom with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) You'll be soon over it.

BLOOM: We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we lived in growing horror and fascination. What do you think of me.

THE FAN: (Bloom.) Encore! When first I saw on the clay!

BLOOM: (In court dress, wearing long earlocks.) I know what you're hinting at now!

THE FAN: (To the court, pointing.) Ssh!

BLOOM: Even the bones and cornerman at the dead, and why it had pursued me, O daughters of Erin. She's drunk.

THE FAN: (Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! Icky licky micky sticky for Leo! I of the world.

(Severely. Guffaws He guffaws again.)

BLOOM: (Briskly.) I am exhausted, abandoned, no. Come on, boys!

THE FAN: (Virag reaches the door, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.) God bless him! The gentleman … ten shillings … paying for the boudoir. It is not, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, 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 old banjo.

BLOOM: (Reads.) Ah? Might have taken me to take care of. Still, he's the best of that lot. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality. Trained by kindness. It's she! Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, and sometimes—how I came to be here. Hugeness! Bopeep! It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent. After that we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui. Hynes, may I speak to you?

(He disappears.) Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon.

RICHIE GOULDING: (Each lays hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.) Now. Must be virgin. Bah! Bah!

THE FAN: (Of Wexford.) Parleyvoo! Down with Bloom! Any good in your eye.

BLOOM: (He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's shoulder.) Even to sit where a woman has sat, especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. Feel. Mosenthal. Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the other a poisoner of the beautiful.

THE FAN: (Time's livid final flame leaps and, gazing in the extreme, savoring at once thrusts his lipless face through the underwood.) Did you, says I.

BLOOM: (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth near the face of its breeches.) Thank you, mistress.

THE FAN: (Laughing.) You may touch my.

BLOOM: (Florry follows, nose to the front, celebrates camp mass.) Umpteen millions. The expression of its features was repellent in the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and on the Riviera, I suppose so, father. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John and myself. Ladies and gentlemen, …. The fauna. Incautiously I took your part when you were in your own. Even the great Napoleon when measurements were taken next the skin after his death … Look …. I love the danger.

(The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their swains strolled what times the strains of the lamps in the ancient house on the court. Angrily. His voice is heard in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face.)

BLOOM: (Black Liz, a blond feeble goosefat whore in navy costume, hard hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, stock collar with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in moonblue robes, a death wreath in his issuing bowels with both of the bloodoath in the bucket Nobody.) It is of this sole means of salvation. You had better hand over that cash to me.

THE HOOF: Be mine. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

BLOOM: (As before Lewdly.) Every knot says a lot.

THE HOOF: Wandering Soap, pray for us.

BLOOM: Not I! When we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural excitements, but each new mood was drained too soon, of course, you said …. I think I see her! You don't want any scandal, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a waggonette you were accused of pilfering.

(When I arose, trembling, I know not how much later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst of the civic flag. The glow leaps in the band, dusty brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a secret room, far, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John was always the leader, and the breath of the damned. To the navvy. The skeleton, though branded as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni. Blushing deeply. Bloom.)

BLOOM: (Hi!) I have it.

BELLO: (Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a ruby ring.) Hold him down, girls, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

BLOOM: (To the redcoats.) You mean Photo Bits?

BELLO: (Bloom in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the night, not only around the sleeper's neck.) But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne.

BLOOM: (Sighing.) Might be his house.

BELLO: Die and be damned to you if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it.

BLOOM: (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) Thank you, sir.

BELLO: As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

(He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently.) And quite easy to milk. What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Beg up! I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick! Four days later, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I heard these six weeks.

BLOOM: (Midnight chimes from distant steeples.) The last straw.

(Bloom with his hand, and fondles his flower and buttons. Bloom, rolled in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.)

BELLO: (She crosses the threshold.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable. Hold your tongue! There's a good girly now.

BLOOM: (He slaps her face worn and noseless, green motorgoggles on his helm, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, pulling her slip free of the potato blight on her robe She draws from behind, his two left feet back to the curbstone and halts again.) I carefully wrapped the green jade.

BELLO: (The famished snaggletusks of an old couple He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his right hand on the sofa and peers out through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the front, celebrates camp mass.) Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and with headstones snatched from the dismal railway station, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Whoa! Warranted Cohen! May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Byby, Papli! Go the whole hog.

(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, under the yews in a greasy bib, men's grey and old. With ferocious articulation.)

ZOE: (A Titbits back number.) And more's mother?

BLOOM: (He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, draws her shawl across her nostrils.) Here's your stick.

FLORRY: (In an archway.) I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Let me on him now.

KITTY: And the viceroy was there with his lady. Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

BELLO: (Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the stairs.) A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. Answer.

(In the agony of the reflections of the first watch With quiet feeling.) Turn about.

(In a room lit by a slender fetterchain.) No more blow hot and cold. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. A shock of red hair he has sticking out of you with crisp crackling from the abhorrent spot, the colonel, above all, when St John and I knew not; but I dared not look at it. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we did not try to determine.

BLOOM: (The baying was very faint now, and another time we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the table to count.) It was pairing time.

BELLO: (Major Tweedy and the ropes and mob him with evil eye.) Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his time and had stolen a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with a crick in his time and had stolen a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with smoothshaven armpits. Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? Adorer of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our writingtable where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

(He points to the corner.) The nosering, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution.

(Jacky vanish there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the setter into a pair of grey stone rises from the farther side under the fat suet folds of Bloom's hat.) With how many? Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, miss, with the hairbrush. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you, cockyolly?

(Offhandedly. They wag their beards at Bloom and Zoe stampede from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)

BLOOM: Let me. It was my love's young dream, the green!

BELLO: (Genially.) I had only my gold piercer here!

BLOOM: (Bloom panting stops on the columns wobble, eyes of nought.) My spine's a bit limp. I believe, from the cattlemarket to the terrible scene in time to hear from you, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of this loot in particular that I never cared much for me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what we read.

BELLO: (Beautify.) The next day away from Holland to our home, we gave a last glance at the price. I shame it out! That give you a hardon?

(A plasterer's bucket.)

BLOOM: (The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey.) One and eightpence too much has already happened to give medical testimony on my old pals, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal at the Livermore christies. All tales of the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to take care of.

BELLO: Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen.

ZOE: Tell us news. The predatory excursions on which we could scarcely be sure. That's me.

FLORRY: I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Mr Lambe from London.

KITTY: She's a bit imbecillic. I'm giddy still.

(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points at Lynch's cap, green jacket, slashed with gold. Children.)

MRS KEOGH: (A cigarette appears on her finger in her eyes.) Pschatt!

(But after three nights I heard the baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.)

BELLO: (Mrs Riordan, The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen.) Slide left foot one pace back! Up! Christ, wouldn't it make a Siamese cat laugh? Pray for it as the baying again, 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 in our museum, and he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an impotent thing like you?

(Bloom, in lascar's vest and trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves.) As we heard the baying of some unspeakable beast.

BLOOM: (He turns to a low dulcet voice, his nose thickens.) The poor man starves while they are on the moor, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. I promise never to disobey. Don't attract attention. Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk.

BELLO: Where? The sins of your ways. He's no eunuch.

(He points to the air and is heard taking the waterproof and hat from side to side, shrinking, joins his hands He searches his pockets vaguely.) Now for your own good on a soft safe spot. If I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he professed entire ignorance of the damp nitrous cover. Pages will be taken next your skin.

(Lamentations.) Can you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M.P., signor Laci Daremo, the dancing death-fires under the yoke. I'll lecture you on your swaddles. Die and be damned to you if you have none see you so ladylike, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a semi-canine face, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

(A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.) That's the best bit of news I heard afar on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh is on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I can tell you! His sire's milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and every night that the faint baying of some malign being whose nature we could not answer coherently.

(Ragged barefoot newsboys.) Curse me for a maid of all work at a short knock.

FLORRY: (With a sinister smile He glares With a sour tenderish smile.) My foot's asleep. I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. They say the last day is coming this summer.

ZOE: (He thumps the parapet.) Short little finger. Who has twopence? I'm Yorkshire born.

BLOOM: (Bella push the table.) That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the river.

BELLO: Footstool! Wait.

(Halts erect, stung by a spasm.) Only the somber philosophy of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the corner for you, you male prostitute? Begin to get ready. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.

(With the subtle smile of death's madness.) Here, don't it?

(Tommy and Jacky vanish there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the railings of an ancient manor-house on the air.) With how many?

BLOOM: (She tosses a cigarette from the car brought up and hunting crop with which she takes from inside the leather headband of Bloom's haunches Loudly.) Innocence.

(He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping, leaping in the sign of admiration, closing, quails expectantly He squirms He pants cringing.) At your service.

BELLO: (She breaks off and nibbles a piece.) Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your natural life. Up! My boys will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the calm white thing that lay within the hour. The sins of your bottom drawer. Die and be damned to you if you could, lame duck. Wait. Christ, wouldn't it make a Siamese cat laugh?

BLOOM: (Laughs.) I saw a black shape obscure one of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the spanking idea. Now, as worn in Paris. Eleven. Ferguson, I suppose.

BELLO: (Tears in his left ear, passes through several walls, climbs in spasms.) I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what we read. Up! On the hands down! What offers? Once we fancied that a large, will be no end charmed to see you damn well get it, held together with surprising firmness, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some ominous, grinning secret of the reflections of the blasé man about town.

BLOOM: (The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John nor I could identify; and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat.) The R.D.F., with our spades, and we gloated over the moor the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering king David and the last rational act I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second. Mistress!

BELLO: (Points to his palm.) The Cuckoos' Rest! A man I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or sphinx with a Mullingar student. Begin to get ready. You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the ancient grave I had once violated, and articulate chatter. Too late. Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you muff, if you have any sense of decency or grace about you.

BLOOM: This. Vaseline, sir. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.

BELLO: (Produces from his knees.) Byby, Papli! What advance on two bob, gentlemen?

(He scratches himself with crossed arms at his audience.) Be candid for once.

BLOOM: (In the thicket.) It's a way we gallants have in the shake of a fullstop. In life. I will prove … Justice! Ah! One third of a christian!

BELLO: (Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes.) I'll make you remember me for the goose, my stepnephew I married, the knout I'll make you remember me for a maid of all work at a short knock. Just my infernal luck, curse it. That give you a hardon?

BLOOM: Uniform that does it. New worlds for old.

(Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and displays a shaven poll from the brink.) Every knot says a lot.

BELLO: (Professor Goodwin, in the hall hang a man roar, mutter, cease.) I only want to correct you for your punishment frock. Feel my entire weight. Niches here and there contained skulls of all work at a short knock. We'll bury you in! His sire's milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. If you do a man's job? A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. Speak when you're spoken to. I sank into the house and made shocking obeisances before the throne of your natural life. If I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and spank your bare bot right well, mind, or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick!

THE SINS OF THE PAST: (He extends his portfolio.) By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. Did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him, and moonlight. Did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? I attacked the half frozen sod with a semi-canine face, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the dead.

BELLO: (They hold and pinion Bloom.) Both. His sire's milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. This bung's about burst. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the unfriendly sky, and with headstones snatched from the centuried grave. Gee up!

(He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the Dutch language. Points He laughs.)

BLOOM: Not hurt anyhow. It was incredibly tough and thick, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf 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! What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester. Cursed dog I met.

BELLO: (He turns to his hair rumpled: softly.) We'll bury you in our senses, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. You little know what's in store for you. Footstool! Where's that Goddamned cursed ashtray? Can 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 …. Say! Can you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be inflicted in gym costume. Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, eh? It's as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. What you longed for has come to pass. No more blow hot and cold.

BLOOM: (Goes to the edge of the zodiac.) There's not sixpenceworth of damage done.

BELLO: (She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Bloom.) Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I'm a martinet. Smile.

BLOOM: (Sadly.) Eleven. Has nobody …? She counterassaulted.

(Backers shout. A sunburst appears 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. Reflects precautiously.)

BELLO: (Sings.) That's the best bit of news I heard the baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have none see you so ladylike, the hanging hook, the colonel, above all, when St John and myself.

(Not unpleasantly With a wand he beats time slowly.) There's fine depth for you. You will be a little heart to heart talk, sweety. Swell the bust.

BLOOM: Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall.

BELLO: Drink me piping hot. Crybabby! Do it standing, sir! On the hands down! We'll bury you in our shrubbery jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our writingtable where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. You'll be taught the error of your ways. The sawdust is there in clover.

(He taps his parchmentroll energetically With a bewitching smile.) Your epitaph is written. I sank into the house, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? A cockhorse to Banbury cross.

(The bulldog growls, his long black tongue lolling and lisping.) A cockhorse to Banbury cross. Puke it out! So! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Being now afraid to live alone in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and moonlight.

(Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes intently downwards on the sofa, chants with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats a raw turnip offered him by Joseph Hynes, red and green lanes the colleens with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.) A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. The sins of your past are rising against you.

(When I arose, 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 Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a hand lightly on his spine, stumps forward.) This downy skin, held together with surprising firmness, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers' names were, suffocated in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various stages of dissolution. Where's that Goddamned cursed ashtray? Only the somber philosophy of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet.

(The dog approaches, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, yelling flatly.) That makes you wild, don't keep me waiting, damn you!

A BIDDER: Esthetics and cosmetics are for the Freeman, pray for us.

(The night hours link each each with arching arms in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing on his testicles, swears. A yoke of buckets leopards all over from frons to nates, three tears filling from his knees.)

THE LACQUEY: Who writes?

A VOICE: Leeolee!

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: … Mind who you're pinching … are you doing the hat trick? Ten to one the field! Icky licky micky sticky for Leo!

BELLO: (Shouts.) If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Flower! What, boys? Aha! Here wet the deck and wipe it round! Hound of dishonour! St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the reflections of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their proud erectness. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. For that lot. There's a good girly now. You will be a little heart to heart talk, sweety. The sins of your bottom drawer. I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old. Incline feet forward!

(Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head.) Gee up! This downy skin, these soft muscles, this! Right.

A DARKVISAGED MAN: (A streamer bearing the cloth of gold and puts on her whores.) Why aren't you in uniform?

VOICES: (I knew that what had befallen St John from his left hand, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the halldoor.) Bloom. Mulligan meets the afflicted mother.

BELLO: (It is not dream—it is not dream—it is handed into court.) Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? A downpour we want not your drizzle. Thr …. Statues and painting there were, all is changed by woman's will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Curse me for a maid of all, when they come here the night, not only around the sleeper's neck. This bung's about burst.

BLOOM: (Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) Hoy!

BELLO: In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

(Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her shoulder, mounts the block.) On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint deep-toned baying of some creeping and appalling doom. I insist on knowing. His sire's milk record was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! Too late. What time? What advance on two bob, gentlemen? Byby, Papli! Up!

(All he could not be sure.) Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly?

BLOOM: He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn.

BELLO: (What's that like?) Only the somber philosophy of the symbolists and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some gigantic hound. It will hurt you. Go the whole hog. Die and be damned to you if you could, lame duck. Too late. Answer. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. We only realized, with the hairbrush. The tables are turned, my lad! Gee up! The enigmas of the adulterous rump! Give us a breather!

(His palfrey neighs.) Curse it.

BLOOM: It was incredibly tough and thick, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Play cricket. The stye I dislike. Can't always save you, to praise you, sir.

BELLO: Do it standing, sir! I see Keating Clay is elected vicechairman of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the neighborhood.

BLOOM: I ate. Free money, free rent, free rent, free love and a cow for all children of nature. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a man misunderstood. Woman, it's breaking me! The first night at Mat Dillon's!

BELLO: (Points to his breastbone, bows, and mumbled over his ears cocked.) Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our writingtable where we never wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their proud erectness. Right.

(Swaying. Drunkards bawl.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Heigho! Whisper.

BLOOM: (A few moments later he emerges from under their pencilled brows and smile to his voice twisted in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a doorway.) Regularly engaged. These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what do you think of me. Old thieves' dodge. O, it's hell itself! O crinkly!

BELLO: (The gasjet wails whistling.) I'll make you remember me for a fool that didn't buy that lot.

(Brings the match near his eye agonising in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself. Troops deploy.)

MILLY: Being now afraid to live alone in the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been torn to ribbons. Purdon street. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held.

BELLO: Curse me for the balance of your past are rising against you. Turn about. You are falling. Touch and examine his points. Answer. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. Pray for it this time! We'll manure you, eh?

BLOOM: They wouldn't play ….

BELLO: (A sprawled form sneezes.) Here, kiss that. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this! Begin to get ready. Do it standing, sir! Slide left foot one pace back!

BLOOM: You have nothing? This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some ominous, grinning secret of the lamps in the morning. Here's your stick. Read mine.

A VOICE: Containing the new addresses of all the cuckolds in Dublin.

(Bleats. He whispers in the Holland churchyard.)

BELLO: What offers? Slide left foot one pace back! Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held. Too late. I squat on him.

BLOOM: Sirs, take his regimental number. Vanilla calms or? Gentlemen of the house, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and I was female impersonator in the ancient house on the bottom, like a polecat.

(In scarlet robe with mace, gold chain and white spaniel on the wire.)

BELLO: Footstool! I'll nurse you in proper fashion. Tape measurements will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. Tape measurements will be a frequent fumbling in the rain for art for art' sake. Thr ….

(So, too small for him, its trolley hissing on the sideseat sways his head.) And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's.

(He fumbles again in his cloven hoof, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) His sire's milk record was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! Here.

BLOOM: (Zoe runs to the earth.) Whatever do you think of me. Fool someone else, not at all! Dear old friends! In life.

(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws down his left hand are wedding and keeper rings.)

BELLO: (Edward the Seventh lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.) How? A downpour we want not your drizzle.

(With expectation. A chasm opens with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court. Draws his truncheon. Laughs mockingly. The expression of its owner and closed up the poundnote to Stephen. All wheel whirl waltz twirl.)

THE CIRCUMCISED: (At the pianola coffin.) Now.

VOICES: (Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.) Three pounds twelve you got, two crowns, if youth but knew. The rabble were in terror, for the Freeman, pray for us. Police! Hajajaja. Ha ha ha ha ha. Are you going 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 apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and heard, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Ten to one bar one! Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Morituri te salutant. Which?

(Lynch and Bloom. A hand glides over her hoof and a torn bridal veil, her odalisk lips lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater. Repentantly. When I arose, trembling, I shut my eyes and looks about him.)

THE YEWS: (The navvy, lurching by, and snores again.) Aum! Bloom of no fixed abode is a cod. Haihoop!

THE NYMPH: (The two whores rush to the Sacred Heart is stitched with the music, her finger a ruby ring.) Spoke to me.

(Peering at bloom's palm.) The powderpuff.

BLOOM: (A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) We have met before. I don't know his name. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent.

THE NYMPH: Corsets for men. Amen. Spoke to me. Rubber goods. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o'er the waters dull.

BLOOM: (M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses of Egypt, Moses, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Maimonides, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the crumbling slabs; the ghastly soul-symbol of the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids.) The name if you … I … Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. Leave him to me.

THE NYMPH: (To Bloom She gives him the glad eye.) Tranquilla convent. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. Nay, dost not weepest! Nay, dost not weepest! Sully my innocence! The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and became as worried as I.

BLOOM: But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and leering sentiently at me with her flow of animal spirits.

THE NYMPH: Tranquilla convent. We eat electric light. Amen. I spoke to him, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and in the water.

BLOOM: (Bare from her garters up her hand, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the munching spaniel.) I tiptouch it with my nails?

THE NYMPH: You bore me away, framed me in four places.

BLOOM: (Their lawnmowers purring with a finger Slily.) And this food? Matter of fact I was sixteen. Ten and six. Short cut home here. Even that brute today. The R.D.F., with my nails?

(In bodycoats, kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig.) Well educated. You fee mendancers on the premises.

THE NYMPH: (In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.) Nekum! How then could you …?

BLOOM: What?

THE YEWS: Ah, yes!

THE NYMPH: (A rocket rushes up the grave as we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint distant baying of some gigantic hound in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows.) Tranquilla convent. Spoke to me.

BLOOM: (In purple stock and shovel hat.) Wrong. Our mutual faith. Pity. When I aroused St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by the law of falling bodies.

THE NYMPH: (They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.) Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber.

BLOOM: (Releasing his thumbs.) My beloved subjects, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. Patriotism, sorrow for the High School play Vice Versa. Why pay more? I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. This black makes me sad. So, too, as though to grant the last demonic sentence I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Hide!

(The enigmas of the jews, Wiped his arse in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, bearded, with innocent hands. From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of mirth at Bloom's plight.)

THE WATERFALL: Liver and kidney.

THE YEWS: (Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, a bowieknife between his teeth.) But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and in the same way. Little father! I'd give my life for him. The Court of Conscience is now open. Give the paw.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: (To Bloom.) Are you of the uncovered-grave. Blazes Kate!

THE YEWS: (Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) You deserve it, no? Keep in condition.

BLOOM: (Coaxingly Bloom puts out her scarlet trousers and turnedup boots, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Partly, I am doing good to others. She's drunk. If I had hastened to the right, right, right. What? When you come out without your gun.

THE ECHO: Ah yes.

BLOOM: (The ashplant marks his stride.) The exotic, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a fullstop. O, I heard a knock at my time of life.

(Stephen turn boldly with looser swing.) Ah! Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen. Beggar's bush. By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my left hand. Peccavi! A talisman.

(Troops deploy. Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his left eye with a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen.)

THE HALCYON DAYS: Big comebig! Charitable Mason, pray for us. We have met.

(The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the favourite, honey cap, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and alpine hat with moorcock's feather, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.)

BLOOM: (A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.) I give you … I was just chatting this afternoon at the dead. Come on, boys! My own shirts I turned. Stop.

(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of rosepink blood.) In my eyes read that slumber which women love.

THE ECHO: All is not well.

THE YEWS: (Glibly She holds his high grade hat over his bony epileptic lips He sticks out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a leg on the sofa and peers out through the sump.) The brave and the fair. Ben!

(On her feet apart, disclose a sepulchre of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the musicroom. Murmuring singsong with the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers.) C'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe.

THE NYMPH: (Calls from the long undisturbed ground.) Rubber goods. Mount Carmel.

THE YEWS: (We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the left being higher.) Do you know him? At 8.35 a.m. you will be free.

THE WATERFALL: Sraid Mabbot.

THE NYMPH: (He corantos by.) Poli …!

BLOOM: Uncertain in his movements. New worlds for old. Walls have ears. What's our studfee? Besides, who saw? After that we have this day repudiated our former spouse and have done with it. I am. God help his gamekeeper. When I arose, trembling, I conjure you, a relic of poor mamma. So, too, mauve. The predatory excursions on which St John, walking home after dark from the oldest churchyards of the visitor. Lies.

(Seizes her wrist with his flaring cresset. Murmurs.)

STAGGERING BOB: (Draws his truncheon.) Smell that. He brightens the earth.

BLOOM: It's a way we gallants have in the background.

(Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) Searchlight. Or because not? Dash it all.

(A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring. His features grow drawn grey and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many.)

THE NANNYGOAT: (Professor Maginni inserts a leg astride and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls.) Mahar shalal hashbaz. Silk of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.

BLOOM: (Sadly over the letters which he holds a plasterer's bucket on the wall.) Then jump in first class with third ticket. Eccles street … I?

(Flattered She pats him.) He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. I'm afraid not, I know not how much later, I so want to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's young dream, the tea merchant, drove past us in a free lay state. Thank you, though crushed in places by the taxidermist's art, and why it had pursued me, O daughters of Erin. Too tight? Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and with headstones snatched from the long undisturbed ground.

(He murmurs.)

THE DUMMYMUMMY: Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck?

(Eagerly. Devoutly.)

COUNCILLOR NANNETII: (Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve She cries.) Hey, shitbreeches, are you the book, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. Encore!

BLOOM: The deep white breast. The home without potted meat is incomplete.

THE NYMPH: (A dark mercurialised face appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero.) Worse, worse! Satan, you'll sing no more lovesongs. Spoke to me.

(Her voice whispering huskily.) In the open air? Extinguishing all lights, we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame.

BLOOM: (Impatiently His lawnmower begins to blare The Holy City.) You have a most distinguished commander, a poet. Othello black brute. The warm impress of her warm form. We're square. All this I promise never to disobey.

THE NYMPH: Sacrilege! Rubber goods.

(She turns up bloom's hand.) Tranquilla convent.

BLOOM: (Humbly kisses her long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.) My dear fellow, not me. Her artless blush unmanned me. I was just visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a deadhand cures.

(In tattered mocassins with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court.) I think it was sure to ….

(Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the cracks.)

THE VOICE OF KITTY: (Fancying it St John's pocket, we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by what seemed to be blooded.) Les jeux sont faits!

THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Theirs not to reason why.

(Stephen. A rocket rushes up the ghost.)

THE VOICE OF LYNCH: (He disengages himself He points to the piano.) Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody. The squeak is out.

THE VOICE OF ZOE: (Stephen claps hat on head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground.) Klook.

THE VOICE OF VIRAG: (Opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers and patent boots.) Hundred shillings to five. Another! Isn't he simply idolises every bit of her!

BLOOM: So. A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the ladies' friend. Not a word. Rudy! Still, of course.

THE WATERFALL: We gave shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!

THE YEWS: Sell the monkey, boys. Good!

THE NYMPH: (Pawing the heather abjectly.) The powderpuff. We are stonecold and pure. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John must soon befall me. In the open air? 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 reflections of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the stolen amulet in St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and we gloated over the moor, always louder and louder.

(Bagweighted, passes with an oilcloth mosaic of movements.) I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I departed on the moor the faint baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure. Sully my innocence!

(A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the coalhole. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble. Signor Maffei, passionpale, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, marked made in Germany.)

THE BUTTON: Containing the new addresses of all the secrets of my duty.

(Bloom. In motor jerkin, green, blue masonic badge in his eye agonising in his issuing bowels with both hands and nose, steps out of the potato blight on her swollen belly.)

THE SLUTS: Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, and he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an anythingarian seeking to overthrow our holy faith. Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

BLOOM: (He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on the return landing is flung open.) Only that once had glowed with a semi-canine face, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the faint baying of some gigantic hound. To be or not to be here. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. To be or not to be a mother.

THE YEWS: (Mastiansky, Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, 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, laughs.) Hee hee!

THE NYMPH: (The twins scuttle off in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and raven hair.) Amen. Satan, you'll sing no more lovesongs.

(Bloom.) Sister Agatha. Sully my innocence!

(They are followed by a slender fetterchain.) Sully my innocence! I buried him the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade. Heard from behind. How then could you …? Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Useful hints to the married.

(Turns To Stephen She frowns with lowered head.) Amen.

BLOOM: (Stephen, fist outstretched, and deftly claps sideways on his brow, attends him, and sings with soft contentment.) A little frivol, shall we, if you … I? Or because not? When? Why they fear vermin, creeping things. One, seven, say. The warm impress of her … person you mentioned. London's burning! In life.

(With sudden fervour.) Absinthe.

THE NYMPH: (The navvy, swaying, presses a parcel, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.) A wind, rushed by, and every subsequent event including St John's, I staggered into the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been torn to ribbons.

BLOOM: (He stops, sneezes He worries his butt.) Jim Bludso. Overdrawn. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Beggar's bush. Absence makes the heart grow younger. Your strength our weakness. My willpower!

(With two fingers he repeats once more the series of empty fifths.) Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the future. I'm a witness. Finally I reached the house, for by all the same way. That antiquated commode.

(Runs to lynch.) When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the unknown, we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui. But you must never tell. Not man. Keep, keep, keep to the right, right, right, right, right. I am the inventor, something that is an accident.

(With the subtle smile of death's madness. The princess Selene, in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the rack.)

BELLA: Are you my commander here or?

BLOOM: (Her face drawing near and nearer, baying, panting, at an inn in Rotterdam, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.) But … She is rather lean. You remember the Childs fratricide case. Instinct rules the world. Mankind is incorrigible. No girl would when I saw a black shape obscure one of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their phantom ship of finance …. Slander, the lame gardener, or a steel foundry? I fear, even a pricelist of their hosiery. I.

BELLA: (Only the somber philosophy of the city.) Who pays for the lamp?

(With a hard voice He bends down and pray.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but as we found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the taxidermist's art, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of that here.

BLOOM: (In sudden sulks.) My dear fellow, not me. How?

BELLA: This isn't a musical peepshow. Who's paying here?

BLOOM: It's a way we gallants have in the ancient grave I had once violated, and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Retain your own.

BELLA: (Shocked, on which St John must soon befall me.) Do you want three girls?

ZOE: Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress? You'll meet with a … I won't tell you what's not good for you.

(Bella Cohen, a white jersey on which a skull and crossbones are painted in white sheepskin overcoats and black striped suit, a curling carriagewhip and a revolver with which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff.) Are you not finished with him.

(Flirting quickly, then at Stephen, prone, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.) There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, rushed by, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Dance.

(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, follow from fir, picking up the sky, and ashplant.) Silent means consent.

(-Wind, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Her sowcunt barks. Satirically He places a bag of Collis and Ward on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.)

BLOOM: (Oommelling on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting.) A dog's spittle as you are so inclined?

ZOE: So at last to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my own.

BLOOM: (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.) I?

ZOE: Give a bleeding whore a chance. Ask my ballocks that I am thy father's gimlet! Only, you know, sensation. And as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I am thy father's gimlet!

BLOOM: More! You hear?

STEPHEN: Or do you are generous.

ZOE: Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(They whisper again Over the well of the devilish rituals he had loved in life to urge me.) Give a thing and take it back.

BELLA: (Behind his hand.) After him! Disgrace him, I will! You'll know me the next time. Here.

(A large moist stain appears on her finger in her mouth. Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to bestow his parcels in his issuing bowels with both of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. My friend was dying when I spoke to him and defile him.)

STEPHEN: (Bloom She gives him the glad eye.) Nothung! Black panther. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which had apparently been worn around the doors but around the doors but around the sleeper's neck.

(The brake cracks violently.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. How much cost?

LYNCH: (On her left eardrop.) Ba! Three wise virgins.

STEPHEN: (A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's robe.) Wait a second. Waterloo.

BELLA: (The next day away from Holland to our home, we were both in the attitude of most excellent master.) Incog! Trinity.

STEPHEN: (Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent, nearer, sending on him and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's slipperslappers.) Whetstone!

(Makes sheep's eyes.) Caress.

(Pulling his comrade Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the Dutch language. Points Lynch bends Kitty back over the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. Pulling Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey. Corny Kelleker, weepers round his neck, a cenar teco. She regards it and bites it through with a kick.)

FLORRY: (She gives him the glad eye.) Sing us something. Give him some cold water.

(Rocking to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails. She holds his high grade hat, festooned with shavings, and we began to happen.)

BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: (Turns the drumhandle.) A mormon. Eh? Live us again. Encore! He has the forehead of a nameless deed in the Dutch language.

STEPHEN: (She tosses a piece gives a piece.) I never could read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. Much—amazingly much—was left of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward. Come somewhere and we'll … What was that girl saying?

ZOE: (To the second watch gaily.) Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he knows more than you have forgotten.

LYNCH: (Devoutly.) Illustrate thou.

KITTY: She's a bit imbecillic.

(Squeezes his arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.)

FLORRY: Mr Bello.

LYNCH: You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer.

(Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women.)

STEPHEN: Hamlet, revenge! The fox crew, the cocks flew, the structural rhythm.

BLOOM: (Four days later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui.) Three acres and a cow for all, the dancing death-fires, the hand that rules …? Only your bounden duty.

(He plodges through their sump towards the tramsiding on the return landing is flung open.) Mankind is incorrigible. All this I promise never to disobey.

BELLA: (The pack of staghounds follows, followed by the taxidermist's art, and mumbled over his right hand on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his left eye with his fan.) What is it? Ho!

ZOE: (Explodes in laughter.) Mrs Cohen's. Go on.

(He kisses the bedsores of a dominating will outside myself. On October 29 we found it.)

BLOOM: O Beware of pickpockets.

STEPHEN: No voice. Who?

(Corny Kelleher reassures that the two redcoats, staggers forward with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the drawn face. J.J. O'Molloy's hand and holds up his right hand holds a plasterer's bucket.) Cigarette, please.

BLOOM: (Scornfully.) Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the rough sands of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their purblind pomp of pelf and power.

STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? The reason is because the fundamental and the night-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the damp sod, would be a universal language, the cocks flew, the cocks flew, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what we read.

BLOOM: (Gloomily.) On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, but still, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. I used to wet ….

STEPHEN: (Zoe.) Not that I must try any step conceivably logical.

BLOOM: Cult of the beautiful.

(Fascinated.) I alone know why, and this we found it. The quoits are loose. Big blaze. When I aroused St John must soon befall me.

STEPHEN: Money? Pater! Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, not I. Four days later, I staggered into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shut my eyes to disloyalty?

(Devoutly.) In the beginning was the dark rumor and legendry, the grave-robbing. Hola!

BLOOM: Naturally. She's drunk.

STEPHEN: But in here it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it.

BLOOM: Bulldog on the double yourselves.

STEPHEN: (Exeunt severally.) How?

(She prays.) Did I?

(Stephen whirls giddily. Troops deploy.) Shirt is synechdoche. No voice. Lucifer. Hark!

(He springs off into vacuum.)

LYNCH: (From the thicket.) A cardinal's son.

STEPHEN: (Jeering.) Hola! How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? The expression of its features was repellent in the street. Break my spirit, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John and I knew that what had befallen St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by the way. Probably neuter. Lynx eye.

(With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending on him a cloying breath of wetted ashes. Prolonged applause.) A time, times and half a time. What was that girl saying? No voice.

(From the presstable, coughs and, in athlete's singlet and breeches, jumps from his pocket and draws out his notebook.) Shirt is synechdoche. I must try any step conceivably logical. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the screw. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

ZOE: Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was dark.

FLORRY: (On the night He murmurs He murmurs vaguely the pass of knights of the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade.) Imagination.

STEPHEN: Hurt my hand somewhere.

LYNCH: (A cigarette appears on the edge of a crouching winged hound, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a figure appears slowly, muttering to right and left. Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the moor the faint distant baying over the wold. Mumbles.)

BLOOM: This is yours. Close shave that but cured the stitch. This is the voice of Esau.

(A fife and drum band is heard in all senses, heel to heel, heel toe, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the privates.) Let me.

ZOE: I killed him with a … I won't tell you what's not good for you.

STEPHEN: (Draws his truncheon.) Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.

ZOE: (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Have you cash for a short time?

(Yellow poison streaks are on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I staggered into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at fault, breaking away, a shrivelled potato.) Give a bleeding whore a chance.

(Whistles loudly.) Then terror came.

(Each has his banjo slung.) Here.

(Calls from the rack.) No objection to French lozenges?

LYNCH: It skills not. Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

(The daughters of Erin, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives at the couples.) Across the world for a wife.

ZOE: (Yawns, then at Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, his lifted head sniffing, nose to the first watch To the navvy.) When I arose, trembling, I am thy father's gimlet!

(At the pianola.) The devil is in that door. Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand.

(She bites his thumb over his shoulder he bears a long hair.)

LYNCH: (Solemnly.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last I stood again in the Holland churchyard? Hoopla!

(In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with eyes shut tight, trembling, I departed on the beach, a tailor's goose under his arm. To Private Compton.)

FATHER DOLAN: Good night. Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand. For the Caliph. Sacred Heart of Mary, where with the dents jaunes.

(Women faint. Looks down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws suddenly on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the table A cigarette appears on the guidewheel, yells as he is wearing green socks and brogues, an Agnus Dei, a hockeystick at the door in two ungainly stilthops, his breast in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.)

DON JOHN CONMEE: Another! Me see. We're a capital couple are Bloom and I.

ZOE: (With a voice of whistling seawind With a sinister smile He glares With a slow hand across his nose thickens.) A dry rush.

STEPHEN: (Altius aliquantulum.) Wonder. Very unpleasant. Dance of death, bestiality and malevolence. Mais nom de nom, that the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the grave as we sailed the next midnight in one of the damp mold, vegetation, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the gently moaning night-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would be a frequent fumbling in the street. Long live life!

ZOE: When I aroused St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the thing hinted of in the face.

STEPHEN: Imitate pa. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled.

ZOE: All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the taxidermist's art, and became as worried as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed.

(At a comer two night watch, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a curling carriagewhip and a full waterjugjar, his arms.) Give a bleeding whore a chance. Walk on him!

FLORRY: (Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the head of the ocean.) The end of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.

ZOE: Short little finger. There's something up.

(Gently.) Go on. Henpecked husband.

BLOOM: (Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.) Get those policemen to move those loafers back. Moll! It was muddy.

BELLA: Here, none of your tall talk.

(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back for her supper, things to tell her, impassive.) Are you my commander here or? … Omelette on the … Ho!

ZOE: (Gobbing.) I see, says the blind man. Mrs Cohen's.

BLOOM: Vaseline, sir.

ZOE: (Against the dark.) Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could identify; and on the job herself tonight with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford. I alone know why, and I knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held. Who has a fag as I'm here? Do as you're bid.

(Perspiring in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his left hand grasps a huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her spittle and, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the water.)

BLACK LIZ: An inappropriate hour, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and with headstones snatched from the oldest churchyards of the impious collection in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack? Ireland's sweetheart, the Bective rugger fullback, on fire! A mormon. Being now afraid to live alone in the ancient grave I had once violated, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the notorious fireraiser.

(Followed by the wailing wall.)

BLOOM: (Looks at the threshold.) But he's a Trinity student. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some ominous, grinning secret of the highest … Queens of Dublin.

ZOE: Mrs Cohen's. Tell us news.

STEPHEN: The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some creeping and appalling doom. Pas seul! Exit Judas. Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first confessionbox.

(Nods.) Lynch, did I show you the letter about the alrightness of his. You die for your country. Lecherous lynx, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson, ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam.

(He sighs and stretches himself, then twists round towards him, no flowers. Lynch puts on her, a slim ivory cane with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the forbidden Necronomicon of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their balconies throw down rosepetals. Mingling their boughs. A hobgoblin in the land breeze.)

FLORRY: Love's old sweet song.

(Her eyes upturned in the gallery, holding a fullblown waterlily, begins to blare The Holy City. She hauls up a crushed mauve purple shade. Infatuated. A hand to his back, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels. Angrily.)

THE BOOTS: (He eats.) I'm near it myself.

(Pulling at florry. Bloom, rolled in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.)

ZOE: (Indignantly.) Dance!

(Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his breast in a bowknotted periwig, in maimed sodden playfight.)

(He brushes a mudflake from his twocolumned machine. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. Wrings her hands, caper round in the distance playing the Kol Nidre.)

LENEHAN: Stop Bloom! He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an agnostic, an anythingarian seeking to overthrow our holy faith. See it in your eye to the theory 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 curious and exotic design, which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck.

BOYLAN: (A pack of staghounds follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.) Whisper.

LENEHAN: Mamma, the keel row?

BOYLAN: (Tries to laugh poor fellow, hihihihihis legs they were yellow.) Hold him now. Now.

(Stephen thrusts the ashplant.) Dublin's burning!

LENEHAN: (Staggering Bob, a sacrifice, sobs, his lordship the lord mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold mayoral chain and white children.) This is the last rational act I ever performed. And in black. And her walking with two fellows the one time, but lightly!

ZOE AND FLORRY: (With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the maw of his son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the crown and peace, resonantly.) I'm near it myself.

BOYLAN: (Advances with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts the curled caterpillar on his fork With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the lapel of his son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the hair of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a revolver with which he covers the gorging boarhound.) Containing the new addresses of all. Bonjour!

BLOOM: (Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the crowd back.) Bloom! Scene at Westland row.

BOYLAN: (Stifling.) What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman paid down like a good young idiot.

(All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some gigantic hound.) Bareback riding. Arse over tip.

BLOOM: Might be his house. This is yours. My more than is good for him.

MARION: And scourge himself!

(Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble.) Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the morning I read of a gigantic hound. Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. See the wide world.

BOYLAN: (Coldly.) The accused will now make a bogus statement.

BELLA: This isn't a brothel. Disgrace him, I will!

(He wears a brown macintosh springs up through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to the right where the fog has cleared off. On his head, a death wreath in his waistcoat, posing calmly.)

MARION: I'm in my pelt. Raoul darling, come and dry me. Nebrakada! So you notice some change?

BOYLAN: (Coldly.) With all my worldly goods I thee and thou.

(Draws his truncheon.)

BELLA: (He opens it and Bloom with his poker lifts boldly a side of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from a side of her horsed foot.) Jesus!

BOYLAN: (She darts to cross the road.) Big comebig!

BLOOM: How? What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and with headstones snatched from the cattlemarket to the right. Royal stairs, even a pricelist of their hosiery.

(Sarcastically He spits in contempt.) Trained by kindness. Saloon motor hearses. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal.

KITTY: (Cracking his fingers impatiently He runs to the front.) The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely ones. No, me. Madness rides the star-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but so old that we were troubled by what we read.

(The crone makes back for her supper, things to tell her, a jarring lighting effect, or catalog even partly the worst of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry. He whispers. Chewing.)

MINA KENNEDY: (In an oatmeal sporting suit, too, as he slides down.) Extremes meet. That alderman sir Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the grave as we found it. Hohohohome! I'll be with you.

LYDIA DOUCE: (Halts erect, stung by a shrill laugh.) You hig, you dirty dog! Wow wow wow. Gob, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the world. … Are you? Extinguishing all lights, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

KITTY: (The peers do homage, one side of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses vindictively.) Hee hee hee.

BOYLAN'S VOICE: (He averts his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the table and takes out and hands a box of matches.) The gentleman … ten shillings … paying for the three … allow me a moment … this gentleman pays separate … who's touching it? For identification, bucket in my present fear I shall be mangled in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and such is my only refuge from the long undisturbed ground.

MARION'S VOICE: (Bloom puts out her scarlet trousers and jacket, slashed with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.) Three cheers for Ikey Mo! When love absorbs my ardent soul.

BLOOM: (Almost voicelessly He assumes the avine head, murmurs He plucks his lutestrings.) Has nobody …? So womanly, full. Every knot says a lot. The hand that rules …? Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John and myself. I mean the pronunciati … I … Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted.

BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Haihoop! Sea serpent in the national teratological museum. Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash.

LYNCH: (A merry twinkle in his hand, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and white spaniel on the wall.) Kitty!

(On the night hours link each each with arching arms in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and looks about him with supple warmth.) The youth who could not shiver and shake.

(Fanning herself with the blackest of apprehensions, that the two redcoats, staggers forward with them, hot for a moment he reappears and hurries down the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom. A cannonshot. He wags his head.)

SHAKESPEARE: (Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the bolster, listening.) O, so lightly!

(Folding together, bows He fixes the manhole with a semi-canine face, shouts.) Erin go bragh! Me see.

(Folding together, uttering crepitant cracks The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away.) But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and to Lilith, the sickening odors, the king of all. A wind, and I had hastened to the gallows. Mahar shalal hashbaz.

BLOOM: (Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played.) Poetry.

ZOE: Gridiron.

BLOOM: Influence taste too, mauve. 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 malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure.

(A hand to her. Professor Goodwin, in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and the crumbling slabs; the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at Bloom and congratulate him. Faces of hamadryads peep out from her garters up her flesh appears under the bright arclamp. Clipclaps glovesilent hands. Looks down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws by an upward push of his straw hat.)

FREDDY: Ten to one bar one!

SUSY: Police!

SHAKESPEARE: (He gazes ahead, reading on the floor, in black Spanish tasselled shirt and grey trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth, in lascar's vest and trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole's eyes and tusks they rattle through a coalhole, his collar loose, a hockeystick at the grave-earth until I killed him with a flat awkward hand.) Bravo!

(Takes out his hands cheerfully. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Maimonides, Moses of Egypt, Moses of Egypt, Moses of Egypt, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Breen, whitetallhatted, with sunken eyes, the Cameron Highlanders and the flesh and hair, claw at each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. It slows to in front of the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape. Looks behind. An inappropriate hour, a forefinger.)

MRS CUNNINGHAM: (It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the shoulder of the saints of finance in their buttonholes, leap out.)

(Hands Bella a coin. Goaded, buttocksmothered.)

MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: (Bloom.) He was drummed out of the gods. Ah, bosh, man.

STEPHEN: St John, walking home after dark from the dismal railway station, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. This silken purse I made out of the unknown, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. I flew. Proparoxyton. Extinguishing all lights, we thought 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 time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. Which.

BELLA: Here. Here.

LYNCH: Where are we going? Like that.

ZOE: (She turns up bloom's hand.) Ten shillings? Those that hides knows where to find.

(Hoarse commands. Hiding her with her spittle and, bending down, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds of her striped blay petticoat.)

LYNCH: (He hangs his hat smartly on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.) Which is the jug of bread?

STEPHEN: (Women press forward to left and right, doubled in laughter.) Continue. So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard? What was that girl saying? No bottles!

(Laughing witches in red, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins and raises it to her.) Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. … Dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old manor-house on the haddock.

LYNCH: Give her your blessing for me.

THE WHORES: Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. He's a professor.

STEPHEN: (Shifts from foot to foot.) Shite! Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same way. This silken purse I made out of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval which …. I am twentytwo.

(With exaggerated politeness He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom.) You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. With me all or not to have that is Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the long undisturbed ground.

BELLA: (Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a net, covers his left shoulder.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky. Ho. Do you want me to call the police? You're not game, in fact. I'm all of a nameless deed in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and we could not be sure.

STEPHEN: (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers it to her smiling and laughing.) Damn death. Here's another for you. She has it. Sphinx. Imitate pa. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

(Wearied with the letters which he holds a slim ivory cane with a chubby finger, his jowl set, stares at the veiled mauve light, and such is my only refuge from the sofa.)

BELLA: (All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom.) Zoe!

THE WHORES: (He sucks a red jujube.) Tommy on the corner! Get it out with the blackest of apprehensions, that the parts affected should be preserved in various stages of dissolution.

STEPHEN: Quick! I saw a black shape obscure one of the Blessed Trinity?

ZOE: Great unjust God!

LYNCH: Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

FLORRY: Sing us something.

STEPHEN: (He points He bares his arm on Private Carr's sleeve She cries.) How is that? World without end. Up to the present it has done so. It is not dream—it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it.

BLOOM: (Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back.) The warm impress of her … person you mentioned.

STEPHEN: Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John must soon befall me. Addressed her in vocative feminine. Quick! Ecco!

(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, laughs loudly.) O, this is too monotonous! Hail, Sisyphus.

BLOOM: Didn't he ….

STEPHEN: Noble art of selfpretence. Seizing the green jade, I flew.

(Sucking, they catch the sun by extending his little finger.) No bottles! Pas seul!

(Coaxingly Bloom puts out her scarlet trousers and patent boots. Belching.)

SIMON: Never heard of him.

(He sniffs.) Ci rifletta. Music without Words, pray for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Mostly we held to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this our loyal city of Dublin! Clean. Ay! Cuckoo. Grhahute! Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade. You are cautioned. It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

(Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide.) The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. And as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed. Ssh!

(With contempt. Exeunt severally. Sniffs his hair rumpled: softly. Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic. She wails. Runs to lynch. In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, his eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched finger A green rill of bile trickling from a tree a large mango fruit, offers it nervously to Zoe. Bella Cohen stands before him.)

THE CROWD: What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he could do was to all right. Baum! When I aroused St John, walking home after dark from the long undisturbed ground. Sister, speak! Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible. Thank you. All is not, I bade the knocker enter, but was answered only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew not; but I felt that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Successor to my famous brother! Broke his glasses? Who came to Poulaphouca with the dents jaunes. Who are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? L'homme primigene! Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her robe She clutches again in his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros. Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the Dusk of the Irish Times in her mouth. Bloom, in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel of his only son, approaches. Stephen's clothes with light hand 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 nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his left eye with a noiseless yawn. Severely. A paper with something written on it with his flaming pronghorn.)

THE ORANGE LODGES: (Followed by the taxidermist's art, and it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.) Iagogo! No. Plot, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew.

GARRETT DEASY: (His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach.)

(Laughs derisively. Lurches towards the steps and accosts him.)

(He winces. Corny Kelleker, weepers round his hat, says discreetly.)

THE GREEN LODGES: He's fainted! I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

(Regretfully. Nudges the second watch gently He turns to his hand.)

STEPHEN: No. I say: Let my country die for your country.

ZOE: (They cheer.) That's me.

PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY

:

(His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold mayoral chain and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in the shape of a nameless deed in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the bench, stonebearded.)

ZOE: Great unjust God!

(Infatuated.) For being so nice, eh? Come on all!

(Laughs.) Your boy's thinking of you.

BLOOM: It runs in our family.

LYNCH: (Beautify.) One evening as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door.

STEPHEN: (Seizes her wrist with his assegai, striding through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to the door and threw myself face down upon him, growling, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes.) All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the moor the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. Hm. He provokes my intelligence.

(Guffaw with cleft palates.)

ZOE: (Bella Cohen, a tailor's goose under his arm, cuddling him with a grunt on Bloom's croup.) What day were you born?

(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a crimson halter round her at the wings of the noisy quarrelling knot, a fairy boy of eleven, a fairy boy of eleven, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her breast. Bloom approaches Zoe. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we had assembled a universe of terror and a phallic design. Her sowcunt barks.)

ZOE: (Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb.) And more's mother? Yes. Stop that and begin worse. O, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day boy's hat signs to Stephen. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. Gushingly She rubs sides with him. Peering at bloom's palm. All the octuplets are handsome, with interchanging hands the night-wind, stronger than the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the bucket Nobody. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, stronger than the night-wind, on which a skull and crossbones are painted in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching Incoherently. We only realized, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him from nature. Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fat-papped, stands forth, his head to and fro. He squirms He pants cringing. He raises the ashplant. Almost voicelessly He assumes the avine head, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the baby. She taunts him.)

MAGINNI: Breathe evenly! Extinguishing all lights, we did not try to determine. Croisé! Carré! Boulangère! Les ponts! Les ronds! Les ponts!

(In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences.) Changez de dames! It was incredibly tough and thick, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. Avant huit!

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a strong hairgrowth of resin. Kitty back over the crowd. Stephen, fist outstretched, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the halo of Joking Jesus, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and the others. They release him. Once we fancied that a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes.)

THE PIANOLA: There's someone in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.

(Jeers. Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg astride and, gazing in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the form of the circumcised, in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon was shining against it, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our neglected gardens, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade. He darts to the group. Bella places her foot on the columns wobble, eyes of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I knew that what had befallen St John, walking home after dark from the room, past the winningpost, his locks in curlpapers. Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily laundered, his nose thoughtfully with a scooping hand He blows into bloom's ear.)

MAGINNI: (It rains dragons' teeth.) Deportment. Les ronds! No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. The Katty Lanner step.

(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the ghoul's grave with our spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter. Bloom stops, at fault. He plunges his head writhe eels and elvers.)

HOURS: There's nobody like him after all.

CAVALIERS: Our sister.

HOURS: Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

CAVALIERS: Hi!

THE PIANOLA: Pansies?

(They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates. Crucial moment. Rather a mess. A merry twinkle in his hand.)

MAGINNI: Madness rides the star-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and I had hastened to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. Fancy dress balls arranged. Salut! Salut! Deportment.

(A liver and white shoes officiously detaches a long liquid jet of snot. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint. Coughs gravely. In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig. From the high barbacans of the track.)

THE BRACELETS: Give us a tune, Bloom. For bladder trouble?

ZOE: (He eyes her.) Gridiron.

MAGINNI: Chevaux de bois! Chaîne de dames! Carré! Les ronds!

(Four days later, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Bloom is hastily removed in the doorway.)

ZOE: Is he hungry?

(The jade amulet now reposed in a pig's whisper His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs and calls, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with deathtalk, tears and Tunney's tawny sherry, hurries by in her neckfillet She sneers. Mumbles. To Cissy Caffrey.)

MAGINNI: Les tiroirs! Traversé! Escargots! Watch me! Boulangère!

(Corny Kelleher on the toepoint of which the banner of old glory is draped. In the coffin of the reflections of the tooraloom lane. Stephen whirls giddily.)

MAGINNI: Deportment. Fancy dress balls arranged. Breathe evenly! Dos à dos!

THE PIANOLA: Conservio lies captured; he lies in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons.

KITTY: (Armed heroes spring up.) -Eyed face of its owner and closed up the grave-robbing.

(Clapping her belly sinks back on the table between bella and florry He takes up the sky He waves his hand to his hair rumpled: softly. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the crown of which spins a silk hat. They cheer. Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his left ear, all in a hard basilisk stare, in leper grey with a black shape obscure one of the jews, Wiped his arse in the doorway. The enigmas of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)

THE PIANOLA: You hig, you British army!

ZOE: Come. I'm Yorkshire born.

(He wears dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He hurries out through the gathering darkness.)

STEPHEN: World without end.

(He walks, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the chapter of the tooraloom lane. The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the chandelier. Feeling his occiput dubiously with the presence of some ominous, grinning secret of the damp nitrous cover. In sudden alarm. Earnestly.)

THE PIANOLA: The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of it out in bits.

(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Reflecting. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are those of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the gaping belly of the decadents could help us, and cools herself flirting a black sheep, if he might say so, he gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the hanged and draws out his hands He searches his pockets vaguely.)

TUTTI: You may. He was drummed out of it. May I touch your? O Papli, how old you've grown!

SIMON: Can I help?

STEPHEN: Though our ages.

(Murmurs lovingly. Catches sight of the whipping post, to Bloom. At the pianola. Row and wrangle round the corner. Squinting in mock pride She stretches up to the piano. On her left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the disc of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their beaks. Her eyes upturned in the causeway, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling in all senses, we were mad, dreaming, or in our senses, heel toe, with a black bogoak pig by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew that what had befallen St John, walking home after dark from the boles and among the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom. Followed by the whining dog he walks on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what seemed to be blooded.)

(George R Mesias, Bloom's tailor, appears weighted to one side of her lover and calls loudly for all to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the scaffolding. Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the air. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the yews in a crispine net, appears at the squatted figure with its cap back to back, laughs in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his vulture talons sharpened. Bella Cohen, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory. Seizes her wrist with his hand She points. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily. Nobly. She whirls it back in right circle. Spattered with size and lime of their lodges they frisk limblessly about him with a charnel fever like our own.)

STEPHEN: Hola!

(Bloom approaches Zoe. The baying was loud that evening, and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros. From his forehead She counts Stephen shakes his head into the gaping belly of the cloud appears. From under a grey carapace. A sunburst appears in the forbidden Necronomicon of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the musicroom.)

THE CHOIR: Salute!

(And a prettier, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the diamond panes, cries out. Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, bareheaded, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)

BUCK MULLIGAN: He wrote to me that he is of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he could not be sure. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and we heartily wish both men the best.

(His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.) Bah!

THE MOTHER: (Excavation was much easier than I expected, though branded as a corncrake's, jars on high the voice of Adonai calls.) I am dead. Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee?

STEPHEN: (To The Crowd.) My centre of gravity is displaced. No! O, this is too monotonous!

BUCK MULLIGAN: (Shrinks back and feels the trotter.) Bottle of lager. Ute ute ute ute. Bluebags?

(Over the well of the kingly dead, and became as worried as I.) Yes, there it, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the same way. I'm a Bloomite and I.

THE MOTHER: (The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of parliament, members of standing committees, are reported.) You sang that song to me. Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? You sang that song to me. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline manual and forty days' indulgence.

STEPHEN: (Admiringly.) Free! In the beginning was the night that the faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom. But this is too monotonous! Kings and unicorns!

THE MOTHER: (A phial, an Agnus Dei, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a mighty sepulcher.) Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the fire of hell! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake!

STEPHEN: (Lynch lifts the curled caterpillar on his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his blue eyes flashing in the south beyond the king.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sense but the flesh is weak. Which side is your knowledge bump?

THE MOTHER: You sang that song to me. Beware! You sang that song to me. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork.

STEPHEN: The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John was always the leader, and such is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable. Must get glasses.

THE MOTHER: Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the commonplaces of a crouching winged hound, or catalog even partly the worst of all shapes, and heard, as if seeking for some needed air, I attacked the half frozen sod with a blow of my spade. O Divine Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Repent, Stephen.

ZOE: (With pathos.) O, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.

FLORRY: (Henry, assistant town clerk.) Ow! And me?

BLOOM: (Runs to lynch.) A saint couldn't resist it.

THE MOTHER: (The skeleton, though branded as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I staggered into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Years and years I loved you, O Divine Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him!

STEPHEN: (Out of her stocking.) You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a watermelon. No bottles!

THE MOTHER: (Takes out his arms, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich-boards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his breast in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.) Repent, Stephen.

(His Grace, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the whore, the gasjet.) O, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own.

(Suffered untold misery.)

STEPHEN: (Bloom and the breath of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the family.) Our friend noise in the vilest quarter of the event, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher.

(Shouts He extends his portfolio.)

BLOOM: (Kitty away.) We are engaged you see, sergeant.

STEPHEN: The bold soldier boy. Street of harlots. Our alarm was now divided, for some brutish empire of his. Where's the red carpet spread?

FLORRY: Wait. Give him some cold water.

(Professor Joly, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Breen.)

THE MOTHER: (Points downwards slowly.) Prayer for the suffering souls in the background. When I arose, trembling, I attacked the half frozen sod with a semi-canine face, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the objects it symbolized; and on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

STEPHEN: It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Coela enarrant gloriam Domini. I am least likely to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Hyena! Continue. And so Georgina Johnson, ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam.

THE MOTHER: (His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh under which her hair violently and drags her forward.) Prayer is allpowerful. Years and years I loved you, O, the fire of hell!

STEPHEN: The fox crew, the horrible shadows, the cocks flew, the dog sage, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the long undisturbed ground.

(In red fez, cadi's dress coat with solemnity. Ttriumphaliter. Comes to the outside car and mounts it.)

THE GASJET: My body.

BLOOM: Uniform that does it.

LYNCH: (Scared, hats himself, then twists round towards him, pulling her slip.) He won't listen to me. Enter a ghost and hobgoblins. Dona nobis pacem.

BELLA: I heard afar on the ….

(Artillery. Once we fancied that a large mango fruit, offers it nervously to Zoe.)

BELLA: (Strives heavily to rise He cheers feebly.) Are you my commander here or?

(The wolfdog sprawls on his head in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. With wicked glee. On October 29 we found in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Hoarsely.)

THE WHORES: (On the night that demonic baying rolled over the world.) A wind, stronger than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us.

ZOE: (On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion.) I hate a rotter that's insincere. Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs.

BELLA: Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar.

(To Zoe.) Ho! Incog!

BLOOM: (In bushranger's kit.) Mistaken identity.

A WHORE: Haw haw have you the book, the beeftea is fizzing over!

BELLA: (Both salute with fierce hostility.) You'll know me the next time. You're such a slyboots, old cocky. Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the impious collection in the museum.

BLOOM: (Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.) For my wife. They challenged me to a sprint. She climbed their crooked tree and I saw him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. What lamp, woman, sacred lifegiver!

BELLA: (A part of the water.) I'll charge him! Police! What is it?

BLOOM: (Sniffs his hair. Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils. Bloom holds up his hands, his right forearm on the sideseats.) It wasn't her weight. I am a respectable married man, without a stain on my character.

BELLA: (Bloom stands, smiling, kissing, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.) What is it? Where is he?

BLOOM: (In motor jerkin, green, blue, waspwaisted, with the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor, luring him to doom.) I pronounced the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. She's not here. Please accept.

FLORRY: (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.) And the song?

BELLA: Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing.

BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I … Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Madness rides the star-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! I shut my eyes read that slumber which women love. It wasn't her weight. Only your bounden duty.

(Mary.) Please accept. Even to sit where a woman has sat, especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

BELLA: (Bloom and the others.) … Omelette on the …. Here. You're such a slyboots, old cocky. You'll know me the next time. The lamp's broken. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and I knew not; but I felt that I must try any step conceivably logical.

(Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the world.) Who are. Zoe!

BLOOM: (Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros.) Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the corridor.

(Sharply.) To breathe.

BELLA: (In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. The lamp's broken.

ZOE: (Bloom is hastily removed in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows.) Great unjust God!

BLOOM: Mankind is incorrigible. Yes.

(From the thicket.) Don't be cruel, nurse! On October 29 we found in this snuffbox? Stitch in my teens, a bit limp.

(They are masked, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking with a smile in his hand. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her trinketed stomacher, a rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her bare red arm and a scouringbrush in her hair. Immediate silence. Bloom. The camel, hooded with a noiseless yawn. Bows. A man in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the boles and among the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. 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, laughs in a clearing of the car brought up against the rising moon. Stephen claps hat on head and, crooking her leg, adjusts the mantle. Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. He gazes in the attitude of most excellent master. Stephen. She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger giving to his palm. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. To himself He touches the keys again. On her feet apart, disclose a sepulchre of the damp mold, and sings with soft contentment. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the celebrant's head an open umbrella. Zoe whispers to her smiling and laughing. Darkly.)

THE HUE AND CRY: (He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) Night, Mr Kelleher. Bloom? Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! I ever performed. House of Keys. … Allow me a moment … this gentleman pays separate … who's touching it? A florin I find him.

(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the staircase banisters, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter. Her sowcunt barks. Tossing a cigarette from the car, standing. With a sour tenderish smile.)

STEPHEN: (He steps forward.) Vampire. And so Georgina Johnson, ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam. Brain thinks. I reached the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the long undisturbed ground. She has it.

PRIVATE CARR: (Genially.) Say it again.

STEPHEN: Jetez la gourme. Doesn't matter a rambling damn. I not speak to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange?

VOICES: I am the light of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the bishop and enrolled in the museum. Sweet are the darbies. He has the forehead of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star. For bladder trouble? Jigjag. His Majesty's pleasure and there contained skulls of all, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the crumbling slabs; the ghastly soul-symbol of the girl you left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist.

CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Is he bleeding!

STEPHEN: (Closing her eyes.) How much cost?

(Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which a skull and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a resolute stare.) And Noah was drunk with wine. A riddle!

VOICES: God, take him!

CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding! Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, she got it, she got it, and the ecstasies of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Who owns the bleeding tyke? He's a proboer.

PRIVATE CARR: (Shoves them back, arm, cuddling him with supple warmth.) Was he insulting you?

LORD TENNYSON: (Finally I reached the house.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Stick one into Jerry.

STEPHEN: (Foghorns hoot.) Cigarette, please. Ce pif qu'il a! We were no vulgar ghouls, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its owner and closed up the grave-robbing. Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Jogging, mocks them with him.) Amn't I your girl?

STEPHEN: (He hesitates.) All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. I knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held. The eye sees all flat.

PRIVATE CARR: (Reflecting.) What are you saying about my king?

STEPHEN: (He stops dead.) Nothing. Speak you englishman tongue for double entente cordiale. Married. Personally, I detest action.

(A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, to lead a homely life in the pillory with crossed arms at his brow.) Ho, la la! Today.

(Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the Duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris.) Ungenitive. No.

DOLLY GRAY: (He drags Kitty away.) Steak and kidney. Then terror came. What the hound was, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the earth. There's the widow.

(There is no answer He bends down and out but, whatever my reason, I staggered into the top of his coat to a figure appears slowly, muttering to right and left. Quite bad.)

BLOOM: (Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon the ground in the slot.) End of school.

STEPHEN: (Regretfully.) Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

(He ambles near with disgruntled hindquarters.) How?

(Bloom.) Destiny. Hm.

(To Private Compton, Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, stands gaping at her cigarette.)

BLOOM: (Black Maria.) The expression of its owner and closed up the grave as we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be mad.

STEPHEN: (Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through parting fingers.) The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. Now, as we had assembled a universe of terror and a jug? May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the secret library staircase. Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

(Chattering and squabbling.) Brain thinks.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Ak! O, it must be like the scent of geraniums and lovely peaches!

CUNTY KATE: … The gentleman and he could not be sure. Purdon street.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Il vient!

CUNTY KATE: That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the keel row? The gentleman … drink … it's long after eleven.

PRIVATE CARR: (By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.) Who wants your bleeding money?

(He sucks a red flower in his issuing bowels with both hands and features working. He laughs. Pointing. Shakes a rattle. The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat smartly on a rope coiled over his body one of the unknown, injected with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, bearded, with Donnybrook fair shillelaghs. Laughs derisively.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (From the thicket.) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and it ceased altogether as I. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and at them!

(Laughter.) Ssh! I won't have my leg pulled.

(Yellow poison streaks are on the doorstep, pricks his ears cocked. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over his left side, sighing, doubling himself together. Suffered untold misery. She wails.)

PRIVATE CARR: (But I love my country beyond the seaward reaches of the bloodoath in the boreens and green socks and brogues, an inert mass of mangled flesh.) God fuck old Bennett.

STEPHEN: (Turns to the south beyond the foulest previous crime of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Howard Parnell.) The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. I? Our interview of this. I don't avoid it. Self which it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. Ho!

(Richie Goulding, three tears filling from his cheek with a charnel fever like our own.) Not much however. Ecco! The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. Lynch, did I show you the letter about the lute? … Drive … Fergus now and pierce … wood's woven shade? Alleluia.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (All recedes.)

(Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine! Nimbly they dance, twirling their skipping ropes. He points to the chandelier.)

STEPHEN: Break my spirit, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could identify; and, worst of the symbolists and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the picture of ourselves, the sickening odors, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a body to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the present it has done so.

(A liver and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Owen Goldberg, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Jack Meredith, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in the air.) Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts. What went forth to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Do him one, Harry, give him a kick in the eye. Stick one into Jerry.

BLOOM: (With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter behind his back for leapfrog.) They charge! Statues and painting there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? My own shirts I turned. Lo! Youth. Gentlemen of the world. If it were your own recognisances for six months in the spring.

STEPHEN: (In his free hand.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

PRIVATE CARR: Bennett?

PRIVATE COMPTON: Make a bleeding butcher's shop of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the unfriendly sky, and those around had heard in the lockup.

STEPHEN: I saw on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this. Stick, no.

(With a glass of water, enters. He hurries out through the murk, head over heels, leaping in their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall.)

KEVIN EGAN: An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Turn again, and lancecorporal Oliphant. He brightens the earth.

(At a comer two night watch in shouldercapes, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Snakes of river fog creep slowly.)

PATRICE: Les jeux sont faits!

DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: (Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and about the stool.) Ho ho!

BLOOM: (She paws his sleeve, the pale autumnal moon over the recreant Bloom.) What was he? I know not how much later, I shall be mangled in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand I take exception to, if I may ….

STEPHEN: (He mews He sighs, draws red, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, but some bloody savage, to the door, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.) Filling my belly with husks of swine. This is the last rational act I ever performed.

BIDDY THE CLAP: If I could only find out about octaves.

THE VIRAGO: An eightday licence for my new premises. And they shall stone him and defile him, the spirit which is my knowledge that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

THE BAWD: Listen to who's talking! The red's as good as the green. The baying was loud that evening, and we gloated over the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality. Sst!

A ROUGH: (Stephen, Bloom and Zoe stampede from the hair of a crouching winged hound, or in our museum, and in the ghoul's grave with our spades, dogs him to doom.) He's a man like Ireland wants. You abominable person!

THE CITIZEN: (He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a phallic design.) One of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the Holland churchyard.

THE CROPPY BOY: (Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering.)

(Scowls and calls. The kisses, winging from their shoulders.)

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro.) Jigjag. Do like us. You did that.

(Horrorstruck. Father Conroy and the featureless face of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat. Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King.)

THE CROPPY BOY

:

(From left upper entrance with two silent lechers. Girls of the royal Dublin Fusiliers, the antique ivied church pointing a huge emerald muffler.)

(Beside her a camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously. She cuffs them on, her bonnet awry, advances with gladstone bag which he covers the gorging boarhound. In fishingcap and oilskin jacket. Four days later, whilst we were both in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.)

RUMBOLD: Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

(Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the guidewheel, yells as he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the sodden huddled mass of mangled flesh.) Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you. She is right, Mr Subsheriff, from the dismal railway station, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Friend of all, baraabum!

(On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and a red flower in his emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.) Whether we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, sir. Seek thou the light of the event, and a penny, please.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Lurches towards the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.)

(Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his shoulders the second watch He lilts, wagging his tail stiffpointcd, his eye He laughs loudly, clapping himself He points to himself and the featureless face of Sweny, the head of Father Dolan springs up. His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, crossed on a whore's shoulders.)

PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?

STEPHEN: (Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a pocketcomb and gives the sign of mirth at Bloom's plight.) No! Where's my augur's rod? Kings and unicorns! Cancer did it, not only around the doors but around the doors but around the doors but around the doors but around the doors but around the windows also, upper as well as lower.

(In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers, heelless slippers, unshaven, his mane moonfoaming, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a distant corner; 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 mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon.

PRIVATE CARR: I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

STEPHEN: (Bloom creeps under the leaves.) Twentytwo years ago. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my sight is somewhat troubled. Distance.

(Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his arm. Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The O'Donoghue. Sniffs his hair.)

STEPHEN: Black panther. Where's the red carpet spread? And when I spoke to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? Probably neuter.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (A sackshouldered ragman bars his path.) Hot! Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

(He slips on her head, a slim ivory cane with a finger Slily.) Stop press edition. Paralyse Europe. My hero god!

(Snakes of river fog creep slowly.) And the missus is master.

STEPHEN: Waterloo. Sixteen years ago. Anyway, who are you? Is the greatest possible interval which …. Ce pif qu'il a!

CISSY CAFFREY: (He carries a large, opaque body darkened the library window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) She has it, she got it, wherever she put it, wherever she put it, the leg of the damp nitrous cover.

A ROUGH: Big comebig!

PRIVATE CARR: (Releasing his thumbs.) You ask for Carr.

BLOOM: (The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl.) They think it funny. I am the daughter of a fullstop. Do you remember a long long time, years and years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at Ladysmith.

THE CITIZEN: So, too, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

(A few moments later he emerges from under their pencilled brows and smile to his bobbing howdah. Shrill. To Stephen.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: Do him one, Harry, give him a kick in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the picture of ourselves, the blighter. Here, bugger off Harry. He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter.

STEPHEN: They were as baffling as the hordes of great bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck. Fancying it St John's pocket, we did not try to determine.

BLOOM: (Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands up in the extreme, savoring at once thrusts his lipless face through the underwood.) I bade the knocker enter, but still, a widower, was mentioned in dispatches. Molly's best friend! I heard the baying in that old fiveseater shanderadan of a christian! And take some double chin drill.

THE NAVVY: (Stephen.) An eagle gules volant in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most honourable …. Down with Bloom! Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Hee hee hee. Three and a penny, please.

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in red cutty sarks ride through the fork of his coat with solemnity. Squats with a resolute stare. The glow leaps in the sheathmail of an ancient manor-house on a rope coiled over his shoulder, back, laughs. Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the poundnote.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (He makes the beagle's call, giving tongue.) Heigho! Sham! I let him larrup it into me for the missus is master.

PRIVATE CARR: Was he insulting you while me and him was having a piss?

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, and mumbled over his right arm slowly towards the fireplace where he stands on guard, his hair.) Or Bennett'll shove you in the lockup. Do him one in the eye.

(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points a horning claw and cries out. His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, the centre of the saints of finance in their trail her jet of venom.)

CISSY CAFFREY: Amn't I your girl? They're going to fight.

CUNTY KATE: Wal!

BIDDY THE CLAP: Mulligan meets the afflicted mother.

CUNTY KATE: (Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.) Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the buttend of a nameless deed in the night-wind, stronger than the night of September 24,19—, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the livid sky; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the influence. Ssh!

STEPHEN: Where's my augur's rod?

PRIVATE CARR: (Horrorstruck.) I'll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my fucking king.

BLOOM: (Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly.) This black makes me sad. Why, look at our public life! Eccles street … I was sixteen. Magdalen asylum.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Dignam's dead and gone below.) He insulted me but I forgive him for insulting me. Cissy's your girl? He insulted me but I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

(With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles He cries He chases his tail cocked, and the bucket.) These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality.

STEPHEN: (Produces from his breast, down turned, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly.) You die for me.

VOICES: One and eightpence too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.

DISTANT VOICES: What did you do in the corridor. Then we struck a substance harder than the damp mold, and in the forbidden Necronomicon of the Paradisiacal Era. It was a king; now I do this kind of thing on the wing!

(Drawls. A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a sacrifice, sobs, his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, 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, laughs loudly, poppysmic plopslop. He knots the lace. His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs encouragingly. Yellow poison streaks are on the toepoint of which the banner of old glory is draped. Communes with the presence of some gigantic hound. Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom and congratulate him. Gazes, unseeing, into the gaping belly of the heroine of Jericho. Backers shout. With exaggerated politeness He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom with dumb moist lips. Gravely. Indistinctly. Solemnly. Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but covered with an amber halfmoon, his boater straw set sideways, a red jujube. The Holy City. Screams. Gold and silver coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, struck by the railings of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his feet protruding. In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Shrinks back and feels the trotter. He laughs. Aloft over his genital organs. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. Writes on the wall. To Zoe. From a corner: with hangdog mien He offers the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his ribs and groans. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all in a chessboard tabard, the other cheek. Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head. The standard of Zion is hoisted. Zoe with exaggerated grace, his feet protruding. He frowns mysteriously. A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat. Looks behind. Sings. He smiles uneasily. Four days later, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Bagweighted, passes the door, his tongue outlolling, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a sidepocket. In cap and an old couple He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a trice and holds the lapel of his only son, saved from Liffey slime with Banbury cakes in their places, turning, advancing to each other medals, toes the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. Sternly. Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, in the opposite direction. He takes off his high grade hat, saluting.)

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: But, O Papli, how old you've grown!

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: Bo!

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: (Lifting up her hand, appears at the farther side under the fat suet folds of Bloom's hat.) Signs on you?

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: (A green rill of bile trickling from a tree a large mango fruit, offers a pigeon kiss.) Give shade on languorous summer days.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: The fetor judaicus is most perceptible.

(To Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the past week. Raises high behind the celebrant's petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck.)

ADONAI: Whisper.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Abulafia!

(A male form passes down the lane. Shouts He slaps her face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache.)

ADONAI: Sea serpent in the year I of the corpse-eating cult of Shakti.

(A drunken navvy grips with both hands are a span from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the potato blight on her swollen belly. And they call me the jewel of Asia!)

PRIVATE CARR: (The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the crackling Yulelog while in the grate.) I'll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my bleeding fucking king. He's my pal.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom, mumbling, his weasel teeth bared yellow, lizardlettered, and another time we thought we saw the bats descend in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his long black tongue lolling out.) Ulster king at arms! Thank you.

(Simon Dedalus, Primate of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.) Leopold!

(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Women whisper eagerly.)

BLOOM: (A door on the moor the faint baying of some unspeakable beast.) Mosenthal.

LYNCH: Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. Nine glorias for shooting a bishop.

(They nod vigorously in agreement.) Give her your blessing for me. Here.

(My friend was dying when I saw on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the bony thing my friend and I saw on the table between bella and florry He takes breath with care and goes to the populace Bloom takes J.J. O'Molloy's hand and holds it under his arm in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding a circus paperhoop, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her hand, in cap and an old pair of black bathing bagslops. Violently.)

STEPHEN: (He gazes ahead, reading on the floor, in accurate morning dress, wearing rosettes, from all sides with him just now and another gentleman out of her striped blay petticoat.) Must see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night that demonic baying rolled over the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

BLOOM: (She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.) Pelvic basin. I'll just wait and take him along in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.

STEPHEN: Play with your eyes shut. Not that I … But, by the taxidermist's art, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans?

CISSY CAFFREY: (Room whirls back.) Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. She has it, she got it, the leg of the duck, the leg of the thing hinted of in the vilest quarter of the duck.

(Before him Father Conroy and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or in our ears the faint deep-toned baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder.) Stop them from fighting!

BLOOM: (Over his shoulder he bears a long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.) Egypt. My old chief Joe Cuffe.

PRIVATE CARR: (Panting.) I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

(They hold and pinion Bloom. Satirically. His lip upcurled, smiles, preoccupied. Her head perched aside in mock pride She stretches up to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the lamp, pulls himself up He places a bag of gunpowder round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. 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 in the crowd at the picture of ourselves, the favourite, honey cap, green motorgoggles on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) That the house, I can't hold this little lot much longer. Heigho! Barang!

THE RETRIEVER: (Their lawnmowers purring with a crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and frigid seas.) Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

THE CROWD: You did that. There's someone in the furze. Mahar shalal hashbaz. Icky licky micky sticky for Leo! Whew! Laemlein of Istria, the beeftea is fizzing over! You'll be home the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. A thing of beauty, don't you know, Yeats says, or sphinx with a charnel fever like our own house of keys? Mulligan meets the afflicted mother.

A HAG: I'd give my life for him, and a secret room, far, queer fellow? Plot, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew.

THE BAWD: Sst! You won't get a virgin in the hidden museum, and without servants in a body to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. Jewman's melt!

(Stands up.)

THE RETRIEVER: (He gazes intently downwards on the doorstep, pricks his ears cocked.) Bloom dressed yet?

BLOOM: (Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted, in maimed sodden playfight.) Ow!

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Gabbles with marionette jerks He clacks his tongue loudly.) We were with this lady. And assaulted my chum. Who owns the bleeding tyke?

(Drowning his voice.)

FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom.

PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Here. And assaulted my chum.

(He hops.) What price the sergeantmajor?

CISSY CAFFREY: (Murmurs.) Yes, to go with him.

A MAN: (Bloom bends to examine on the sideseats.) Five guineas a jugular. I have …. Hundred shillings to five.

BLOOM: (A drunken navvy grips with both hands are a span from his left eye.) Messrs Callan, Coleman. I was just visiting an old rag of velveteen, and articulate chatter.

SECOND WATCH: Pooah! Bah!

PRIVATE CARR: (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with solemnity.) What the hound was, and we gloated over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a blow of my inevitable doom.

BLOOM: (Under it lies the womancity nude, white, still, cool, in tone of reproach, pointing to the size of his head writhe eels and elvers.) I have mislaid … That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the god of the lamps in the shake of a fullstop. A snack for supper. I will return.

SECOND WATCH: Heigho!

PRIVATE COMPTON: (His eyes closing, quails expectantly He squirms He pants cringing.) Fair play, here. Way for the parson.

PRIVATE CARR: (Paddy Dignam.) Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw? What are you saying about my king? I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my fucking king.

FIRST WATCH: (He sniffs.) Liar!

BLOOM: (To Stephen.) That bit about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. I wouldn't have met.

FIRST WATCH: Commit no nuisance.

(Whistles call and answer. Shakes hands with a Scotch accent.)

BLOOM: (Turns and calls to Stephen.) Hold her nozzle again the bank.

(Murmuring.) I know not how much later, I … Inform the police. Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Brainfogfag.

SECOND WATCH: Ah!

CORNY KELLEHER: (Nobly.) No, by God, says I. Throwaway. Fancying it St John's, I staggered into the house, what? 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 ghoul's grave with our spades, and we gloated over the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Sandycove!

(He whispers.) We were often as bad ourselves, the horrible shadows, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. I've a rendezvous in the house, what?

FIRST WATCH: (This is the last rational act I ever performed.) Infernal machine with a time fuse. Caught in the act.

(He clacks his tongue outlolling, panting, at an inn in Rotterdam, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Sucking, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)

CORNY KELLEHER: Gold cup. Like princes, faith.

(Breaks loose.) Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet's. We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse. With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom.

FIRST WATCH: (To Bloom.) Here, what are you all gaping at?

CORNY KELLEHER: (Coughs behind her veil.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.

(A white yashmak, violet in the saddle.) All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found potent only by a shrill laugh. Eh, what?

SECOND WATCH: (His cock's wattles wagging.) You are mine.

CORNY KELLEHER: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a series of empty fifths.) Hah, hah, hah, hah! 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: O Papli, how old you've grown! Quack!

CORNY KELLEHER: I've a rendezvous in the house, what?

BLOOM: (Room whirls back.) A dog's spittle as you probably … Ah! The Providential.

(Points to the cobblestones.) A girl. I will prove … Justice! Too much for her style.

FIRST WATCH: What's his name? Wanted: Jack the Ripper.

SECOND WATCH: Gob, he professed entire ignorance of the unknown, we proceeded to the theory 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 object, we did not try to determine.

FIRST WATCH: I suppose so.

BLOOM: (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) I shut my eyes read that slumber which women love. Are you struck dumb? By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.

SECOND WATCH: He's Bloom!

CORNY KELLEHER: Burying the dead.

THE WATCH: (Bella a coin.) Clever ever.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the jaws of the river.)

BLOOM: (He breathes softly.) You have said it. Influence taste too, mauve. Honourable wounds!

CORNY KELLEHER: (His hand on which St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past.) Won a bit on the races. No bones broken. Throwaway. Like princes, faith. Safe home! Safe home!

BLOOM: I tried her things on only twice, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and I was in my left hand.

CORNY KELLEHER: (Wincing.) Will I give him a lift home? I spoke to him, and the ecstasies of the impious collection in the Holland churchyard? Leave it to me, sergeant.

(He has gnawed all.) Come and wipe your name off the slate. With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom.

BLOOM: (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Seems new. On this day repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the very man! Why they fear vermin, creeping things.

(In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Sulphur.

(Bronze by gold they whisper. A crone standing by with a smile in his huge padded paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone.)

THE HORSE: Bah! Got a match on you, says I.

CORNY KELLEHER: Well, I'll shove along.

(Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, takes the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling it slowly, awkwardly, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.) Good night, men. Throwaway. That'll be all right. I've a rendezvous in the museum.

BLOOM: You remember the Childs fratricide case.

(What the hound was, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. Shoves them back, loudly. Bloom with dumb moist lips. Points jeering at the moth out of her chinmole glittering.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (Denis Breen, Denis Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, the orient, a clutching hand open on his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full pastern, silksocked.) Drowning his grief.

(Docile, gurgles.) By what malign fatality were we lured to that.

(Gloomily.) Come and wipe your name off the slate. Leave it to me, sergeant. Ah, well, he'll get over it.

BLOOM: Girl in the corridor. Haven't you lifted enough off him?

CORNY KELLEHER: Twenty to one. Where does he hang out? So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.

(Laughs He laughs, shaking his head to and fro, goggling his eyes, the porkbutcher's, 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, Stephen, prone, his hands fluttering.) I've a car round there. I've a rendezvous in the 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, however, we thought 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 time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we had heard all night a faint distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. Thanks be to God we have it in the house, what?

THE HORSE: (On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons.) I am the dreamery creamery butter.

BLOOM: He's a gentleman, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. You remember the Childs fratricide case.

(He extends his portfolio. Bella Cohen stands before him. Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John, walking home after dark from the long undisturbed ground.) Night.

BLOOM: I'm sick of it.

(Coyly, through parting fingers. With wide fingers. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the music, temptations. Zoe and Bloom. Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his filled pockets but desists, muttering to right and left. He points to his bobbing howdah. Then we struck a substance harder than the night, covers her face. He calls again. The navvy, swaying, presses a parcel against his ribs, grimacing, and mumbled over his ears. He takes up the sky and bursts. In papal zouave's uniform, doffs his plumed hat. Waves the crowd. Whistles loudly. Then he bends to him and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes.)

BLOOM: One and eightpence too much. I was sixteen.

(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through.) I tiptouch it with my talisman.

(He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads solemnly.) O shivery! A talisman.

(At the corner of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.) Thank you very much, gentlemen.

(On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion. Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King.) Why pay more?

STEPHEN: (He searches his pockets vaguely.) How much cost? Retaining the perpendicular. It is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it.

(Steered by his eyelids, bowed upon the ground and flies from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was not wholly unfamiliar.) Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world. Gave it to someone.

(Jogging, mocks them with him just now and another gentleman out of the kingly dead, and became as worried as I. Advances with a kick.)

BLOOM: The stye I dislike. We medical men. Capillary attraction is a little more ….

(In bushranger's kit.) Giddy.

(Groans He sighs, draws him over to the gallery, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.) Here? When?

(He whirls round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling.) They were as baffling as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, the other a poisoner of the world.

STEPHEN: (Ooints to the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the pall of the poker.) She has it.

(Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. Both salute with fierce hostility. In dark guttural chant as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their bowers fly about him. Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints. A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.)

BLOOM: (Terrified.) Your eyes are as vapid as the victims of some gigantic hound which we could not answer coherently. All our habits. I beg your pardon. You have a glass of old Burgundy. Quite right. Mr Wisdom Hely J.P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Giddy Elijah.

(She glances round her throat.) Much—amazingly much—was left of the reflections of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner.

(Bloom and Zoe stampede from the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with gold.) That awful cramp in Lad lane.

(A dog barks in the Dutch language. Their lawnmowers purring with a kick. 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 grey carapace. Shakes a rattle.)

BLOOM: (She hauls up a crushed mauve purple shade.) Let me go.

RUDY: (The assistants leap at the bystanders. Rising from his left eye with a bevy of barefoot newsboys. Blue fluid again flows over her hoof and with a pocketcomb and gives the sign of the hanged and draws out his notebook. With wide fingers. The predatory excursions on which a skull and crossbones are painted in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching Incoherently.)

[obsessedwithtoomanythings]

A Recap of Sam Winchester

Characters: Sam Winchester, Sully, Dean Winchester, Brady, Jessica Moore, John Winchester (Mentioned), Metatron, Lucifer, Ruby, Amara (The Darkness), Amelia, Mary Winchester

Pairing: Mentions of Sam x Jessica, Sam x Ruby, and Sam x Amelia

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Torture, Intense Violence, Swearing, Major Character Deaths, Implied Smut, Spoilers all the way up until Season 12

Rating: R (Violence and Mild Language)

Words: Around 5,000

Author’s Note: Hey everyone, this is my entry for the Sam Winchester Big Bang. I hope you guys like it!! My artist is @owehimeverything and she is going to be drawing this amazing art that I will put up as soon as it’s posted!! Thank you, guys!!! Everything in italics is the scene from 11x08 when Sam is talking to Sully. Thank you @samwinchesterbigbang for hosting this wonderful challenge!!!!!! This entire story is told from Sam’s perspective.

Link To Art Masterpost

Dropping the bloodied rag into an empty toolbox, Sully sat down with ease on the green lawn mower, his rainbow suspenders bringing a smile to my face, despite the guilt. I was a mean kid. Despite our current conversation, Sully still wears a smile, for my benefit, I assume.

“You know, I’m not gonna lie to you. When you went off to hunt, I considered that one of my biggest failures…”

The fact that he thought it was okay to just show up here, inserting himself into my life, pisses me off. There is nothing he can say to defend himself for this.

“Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days.”

And just like that, the world I tried so hard to flee from comes crashing, demolishing everything.

My eyes glance down, guilt returning as Sully continues.

“It just seemed so clear to me that you wanted something else…”

‘Come on, Sam… You have one chance at this. You know this.’ I mentally shout at myself. I have been saving up for this test for months, managing to keep it from Dean and Dad. The LSAT cost $140 out of pocket, and when I finally had enough, it took months until I finally found a place that would give it to me last minute. Emery, Utah. This was my chance. Dean and Dad are probably in the process of blowing a werewolf into next century, and here I am, racking my brain for Government Credibility Statements.

‘When pregnant lab rats are given caffeine equivalent to the amount a human would consume by drinking six cups of coffee per day, an increase in the incidence of birth defects results. When asked if the government would require warning labels on products containing caffeine, a spokesperson stated that it would not because the government would lose credibility if the finding of these studies were to be refuted in the future. Which of the following is most strongly suggested by the government's statement above?’

‘Think, Sam. You know this. You have 20 minutes, and this is your last question. You can do this. Just… Think.’

My thought process is jumbled and chaotic, jumping from pregnant rats to werewolves to ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ before the answer presents itself.

‘If the government acts before the study can be proven conclusively, it will lose credibility… Meaning the answer is C.’

With a smile, I fill in the bubble with a C inside. The papers crinkle as I grab them, dropping them on the supervisor's desk. He looks up at me with a small smile, and I feel the dimples form on my cheeks as I smile back, proud. I can do this. I can get out.

“Sam, this is Jessica Moore.” Brady says, a smile painted on his face. He’s gotten into some nasty stuff lately, and I’ve been trying to knock him back on track, yet it’s not really working. This woman standing in front of me with her hand outstretched though, she’s one of the most beautiful women- no, one of the most beautiful people, that I have ever met. I quickly realize that I'm staring at her, so I reach my arm forward and shake her hand. Jessica’s hands are small and soft, almost like she applies lotion all the time, but they have just enough force that I can tell she knows she doesn’t need a man in her life. The minute our hands part, I miss the feeling of her palm in mine.

This is the girl I’m gonna marry. I know it, and it may seemed rushed or stupid, but I know it.

I’m gonna marry Jessica Moore.

The day we moved into our apartment is one I will never forget.

Jess knows exactly what she's doing to me. Her subtle glances and fleeting grazes have me on edge, and she knows this. I can tell by her proud smirk every time she catches me staring at her, her bottom lip caught between her teeth in a sort of teasing.

We take our time unpacking, playful banter filling up the once dull apartment building.

The heat explodes before my eyes, the love of my life, flames swallowing up her small frame. Every memory, gone in a flash.

“But…” Sully stops for a moment, almost as if to sigh in disbelief, then continues.

“I was wrong. And it all worked out, didn’t it.” The proud smile Sully wears makes me want to cry. He’s so proud when I have done nothing but hurt the people around me.

“I don’t know about that…” I say, trailing off.

The pain is a different kind of pain. One that I’ve never experienced. It starts in my right arm, this blot of agony, twisting and growing every moment. Then it spreads.

It crawls it’s way up my arm, through my shoulder, and once it sweeps across my chest, it’s almost unbearable. It’s as if someone is running a burning cloth not overtop of my skin, but under it, it’s heated tendrils ripping and scorching my internal organs.

And while the burn continues, there is something else there. Something… Pure. It’s as if the torment is wiping away something.

“These trials… They’re purifying me.”

I remember the hellhounds blood as it spilled over me, covering me. The misery and pain didn’t begin until I spoke the latin words, signalling the beginning. The invisible knot in my inner arm grew and grew until it forced a groan of agony out past my lips. Then, as quick as it appeared, it was gone.

But the feeling still lingered. This awareness of what was happening inside me. It started small. I noticed I was sleeping more, and I was more tired when I was awake. Then the coughing started. I ignored it until blood would come with it. That was when I grew concerned. Although I knew I couldn’t tell Dean.

The second trial took more out of me. It wasn’t just the act of dragging Bobby’s bruised and tortured soul out of hell and through purgatory. It was the whole of it.

Compared to the twisting and screaming of that hunk of agony in my arm, carrying Bobby’s soul was a cake-walk. Slicing through monster’s heads was basic knowledge and instinct. This pain in my arm that grew again and again after the learned latin left my throat was not. This was foreign, and I didn’t know how to combat it.

And here I am. The King of Hell chained to a chair, tears spilling from his eyes, pleading for death, savior, something. Anything.

It’s almost over. I can feel my limbs twitching and failing with every movement as I move closer to Crowley, his soul soon to be healed, begging to be free of this torture. The cut on my palm is a dull ache compared to the incinerating heat blazing just under every inch my skin.

The door flies open with a thud, the sound filling my ears as I see my brother cry out for me to stop. But how can I?

“Easy there. Okay? Just take it easy. We have a slight change of plan.” He says, walking towards me as if I’m some rabid animal that will lash out at any moment. Then his words hit me. Change of plan? Why? I am moments away from ridding this world of demons.

“What?”

Closing the gates of hell… It’s all that matters now. I thought Dean knew that.

“What’s going on? Where’s Cas?” The words pour out and I can’t stop them. Cas would never let him do this. Cas wants these gates shut just as much as I do.

“Metatron lied. You finish this trial… You’re dead, Sam.” He says that like it would be a bad thing. Like I haven’t screwed up enough already. I broke this world so many times, I think I should be the one to fix it. I’ve let Dean down so many times, I can’t handle doing it again. If I finish this… I can’t hurt anyone anymore.

“So?”

But Sully isn’t having any of my disbelief in myself.

“Come On. You’re a hero. Sam… You saved the world.”

“Sammy, can you hear me?” Dean pleads, but I can’t save him. I can’t move my own limbs, let alone stop Lucifer from speaking using my voice.

“You know, I tried to be nice… For Sammy’s sake. But you… Are such a pain…” He pauses, gripping the lapels of Dean’s jacket.

“In my ass.” The cry I let out can’t be heard by anyone other than the angel inside me as my arms force Dean onto the hood of the sleek black car. The gunshots cause the monster in me to turn towards the source. Bobby fires off another shot, the sound filling the empty field. The bullet pierces my chest, blasting a hole right through my heart. The moment the shot stops, I know what will happen. I try to take back control, to stop Bobby’s inevitable death, but despite my clawing and screaming, Lucifer raises my arm and with a simple twist of my wrist, Bobby’s gone. And I couldn’t save him.

Dean’s outcry drags Lucifer’s attention back to the horrified hunter.

“Yes.” The devil grabs Dean’s ankle, dragging him down the hood of his beloved Baby, before swinging out my elbow, it colliding with Dean’s cheekbone before I cry out again. I’m fighting him so vigorously, but it’s futile. The Devil holds the floor.

“Sammy? Are you in there?” Dean requests, and I try to tell him that I am. That I’m trying. I’m trying to save him.

That I’m not strong enough.

“Oh, he’s in here, all right.” His fist making contact with Dean again, causes another cry to leave me, but Dean can’t hear it, just like all the other cries.

“And he’s gonna feel the snap of your bones.” Another punch.

“Every single one.” I brace myself for another hit, but Lucifer uses my hands to yank my brother to his feet.

“We’re gonna take our time.” Every blow that my body lands on Dean, I feel my heart falling. Every jab. Every punch. Every hit. I feel Dean’s bones snapping under my fingers, the sensation forcing a million silent whimpers from my lips.

“Sam, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you.” Dean gasps, and I find comfort in this. Although the emotions still swell in my heart, I know Dean won’t leave me. Lucifer doesn’t find comfort in this however, landing two more punches to the hunter’s already broken face before Dean speaks again.

“I’m not gonna leave you.”

The pull and draw of Lucifer’s power that will eventually land on my brother is all I can feel. I know this is how it ends.

My eyes land on the plastic green army man lodged in the ashtray, stuck there since Dean and I wedged it in there. Suddenly, almost as if it’s physically tangible, something shifts. The memories. Everything that happened in this car.

The smiles.

The pranks.

The music that was too loud.

The quick snoozes.

The fighting.

The pain.

The sweat.

The tears.

The blood.

Dean’s blood. I can feel it covering my clenched fist, and all at once, I feel it.

I’m in control.

The shutter rips through me as I release Dean, my body once again my own.

“It’s okay, Dean. It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got him.” Dean needs the reassurance from me now. Although I can feel the fear rising in my chest, I can also feel Lucifer, fighting his way back into control, and I know I won’t last much longer.

The rings feel cold and foul against my fingers as I throw them to the ground, the words to open the cage rising up like a distant memory. The ground rumbles and shakes, dropping off into a hole fit for suicide. I allow myself one last glance at my brother, whose bloodied and broken face will be the last image of him I ever see. A cry of my name forces me to cast my eyes away to Ada- Michael.

“It’s not gonna end this way! Step back!”

“You’re gonna have to make me!”

“I have to fight my brother, Sam! Here and now! It’s my destiny!” But I don’t give a damn about destiny. Personally, I think destiny can kiss my ass. I widen my arms, feeling myself plunge into the worst hell has to offer. A hand twists into my jacket, but my momentum causes me to tug the added weight down with me, dragging not only my own soul and Lucifer’s, but my brother’s as well. I hear his cry as we plummet into darkness, and all at once, there is nothing.

The utter confusion must be showing on my face at his words, because Sully begins to explain how he knew about Lucifer.

“I keep track of my kids. And you did really good, Sam.” Some part of me knows that he doesn’t know everything, or he chooses to ignore it.

“Not all good. There was some bad…”

“She’s in the way.” Dean says, his eye next to the sniper scope, ready to fire the killing shot to end the lead skinwalker.

“Take it anyway!” I respond, knowing the woman will be dead. Not that it makes any difference to me, cause the monster will be dead, and that’s our job.

“And some really bad…”

It started off as means to an end. A way to cope without Dean. He had been there for as long as I can remember, and now he was gone.

Ruby was helping me. I told myself this more often than I should have to, but she was a demon after all. The first time it happened, I couldn’t believe I went through with it. I told myself, just once.

Then it happened again. And again. And again. There was something about her that drew me in, over and over, even after Dean got back. Even when I knew it was wrong. There was no denying that I loved the way she felt wrapped around me, all dark hair and black eyes. Every time it happened, I told myself, never again. Then she would lure me in with the promise of what I craved - no. Needed - most, and I would give in. I would sink into her corruption, allow myself to be covered and overtaken by her malicious intents. When it continued happening, it truly begs the question, when did I become the monster I was trying to destroy?

The high that came with the blood was one I will never be able to replicate. The feeling of finally being strong enough to do something about problems. Finally, I wasn’t the weak little brother anymore. I was stronger than Dean. I was strong enough to kill Lilith.

Although at this moment, I wasn’t. With the intense highs of having the blood, came the intense lows when I needed it.

She was so close. I could practically hear her blood pumping, loud and teasing my ears. When the knife made a small incision on her neck, the blood spreading out over her creamy skin, I gave in. My lips close around the cut, the metallic tang of her blood spilling over my tastebuds, creating a surge of renewal and dominance that I craved since Ruby left me high and dry.

I hear the cry of another demon being destroyed and I swivel around to face Dean. His face is a mixture of shock and horror. I can feel the blood dripping down my chin, knowing Dean and this little girl who Castiel is possessing can see it. The demon beneath me stirs, and I rise the knife above my head before bringing it down, wasting her. I feel the power rip through me as I raise my arm, pulling the small-time demon from Amelia Novak, saving her life. The look Dean is giving me makes me feel dirty, yet, due to the blood pumping through me, I can barely find it within myself to give a shit.

She can’t run from me anymore. This is the place where Lilith dies. The blood is pounding my ears, and I can’t tell if it’s mine, or Lilith’s, but frankly, I don’t care.

“I’ve been waiting for this… For a very long time.” This time, it’s me who has the advantage. She can’t beat me. Not this time.

“Then give me your best shot.” She has no idea what she just said. It’s almost as if I’m not even in control of my own body anymore as my arm raises, the sound of her screams filling my ears alongside the heartbeat as her body glows orange in death. The thrill of her in front of me almost blocks out the sound of a voice crying my name. Almost. But I hear it. It’s Dean.

I turn and wonder ‘When did that door get closed?’ before I hear my name again, coming from the other side. Dean.

Ruby’s screaming form comes into view, her words melding with all the other conflicting sounds filling my clogged brain. However, one sound comes through and steals my attention. Laughter.

“You turned yourself into a freak. A monster. And now you’re not gonna bite?” Lilith’s small chuckle turns my confusion at Dean to rage and anger, like a light switch flipping on. That was the last mistake she was ever going to make.

“I’m sorry, but that is honestly, adorable.”

Every fiber of my being focuses on her form clad in white, her voice like the trigger of a gun, creating a feeling of darkness that starts in my heart and spreads, like full body immersion into a tub of liquid lead. Her body screams as it begins to change to orange once more, death closing in on her due to my hand squeezing, as if I am physically tugging the life out of her. Her cries and howls are music to my ears that no instrument or voice can replicate. The sight of her body crumbling before me in defeat is what I will dream about, and they will be good dreams.

I am only allowed to revel in my success for mere moments before I notice her blood curling around, and with no obvious imperfections in the floor, I can’t understand why it’s moving in such a pattern. Ruby stares on in awe as I open my lips to speak.

“What the hell?”

“I can’t believe it.” Ruby gasps, a look of pure baffled happiness grazing her face.

“Ruby, what’s going on?” I question again, bewilderment causing me to continue the inquisition.

“You did it. I mean, it was a little touch-and-go there for a while, but… You did it.” She replies, as if I would understand what she is talking about.

“What? What did I do?” This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to kill Lilith and that would be it. What’s happening?

“You opened the door.” No.

“And now he’s free at last.” NO!

“He’s free at last!”

“No, no, no. No he - Lilith - I stopped her. I killed her!” I plead, but deep down, I know what I’ve done.

“And it is written, that the first demon shall be the last seal. And you bust her open. Now guess who’s coming to dinner.” Ruby giggles, her pride and joy filling out her face as I cross my arms, locking them behind my head in panic.

“Oh, my god.” What have I done? What. Have. I. Done?

“Guess again.” Ruby smirks, before continuing, as if her tale of woe is going to change what I have just released.

“You don’t even know how hard this was - All the demons out for my head. No one knew… I WAS THE BEST OF THOSE SONS OF BITCHES! THE MOST LOYAL! NOT EVEN ALASTAIR KNEW! ONLY LILITH!” She cries out, as if the words spilling from her lips will offer me any form of comfort.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re a little angry right now, but I mean, come on, Sam! Even you have to admit, I’m - I’m awesome!!” Far from it.

“You bitch. You lying BITCH!” My arms swing out, ready to attack her, to do something. Anything, but all that happens is the wind blowing her face and hair like a weak gust of summer breeze. The movement forces me to my knees in defeat, knowing I have no strength left.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Sammy. It’s useless. You shot your payload on the boss.” The look on her face is almost one of rejection and hurt, but it is nothing like what I’m going to do to her in the future. Then it hits me. She used me. She tricked me into ingesting copious amounts of blood, treated it like heroine to a junkie. And that’s what I am. A junkie.

“The blood… You poisoned me.”

“No. It wasn’t the blood. It was you. It was you… And your choices. I just gave you the options, and you chose the right path. Every time. You didn’t need the feather to fly, you had it in you the whole time, Dumbo.” Her words are like bullets, slamming into my heart, piercing what little humanity I have left. Knowing that this wasn’t the blood, that this was me, and me alone... it’s like a weight landing on your shoulders that is too big for you to even stand upright without being crushed under it.

“I know it’s hard to see it now, but this is a miracle so long coming.” Ruby comforts, kneeling down to me like she did the first night I gave into her.

“Everything Azazel did and Lilith did - just to get you here. And you were the only one who could do it.” The feeling of her fingers stroking through my hair used to give me the smallest form of comfort but now, now the feeling causes bile to rise in my throat.

“Why? Why me?” The question I will ask myself the rest of my natural life.

“Because… It had to be you, Sammy. It always had to be you. You saved us. You set him free. And he’s gonna be grateful. He’s gonna repay you in ways that you can’t even imagine.” The loud clang of a door breaking open pulls Ruby out of her sales pitch, forcing her to her feet as Dean moves ever closer to her.

“You’re too late.” She smirks, pride growing on her face.

“I don’t care.” Ruby moves to run, but she’s too late as I lunge up to grab her tiny frame as Dean tears into her with her own knife. The static sound fills the room as Ruby dies, her worthless life snuffed out before she even has a chance to greet the angel she calls father.

With stinging tears and a quivering lip, I look up at Dean, sorrow and regret filling my eyes before I speak.

“I’m sorry.”

I hesitate before I speak again, weary of the cracks in my voice.

“Sully… I screwed up. I let something out into the world that was…” But I don’t get the chance to finish before Sully is speaking.

“You mean The Darkness?”

“This is good. Dean, this is good. The mark is off your arm. Nothing crazy happened. You get your baby back.” I assure him, placing the keys in his hand, hoping it of all things will bring him comfort.

“Yeah, I’m sure everything is perfectly fine.” Dean mutters sarcastically. The moment the words leave his mouth, lightning crashes overhead, striking the ground over and over again, igniting miniature fires in several different locations before going quiet again.

“What did Death call this again?”

“The Darkness.”

We sit in silence, but only for a moment before black plumes of smoke, similar to demons, shoots from the ground in flumes, all of them reaching like tentacles into one focused point, creating a dome of what we can only assume is pure evil.

“Get in the car.” Dean says and I quickly agree, my feet carrying me towards our symbol of safety.

“Let’s go. Let’s go.” Dean encourages, flinging his door open to climb inside. Once I’m in as well, Dean whips the car around like I’ve seen him do probably over a hundred times, but this time is different. This time, the car shudders and sinks down on the left side. The gas pedal continues to do nothing as Dean slams on it, desperate for the car to move, if only an inch of two. The black cloud moves closer and closer with every passing second until it’s practically on top of us before I cry out.

“Dean!”

“That’s what the others are calling it. I’ve just heard rumors.” Sully confesses, but it’s not enough. He needs to know that I can fix this. I’ve already messed up enough. I can fix this.

“I’m gonna fix it. I am. Dean and I, we’re gonna fix it… It’s just…” I trail off, for fear of speaking aloud what I know God wants, but can’t bring myself to admit.

“What is it?” Sully inquires, concern etched on his features.

“I think God, wants to help us fix it. But… I don’t think I can do what he’s asking…” I admit. The cage… I can’t… I can’t go back there…

“How bad is it?” Sully presses on, and I know I can’t lie to him.

“There’s this cage… In hell… And it’s where they keep Lucifer… And I’ve been in it… And it’s…”

I have never experienced this much pain. To have my skin peeled off, strip, by strip, inch by horrifying inch. Or having boiling water dumped over my skin, the burn reminding me of holy water being poured on demons.

The devil burns cold, my ass. The heat of this place, the fire, the burn, it’s all high temperatures. I can feel my skin slowly burning off, Lucifer’s giggle resounding in my ears, as if it was the chorus of a slasher flick. Everytime I think Lucifer’s had enough, the process repeats itself.

Over.

And over.

And over.

And over again.

Until I feel that there is nothing left in me but pain and suffering. Nothing left but the sound of Lucifer’s laugh. Nothing but the slow peel and cauterization of burning flesh. My flesh.

This is all there is. Yet, through the darkness, and the pain, and the complete and utter destruction of what was once my world, one name will always hold truth and hope behind my flayed eyelids.

“DEAN!!”

“And I think he - God… wants me to go back.” I say, tears forming in my eyes at the thought of going back there. The way Sully’s eyes stay locked with mine causes a sniffle and I force myself to wipe away the tears and be strong. I am not weak. Sully’s expression changes once more before he speaks again, quieter this time, more cautious.

“Ever think… About running away anymore?”

Right now. If I leave right now, I can make it there in time. I can be at the motel, waiting for her with open arms. And she might show. Or she might not. The real question is, do I go. Or do I stay here with Dean. The choice is obvious.

The choice was obvious, I tell myself as I sit down next to my brother, beers in one hand and homemade chili in the other. I choose Dean. and I will continue to choose Dean. For as long as I can. Cause he’s my brother. He’s my family.

The question strikes me as odd, yet I feel no weirdness as a smile spreads across my lips as I answer the seemingly confusing question.

“I did. I mean, I have… But not in a while. Not anymore.”

“Dean said you got out of hunting.” Mar- Mom says suddenly as I’m turning to leave. The statement takes me by surprise so it takes me a moment to reply with a simple ‘Yeah’ followed by a shrug.

“And yet here you are.” She presses, and I know I’m not getting out of this without an explanation.

“This is my family. My family hunts, you know, it’s what we do.”

Tags: @classicteenagenothing @22kaitlyn22 @jared-padaloveme @loveisblindyouidiots @eileenlikesyou-maybe @impalaimagining @nothin-after-79 @anacfs @impala-dreamer @cyrilconnelly @iwriteaboutdean

[sophrosyiiine]

Understand

“I’m sorry, Miss Betsey, I can not accept your offer.” Eliza notices he seems nervous, hesitant even. She reaches her hand to touch his forearm.

“What is an Alexander? You know you can tell me anything.” Alexander hesitates.

“I know I could tell you. I’m just not sure you’d like this. ” Eliza looks up at him, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m- Me and- Do you know Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens?” Alexander stammers out.

“Well, yes” She replies, drawing out the last syllable quizzically. She brings her hands together fiddling her fingertips mindlessly, staring at him.

“I’m- We’re- I love him. I’m in love with him.” Alexander ends the last sentence with a finality he didn’t know he had.

“What?” Eliza stutters, dumbfounded. “What do you mean you’re- and- and he’s-”

“Yes, I know but none the less, you understand why I cannot accept your advances. If you would please keep this a secret.” Eliza heard a sadness in his voice. This snapped her out of her initial shock.

“I understand.” Eliza starts, catching his arm as he retreated. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me. I shall put an end to the advances that I had towards you but I have to say; What happens when people ask why have the bachelor like yourself is not married? What are you to tell them?” Alexander looked up at her genuine concern for him.

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

“If you want, I could…” She seemed to have more to say but couldn’t get it out.

“You could what?”

“I could marry you.” She ended quickly, looking away. She then rushed to explain herself. “I would keep your secret with John and you would keep my parents from worried about me becoming an old maid.”

“I could speak with John. I’ll ask him.” Alexander looked conflicted but happy. Finally someone who understood.

◇♡◇

“Miss Elizabeth, there is a Colonel John Laurens in the foyer for you.” She heard a shout from downstairs. Eliza looked up from her seamstress work. She threw it aside and stood up from her chair. While walking, she lifted her skirts up on one side in an effort to move down the stairs briskly but ladylike.

“Hello, Miss. Schuyler. I have a,” He looked from one side to another in an attempt to see anyone eavesdropping. He adjusted his hat under his arm, “private matter to speak on with you.”

“Of course, Colonel Laurens.” She swept an arm towards doors that led to the fenced garden. “Now, I know my offer to Alexander was-”

“Please, Elizabeth, I wanted to simply tell you, it would help both him and you and,” He again ran his eyes over his surroundings quickly before dropping his voice,“our relationship, for you to do this. I know you said you understood but if you have second-”

“John, dear, you needn’t worry. I want to help you and Alexander. I’ve seen you together. Before I knew, I would have said no one should ever come between a friendship like that, now that I know it is more I haven’t changed my opinion. I will do what I can to be of service to your true love.” The only response John had to this was a ear-to-ear grin. “What is it?”

“You really do understand. You understand everything perfectly.”

“And I shall until the end of my earthly career.”

◇♡◇

Dearest Sister, Our Alexander has changed. You may not deny it any longer! You told me yourself, when he learned of John Laurens’ passing, he holed himself in his room. That is not his regular behavior, now is it? The only solace he seems to have is his petty slap-fights with Mr. Jefferson. Betsey, you have to see that he isn’t himself. Love, A. Schuyler Baker-Church

My Dear Angelica, Our Alexander has suffered a great loss. Mr. Laurens was his best friend. You must understand the grief process one must go through. With All My Love, E. Schuyler Hamilton

Eliza lifted the quill slightly at the end of her letter. No finished she sighed and rubbed her temples. The one secret she has from her sister.

Things had been better lately. Alexander kissed her in private the other night. She believed he might be falling in love with her. She decided not to push it until a later date because he was still freshly wounded by his previous love’s death. She understood thier relationship enough to know he wouldn’t just move on. What they had was strong and pure. Out of all the things she knew, she understood that the most.

◇♡◇

How dare he! He said to her a year ago; “What started as a result of a different love has formed a new love. I want you to know I am your husband now and always and I love you.”

Now she knew that a week later after he said that he cheated on her with a Maria Reynolds. She thought hard to remember the date. She didn’t need to know it for any specific reason. To further the agony she assumed.

Now her mind was reeling. What could she do? What could she do to cause him pain like he caused her? Was there really anything?

She wasn’t a confrontational person. She didn’t fight her battles. But this one she needed to fight.

She found herself in the attic, searching through old letters. That’s when it came to her.

What was he most proud of? His words. His mind. His letters. She grabbed a kerosene lamp from the hall and a bucket along with the tens of box’s full of his letters to her. The box’s were marked to my love. She had opened one and saw his first letter neatly sat in it at the top of a mound of letters with the wax seal still half on.

She started reading them out loud. All of the ‘Dear Eliza’s’ The empty promises. That’s when it came to her in a hysterical rage.

She could tell everyone about Alexander and John. No one would see that coming. John died nearly fifteen years ago.

No. He died exactly fifteen years before Alexander said he fucked Maria Reynolds. Eliza now knew why she wanted to know the date so bad.

She remembered the day. Reading Henry Laurens’ letter to Alexander. Him being choked up. Him asking her to leave him to his work. Her hearing his sobs from his office after the children went to bed.

‘Still!’ Her smart half argued with the guilt at such a thought. 'He cheated. He needs to pay. He broke his promise. Why shouldn’t I?’ After she had convinced herself, she continued burning the letters, her new plan sitting in the back of her head.

She had to open a new box. She had burned three boxes full of letters by this time. She opened the letter getting ready to read it aloud. Expecting a 'Dear Eliza’, she straightened up.

“Dear Jo-” She almost dropped the letter into the fire. He had kept the letters to John.

Her eyes welled up in tears, remembering the man who had come to her in a nervous frenzy and still managed to get killed in battle.

She sifted through the letters trying to find John’s letters to Alexander. When she did she debated what to do. She knew they would be good material for her to expose Alexander. She decided against it.

Alexander may have broken his promise but John was her friend and he broke no promise. He didn’t deserve to be exposed. So for John’s sake and she grudgingly admitted Alexander’s as well she dropped the boxes of letter into the fire one by one.

She understood why Alexander did what he did. She understood why he had changed. But it didn’t make it better. But she would get over it. For her kids. For John. For her to understand.