#the thing about me is i love clean shaven joe And i love bearded joe almost equally
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i cant promise that i will behave normally if joe has a full Beard for all your friends fest. just know this.
#i mean there still is one month who can say lol#BUT I WILL BE RUNNING ACROSS THAT FUCKING FIELD IN BARRIE ONTARIO AND POUNCING!!!!!#the thing about me is i love clean shaven joe And i love bearded joe almost equally#so im like BRING ON THE BEARDDDDD#IT’S BEEN A MINUTEEEE THROW AWAY UR RAZOR OLD MAN
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you wanna try to get back into writing? Say no more! The other day I saw a insta reel (it was in Spanish) but it was about a couple and the guy had asked his gf to shave his beard for him and that was the cutest thing ever. The delicacy of it all. So I was thinking, possibly write something like that but with joe? He needs to shave for an upcoming movie role and he asks if reader wants to do it, and it’s the most intimate thing ever!
girl... just, fuck all the way off, jesus christ Wordcount: 2.9K
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Love You A Twelve
"So, good news and bad news,"
"Uh oh," you'd only just gotten in and toed off your shoes by the front door as Joe appeared in the hallway to welcome you home.
You narrowed your eyes to gather how serious Joe was being.
Sometimes, the bad news was hardly bad news, but just some stupid silly shit like, "You've got to hang out with me all night." and you'd pretend to be so disappointed for a second.
Other times, it was the good news that was hardly good and didn't make up for the bad news at all.
Unfortunately, going by Joe's apologetic eyes, it was probably the latter.
"Bad first," you winced as you said it.
"They need me clean-shaven tomorrow,"
Your stomach dropped.
"What? But– noo," you whined, eyebrows immediately knitting, mouth pulling into a pout.
Joe copied your face and revealed he was holding a trimmer.
"Yea, sorry... it's got to go,"
"Is the good news that you're joking?"
Out of your coat, with your shoes neatly placed to the side, you didn't waste time to get your hands on his scruff.
"No, the good news is, I thought it'd be nice to let you do it," Joe said, sticking out his chin a little as your fingers curled to scratch him underneath.
You gasped a little gasp, eyes immediately twinkling.
"Yea?" Joe asked for confirmation on your sudden excitement.
"I mean, no," you let your eyes roam his jawline. "But, yes."
You loved your boyfriend either way, but there was something about Joe with a little facial hair. Made him look extra relaxed. Extra soft. And it helped that you got to see his hands more when he had a little scruff going. Joe was a fidgeter, and when there was a little bit of beard to touch, that's just what he would do.
Smooth bare-cheeked Joe was cute.
But ungroomed bristle-cheeked Joe was just... better.
Joe moved the trimmer he was holding until it hovered right in front of your face. You used your forehead to push against it, scrunching up your nose as you did. Made Joe laugh.
"Later, let me... I want to enjoy this for a bit first," you let your fingers comb through the hair underneath his chin, backcombing it and then smoothing it back down again.
"Will have to be before dinner, though," Joe said, struggling to get the words out because your thumbs were pushing his top lip down as you stroked his little moustache.
So shiny.
The light caught it just right.
"Why?"
"You'll have wine,"
That made you huff out a laugh.
Yea, all right. You understood wanting to avoid putting a double edge safety razor into your hands when there was alcohol in your system.
You suggested sitting down to watch a new episode of the show you were watching together, then shave Joe after, and then have dinner together. That would give you at least forty minutes to touch his face.
"It's just hair," Joe said, pretending for a second that he didn't like how dramatic you were about it. "Grows back."
"If they want you clean-shaven, they're not just going to want it for tomorrow, are they?" you reasoned, plopping down onto the sofa, reaching for him with grabby hands until he sat down next to you.
"You're judging me for loving you," you cradled his full head in your arms.
"Not judging," Joe mumbled, unable to hide his grin. "But on a scale of one to ten of loving me, right now? Ten."
"Always a ten," you argued, using both hands to scratch at his cheeks, careful to not hurt him with your nails.
"No," Joe laughed, turning his head a little to look at you. "Without this?" he pointed at his own face, looked up at the ceiling to think for a second, and then concluded, "Like a six, maybe."
You gasped through a shocked laugh and bumped your shoulder into his. "Piss off, it's always a ten, you idiot,"
Joe scrunched his nose up at you through a smile and used the remote to find the right show and right episode to turn on.
You took a moment to look at him a second.
"Maybe right now it's just a little more. Like, a twelve," you leant over to press a kiss to his cheek that Joe accepted easily. "Just a little extra."
"You love me a twelve?" Joe pretended like the extra numbers added made his heart explode in his chest as the TV launched itself into a short recap from last week's episode.
"So healthy," you mused, "For us to measure love in numbers."
It prompted Joe to whisper numbers at you all throughout the forty minutes of jaw touches and chin scratches as you stared at the TV.
"Seventeen,"
"Twenty-one,"
"Twenty-eight,"
You had your full attention with what was happening on the screen, but then Joe breathed, "Ooh, fifty-four," and you looked to see him with his eyes closed, relishing under your touch. You'd just started circling a fingertip in the little area underneath his ear, sort of on the edge of his hair growth.
"That's a big jump,"
"Mhmm," Joe hummed, leaning into you a little more. When you moved fingers to rake through the hair just below his jaw, where it was longest and thickest, Joe protested, said, "No, fifty-three," and used his own hand to place yours back where he wanted it. "Fifty-four."
It was so stupidly cute, it made you break into a slow smile because you just adored him so fucking much. Made you snuggle up a little more, thinking Joe's a dork and you just wanted to eat him up.
Just when Joe started considering not shaving at all, and letting hair and make-up deal with it tomorrow morning, the episode ended and you smacked his leg as you got up.
"Okay, let's do this,"
You weren't the biggest fan of Joe's bare face, not compared to what you were looking at right now, but you were the biggest fan of getting to groom him.
You loved it when Joe let you scrunch mouse into his curls. Or when you'd get to cut a weird eyebrow hair that stuck out. The big task of shaving the beard off had you excited. Nervous, but excited.
Stood in front of the mirror, Joe got all the things out that you needed and you squealed as you gripped tightly onto the trimmer you were holding. You made eye-contact with Joe in the mirror, and your wild eyes made Joe pause a second.
"Your nerves are making me nervous,"
You gasped dramatically. "You don't trust me?"
Joe carried on, found the shaving cream to place down next to the sink.
"No, I trust you. I don't trust that you trust you,"
Okay, fair. Maybe you didn't need to look at Joe's trimmer like it was a weapon of mass destruction, and maybe you didn't need to hold it like it was one either.
You placed it down next to the tub of moisturizer that Joe placed down as the last thing that was needed.
"All right," Joe turned, ready to give instructions. You directed all your attention towards him, back straight, expression open, ready to convince Joe you were an excellent student. Valedictorian top of the class sort of thing. Joe put his hands on your shoulders and smiled through a shaky exhale which told you you were overdoing it.
You softened your face and turned actual serious for a moment. You saw how it immediately relaxed Joe a little more.
"So," Joe pointed, turning your attention to the counter. "Trimmer first. We're going to get it as short as possible before we go in with the real scary stuff," his fingers moved from the trimmer to the razor.
You nodded. Sounded easy enough.
You looked up and saw Joe looking at you in the mirror, finger still pointing at the razor, and fuck, you loved this man with a beard. Just the look of him made you scrunch your features and reach for his face to hold for one last time.
"You're so cute, are you scared?"
"I'm not scared if you're not scared," Joe cooed.
You let your eyes twinkle, fingers curling to scratch, "Can I play?"
Joe's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Play?!"
You shrugged through a smile, petting his beard then, soft touches.
"Yea, cut you all up, slit your throat,"
Joe grabbed onto your wrists in a faux panic, making you laugh.
"No, like, give you a stupid moustache first, like, full Hulk Hogan, and like– no, what if... so, no moustache, get rid of that, and then leave a stupid thin line along your jaw," as you said it, you let your fingers draw a line from his chin up to his ears.
Joe pursed his lips into a smile and slow blinked at you.
"Fifty-five."
Sap.
You made Joe sit on the edge of the bath and stood between his legs, trimmer in hand. You turned it on, the buzz of it strong in your palm, and were about to move it over when you suddenly pulled your hand back, like you'd forgotten something.
"Sorry, sorry, bye, bye babes," you leant in and kissed Joe on each cheek a couple of times, quick little pecks. "So sorry, you've got to go or he won't make any money and we won't be able to go out to nice restaurants again,"
"Stop," Joe laughed, squeezing your sides.
"Do you need to take your T-shirt off?"
"Oh, you want it off, do you?" Joe wiggled his eyebrows, nearly making you roll your eyes.
"Because we'll get hair everywhere, won't we?"
Before you'd even been able to finish the sentence, Joe'd already pulled his T-shirt over his head and let it fall to the floor right next to you.
Clicking the trimmer back on, you got to work.
Your tactic was, clean him up first. Get the neckbeard gone and get the stray hairs up higher on his cheeks. You were concentrated on your task, brow furrowed and bottom lip bitten into your mouth, and Joe loved that he just got to look at you up close for a little while. You had him stand up to be able to get underneath his chin easier, and then sat him back down when you needed to get his sideburns. Careful fingers placed his head in the position you needed it for the easiest access.
Joe thought of flinching and scream ow really loudly to scare you, but how could he? You looked fucking precious all focussed, so close to his face. Made him think of higher numbers as his scalp tingled with the attention.
When you thought you'd cleaned Joe up enough, made him look as symmetrical as you could, you stepped back and smiled.
"Look," you said, stepping back to make room for him to stand up and see himself in the mirror. "This is what you'd look like if you put effort in," it was a half-joke, commenting on Joe's laziness in beard upkeep.
Joe smiled, turned his head to view it from all angles and then asked, "Do you think it looks better like this? Or like before?"
"Before, this is awful, sit back down," you pushed him back as Joe laughed loudly, holding onto you for leverage as he got sat back down onto the bath ledge.
Time to get most of it off.
With a little less precision, you got back to work and with a little more confidence now, you trimmed all that needed trimming and let Joe hold you by the hips.
You stopped when there were just two really long weird sideburns left, the rest all gone. You clicked the trimmer off and kissed the tips of your fingers, exclaimed, "I'm an artist," pronouncing artist the French way.
Joe touched his cheeks and grimaced. "I don't even want to see this,"
"Can I take a picture?"
"Absolutely not,"
"I'm going to take a picture," you reached for your phone in your pocket.
"No you're fucking not, give me that," a little wrestle broke out where Joe grabbed onto your arm before trying to take your phone from you. It had you shouting, "The artist's canvas isn't meant to talk back!" and "It looks so good, babe!" which was so obviously a lie, you weren't able to say that without giggling.
In the end, you didn't take a picture. Instead trimmed the sideburns down too, and then it was time to get your hands dirty.
Whilst shaking the loose hair from his body, Joe instructed you on how to apply shaving cream, gave you tips on how to hold the razor, which direction to go, how hard to press down...
"You're talking to me like I've never shaved before,"
You'd argue that you'd put far more time into shaving various body parts than he had.
"Not around an Adam's apple, no, so be careful,"
"Listen," you started, slapping shaving cream to Joe's face, slightly offended now because trimming his beard had been so easy. "This isn't a vicious attack, this is a loving shave. If I can shave around my own ankle bones and– my vagina, my literal vagina, my labia, my–"
"All right, all right, all right," Joe held onto both your wrists because you were getting shaving cream a little too close to his eyes. "Just, be careful, is all I'm asking."
He straightened his back and got a quick kiss in before you could move back, getting the white foam onto your face as well.
All right.
Time to get serious now. You wiped your own face down, made sure you had all of Joe's beard covered, left some water in the sink so you could rinse the razor in between strokes and got into the right position.
Joe wrapped his arms around you this time and you felt his thighs squeeze together on either side of your legs.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
You honestly didn't understand what Joe seemed so nervous for. You had this. Joe helped by moving his mouth to the side and sticking his chin out to pull the skin tight, and it was easy. So easy. You didn't like how scratchy all of it sounded, and how Joe's arms tensed around you when you moved around his throat, but the double edge razor worked like a charm.
You were definitely going to use it on your legs in the shower later.
You spent way longer than you needed to on him. The fact that the hair wasn't very dark and a little difficult to see in some areas was a good excuse, but you didn't need it. Joe just let you work until you declared it finished and enjoyed the time it granted him to stare at your features. At everything that made you you.
He'd be unaware how he'd slowly move his face to look at you, and you had to move it back to face the side several times. He tried to hide his smile every time you did that, but it was pointless. You witnessed every single little muscle twitch in his face and loved him more for every single one of them.
"There," you finally said, patting his face with a towel and admiring your work as you moved around him to see him from all angles. "Done."
Joe smiled into the towel and before going in to touch it himself, or getting up to look at the results in the mirror, he cupped your face with both his hands and pulled you into a kiss.
"Does it look good?" Joe asked in between kisses.
"Looks amazing," you answered. "I did a great job." Joe saw how you eyed the bare skin.
"Yea? Not a six, but a ten like you said?"
You grinned and leant back down for another kiss.
"Not a ten." you whispered, fingers now sliding down the new smooth softness of his face. Not as satisfying as freshly shaved dolphin legs, but still nice. "A twelve still."
Joe was expecting you to tease and give him a stupid number, like a negative four, or whatever. Going up more made his stomach flutter. Made him pull you into him even more. Made him kiss you stupid, which was extra enjoyable, because Joe was all soft and smelled all fresh now.
"Love you a twelve too."
"Just a twelve? Was a fifty-five before..."
Joe tilted his head, squeezed an eye shut as he looked up at you and he just felt drunk with love, it was a little ridiculous.
"Fifty-six, then."
"No, I think twelve is the highest number you're allowed to love someone."
Joe let out a frustrated sigh, clearly joking. A what-the-fuck-do-you-want sort of thing that made you laugh loudly.
"All right, a twelve then." Joe stood up, kissed you once more before taking a look at himself in the mirror.
He looked normal.
Like he'd just shaved himself.
Except when he shaved himself, he didn't have a beaming girlfriend stood next to him, giddily awaiting his reaction and approval of her work.
"Looks amazing,"
"Yea?"
"Absolutely." Joe curled an arm around your shoulder to hook your neck and pull you in to kiss you on the cheek as you each looked at each other in the mirror.
"Twelve out of ten."
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The Taglisted
@a-time-for-wolvess, @adoreyouusugar, @alana4610, @ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @barfightzanddiscolightz, @bettyfrommars, @cancankiki, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson, @choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @dylanmunson, @eddie-joe-munson, @eddies-puppet, @electricmunson, @emma77645, @emmamooney, @everythinghasafacee, @figmentofquinn, @frogers, @frootvelvet, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @harringtonfan4, @haylaansmi, @jasminearondottir, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @kellyxo1, @kennedy-brooke, @lovelyblueness, @miserybeans, @nadixq, @ohmeg, @paola-carter, @pepperstories, @phyllosilicate-s, @roosterisdaddy36, @sherrylyn628, @sidthedollface2, @thebellenouvelle, @thefemininemystiquee, @thewondernanazombie, @tlclick73, @werepartnersnow, @yelyahcardella
taglist currently full, sorry
#Joe Quinn#Joseph Quinn#Joe Quinn x You#Joseph Quinn x You#Joe Quinn x Reader#Joseph Quinn x Reader#Joe Quinn Fanfic#Joe Quinn fanfiction#Joseph Quinn Fanfic#Joseph Quinn Fanfiction#joe quinn x y/n#joseph quinn x y/n#rpf#icallhimjoey#love you a twelve
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Marwan Kenzari's roles based on how much I like his hair
So I was inspired by this post by @distractionapple after watching like 80% of Marwan’s films. His hair doesn’t change anywhere near as much as Luca’s, but in some of his films, his look is questionable™.
Joe / Yusuf al-Kaysani, The Old Guard 11/10
His hair here is just beautiful. Thank God Luca convinced Gina to keep his curls because he looks so much better with them. 10/10 for the hair alone. The beard also looks good, especially compared to the atrocities that some of his past roles have been. Bonus point for the scenes when he's wearing a cap.
Emre Ogan, The Promise 6/10
Look, I don’t know what they thought they were doing with his facial hair, but it’s not the worst it’s ever been (we’ll get to that later). I enjoy the way his hair is styled here, but I do miss his natural curls. Basically 1/10 for whatever that moustache is meant to be but a comfortable 8/10 for his hair.
Adrian Knowles, What Happened to Monday -10/10
You know when I said the worst facial hair ever? Yeah, this is it. It’s like they looked at him and said “how could we make him look super creepy” and decided the best way was to *partially* shave his beard. The dodgy moustache was bad enough, but the sideburns? Just no. His slicked back hair wasn’t the one either, even though it looked much better near the end when it came free. On its own, I’d give his hair a good 3/10, but the beard lets him down. A lot.
Ashraf Marwan, The Angel 8/10
Okay he looks so young in this film. He may be about 35 in this movie but he looks like he’s 25, purely because he has no facial hair. Most of his roles have some kind of beard, so clean-shaven Marwan is an outlier, and I like it. His hair is also pretty good, though of course without his curls, he loses a couple of points. Overall, pretty good decisions from hair and makeup here.
Jafar, Aladdin 3/10
I don’t know why hair and makeup decided to do this to him, but it is a tragedy. I think he spends most of the film with his head covered (idk I haven’t seen it and I don’t intend to) but even this brief shot I found is too much. I appreciate the beard, but the short hair does him no favours. Whoever watched this before The Old Guard must appreciate the upgrade. 5/10 for the beard, 1/10 for the hair.
Daan, Hartenstraat 9/10
His hair is just great here. Any role that lets him keep his curls automatically gets extra points from me. And I love that you can see his dimples, which is like the only downside to his beard. Not quite as good as in The Old Guard, but a close second. I haven’t seen this movie because I can’t find it with English subtitles, but from every gifset I’ve seen, his hair looks great the whole way through.
Rico, Bloedlink 5/10
Now, this film may be a complete mess, but hair and makeup didn’t fuck up completely. They didn’t shave Marwan’s head, but having said that, his hair isn’t great either. This is probably the longest his hair has been in film, so I wish we could have seen it down. He does spend about half of the film wearing a balaclava though.
Idris, Instinct -1000/10
Ending at rock bottom. Whatever this is, I DON’T WANT IT. He looks nothing like any of his other roles and there’s a good reason for that. The only positive thing I can say about it is at least they gave him some reasonable stubble. I haven’t seen this film, and I don’t plan on ever changing that. Sorry Marwan.
#bear in mind i'm an ace lesbian so. this isn't like a thirst post#this is purely aesthetics#marwan kenzari#the old guard#the promise#what happened to monday#the angel#aladdin#hartenstraat#bloedlink#instinct#i would have included him as the conductor because his costume is great#but he's wearing that stupid hat the whole time asdfagjaksghkl
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cut it close
@hearteyesforbuck made me do it.
@theleftboobgrabber here it is!!
Thank you to @sevensoulmates for looking this over and giving me a title i love you.
I just really wanted to write a shaving fic for Buddie after I read one with Joe and Nicky xD So here it IS! Wrote it in one day, less than 5000 words which is a FEAT for me. I am proud of myself.
[AO3 Link]
Word Count: 3642 words
Eddie was annoyed.
It was weird, because Eddie lived the majority of his life with some semblance of facial hair. It made him feel less naked, exposed less of his face even if it was just a five o’clock shadow. When he could, he usually had something up there, plus the added benefit of less time needed to get ready.
But his face was scratchy, and now he was annoyed.
In the Army, there was no room for anything but keeping himself clean-shaven. Regulation said that facial hair wasn’t allowed, unless it was a mustache, and no matter what anyone said, Eddie could not pull one off. He’d look like a counterfeit cowboy playing dress-up with one of those 50-cent stick-on mustaches, and he hadn't even wanted to think about the Texas jokes he'd get from the other soldiers.
That wasn’t to say that he'd been religious in keeping himself clean-shaven when he was at home. When Christopher was born, he was on a ten-day paternity leave; between Shannon’s long labour and just the feeling of being home, there was no way he was about to keep running razors across his face.
The first touch of his son’s hand on his face had been obscured by a five o’clock shadow. Eddie didn’t think much of it back then - he wasn’t quite sure why he was thinking about it now, either.
Four-year-old Christopher used to run his hand gleefully across the slight beard Eddie had grown in between tours, babbling incoherently at the rough texture. It seemed to soothe Chris in a way - the way holding his son close did to Eddie. He’d been too exhausted from constantly fighting with his wife to even think about putting a blade to his skin, but if Chris calmed from it, who was he to remove it?
It had never been more than a day or two worth of growth after the second tour - not until he moved to LA. After that, it was just easier to trim it so it was close-cropped. Firefighters didn’t have to keep things completely shaved, though most of his crew preferred it. Bobby, Buck, Chimney - Eddie didn’t think he’d seen any of them with more than a day’s worth of growth in the three years he’d known them.
But for him, being new to town, fresh with his parents’ words branded on his skin, it was easier to keep it. New look, new him - so to speak. Not that he was under the impression that the stubble did anything to hide his expression, but the illusion of anonymity, or protection from his vulnerability was nice.
He’d gone through multiple hairstyles through his first year and a half in California. Enough that Christopher snorted and laughed every time he saw Eddie with something new, then turned around and demanded a new haircut of his own.
First, it was the longer hair that turned into a wavy mess when he worked out. Then, it was the slightly-shorter, but always quiffed-back hair. Both of which made him look years younger than he actually was, but were hell to keep up with. Then after Shannon died, he’d just buzzed it all off. The new hairstyle made him look older and more serious, somewhere along how old Eddie actually felt.
Though he suspected that it could be a product of the muscle he’d been packing on, throwing himself into working out to shut his brain down for at least an hour or two.
The stubble hadn’t really changed through that. He’d shaved completely maybe once, for the funeral, but for the most part, his trimmer was his best friend.
Then Christmas came and went and Eddie decided that the new year deserved yet another new look. S o the stubble had to go.
He also started growing his hair back out. Somehow, it came back fluffier than it used to be, but he stopped putting copious amounts of gel and pomade in it. It was barely longer than a few inches, but coupled with his clean-shaven skin, he looked at least ten years younger. Hell, Eddie didn’t even recognize himself anymore.
Pretty empowering, if you asked him.
Still, he wasn’t quite sure why he was just staring at the razor in his hand now.
Coming off of a 24-hour shift usually meant that Eddie went through his normal routine of kissing Christopher goodbye for school, hopping into the shower and then standing in front of the mirror to brush and shave before he went to bed.
Today, though, the shift had been brutal. Back-to-back calls, a lot of them requiring all hands on deck, and despite Bobby keeping the rotation going so they could catch at least a couple hours of sleep, Eddie was dead on his feet. He’d still kissed Christopher goodbye, thanked Carla and hardly managed to keep himself upright in the shower or while brushing.
But damn, his face itched.
“Eddie?” Buck’s voice rang out from the entryway. “You here?”
“In here!” he called back, somehow stupidly relieved at the sound of his best friend’s voice. He wasn’t sure what exactly Buck was doing here, but he never complained about having him in the house. Especially when he was as tired as now.
Buck appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, his grin slipping immediately at the sight of Eddie turning the razor in his hands over and over.
Suddenly, he was struck at how this looked, and moved frantically to correct it. “I’m too tired to shave.”
Whatever hypotheticals had been flying through Buck’s mind resolved themselves at that explanation, evident from the faint relieved grin that played on his lips and the way his shoulders relaxed. He stepped into the bathroom, clearly unfazed by Eddie being clad in a towel and nothing else. “So let me do it?”
Eddie shook his head a few times, rubbed at his eyes, and blinked precariously at his best friend who was still looking on at him with amusement. Oh, so Buck had asked. Still, he needed to confirm that he wasn’t hearing things. “What?”
Buck shrugged, leaning casually against the wall. “I can shave it off for you and you can go to sleep without feeling scratchy.”
It was tempting. If he hadn’t been as half-asleep as he was, he probably would’ve put up more of a fight than he actually did. Instead, he just nodded and handed the stupid thing to Buck, who was now sporting a Cheshire grin, practically bouncing in place. “It’s that exciting?”
“Stow it, Diaz, you know I love the little things,” he teased.
Eddie let out a tired laugh. “I do. Where do you want me?”
Buck scanned the bathroom before his eyes landed on Christopher’s shower chair. He brought it over, unfolding it and gesturing for Eddie to sit down. “You want me to grab you a shirt?”
“Nah, I don’t want to get shaving cream on it,” he replied, before thinking better of it and tacking on, “I can if it makes you uncomfortable, though.”
Buck snorted, shaking his head and reaching to wash his hands. He turned to Eddie, looking critically at his jaw and cheeks.
“Your hair is dripping all over your face,” Buck decided bemusedly, pulling a towel off the stack of them and coming to stand behind him. “Here, tilt your head back.”
Eddie complied, resting his head back against Buck’s stomach. The first pass of the towel, only slightly obscuring the strength of Buck’s fingers massaging at his scalp, turned him instantly boneless. He kept rubbing the towel over his head, taking care not to jostle Eddie’s head too much.
Eddie was pretty sure he made a self-incriminating noise for the drag of Buck’s fingers because he started laughing, moving a hand down to rest on his nape. This time, he dug his fingers into a random knot at the base of his neck. Eddie groaned again at the feel of it releasing, pulling another throaty laugh from his best friend.
“You carry too much tension in your stance,” he said in a mock-deep voice. Eddie chuckled, dropping his head back down. The two of them immediately dissolved into more laughter at his hair standing in spikes, the joyful sound echoing in the small space. Buck grinned at him through the mirror, combing the damp strands back with a couple passes of his fingers.
“Much better.” Coming around the chair, Buck grabbed the shaving cream off the counter, directing Eddie to close his eyes as he spread the foam on his face
Eddie had severely underestimated how intimate this was going to be.
Suddenly, he felt a little too naked, sitting here in only a towel with his eyes closed, even if he trusted Buck with everything in him. He was painfully aware of it, goosebumps rising on his skin.
“I want to watch you,” he said quietly, holding his breath. A second skipped by, in which Eddie was completely convinced that he’d just scared his best friend off. Buck simply tapped a finger under his jaw in a silent signal.
Eddie opened his eyes to find Buck staring at him softly. He’d never seen that look on his face before, and to be the recipient of it was a little groundbreaking. In fact, Eddie was pretty much 90% sure that no one had ever looked at him like that.
It was too damn early to have all these realizations.
Blissfully, Buck didn’t make him talk about it. Instead, he started up a steady stream of random conversation that Eddie was only half-paying attention to. He was stuck watching his best friend run the razor meticulously along his face.
Evan Buckley, when the occasion called for it, had a single-minded focus that not many people expected from him. Eddie had seen it that first day, and every day since. And it wasn’t just a focus that was partial to him being a firefighter.
Eddie saw it when Buck helped Chris with science homework, or when they were building unidentifiable figures with Legos. He saw it when Buck interacted with May about school, Harry and Denny about video games. He saw it when Chimney was ribbing him about his lack of pop culture references, or when Bobby was teaching him a new recipe.
Somehow, Eddie just didn’t realize that even he was privy to that; that he, too, could be a recipient of Buck’s focus. That in itself was a monumental realization.
“What are you thinking so hard about there?” Buck asked, scraping the razor down his cheek.
“You” slipped out of his mouth, setting his face aflame again. Eddie internally cursed his lack of filter when he was tired, but Buck only laughed, bright blue eyes flicking to his own.
“Care to share with the class?”
“You’re being very careful with this,” he observed, watching Buck’s brow furrow in concentration over a particularly difficult angle.
“Would you prefer I sliced your skin?” he teased, rinsing the razor before coming back. Two fingers landed on his jaw to stretch the skin slightly as the blade made another pass across his face.
“If I’d started to shave right now, I guarantee you it would not have been pretty.”
“You’re always pretty,” Buck said absently, turning away to dip the razor in water again. Eddie’s face warmed a little more at the unabashed compliment. He’d never been so grateful for the shaving foam still obscuring half his face, but he also couldn’t help the pleased feeling that settled in his bones.
“I wouldn’t be with toilet paper stuck to all the little nicks and cuts.”
Buck furrowed his brow, looking weirdly at him. “Is that something people do?”
Eddie laughed, moving to wipe his face before thinking better of it. “It’s another movie thing, I think. They always show people doing it to stop the bleeding but I find that so gross.”
“Do you know how many bacteria…” and there Buck went off on a rant about sticking toilet paper where it didn’t belong, and how bacteria could infect open cuts, and how horrible people’s hygiene was.
Eddie watched bemusedly as Buck sprouted more and more facts, getting heated at the audacity of some people. The repetitive feel of the razor and Buck’s voice almost lulled him to sleep, even as he fought to keep his eyes open to listen to his friend's spiel.
“If you fall asleep on me, I’m not responsible for anything that happens,” Buck said, louder than before. Eddie nearly fell off the chair, startled by the volume of his voice but easily steadied by Buck’s hands on his skin.
Well, he was wide awake now.
Buck didn’t move, even after Eddie was balanced back on the chair. His hands were wrapped around Eddie’s arms, palms burning through air-cooled skin. Briefly, he registered that Buck had stopped dragging the blade across his skin a while ago from the dry feel of it, which meant that he’d probably fallen asleep.
Eddie looked up at Buck, watching his throat click as he stared down at him. There was a ferocity in the lines of his face - another unfamiliar look that Eddie hadn’t seen directed towards him before.
Part of Eddie wanted to flee from how vulnerable he felt, open and bare in more ways than just physically. The other part of him relished being this close to the man that made him feel safe in being emotionally exposed, in seeing Buck unguarded in the four walls of his bathroom.
“It’s okay to let someone take care of you, Eddie,” Buck said quietly. Of all the things that he expected Buck to say, that wasn’t one of them.
“You do,” he replied simply.
It really was that simple - Eddie hadn’t lied. The past three years had countless examples of Buck taking care of him. The smile that broke across Buck’s face was almost blinding, but also made Eddie realize how much his best friend relished simple praise.
It was that thought that gave him the courage to lift a hand and pull Buck’s away from his shoulder, entangling their fingers. “Hey, I know I don’t say it as often as I should but I appreciate you, more than I can put in words.”
Buck shook his head, smiling and squeezing his fingers once before reaching for the razor again. “Just because you don’t use words, doesn’t mean you don’t show me your appreciation.”
Eddie couldn’t fathom what else he’d done to show it, but he let it go, leaning back in the chair as Buck tilted his head up. This time, he kept his eyes roaming Buck’s face as best as he could, trying to figure something out here.
The quiet that settled between them felt loaded. The only sounds that could be heard were the swish of the water as Buck rinsed the blade, a faint scratch as the blade dragged along his jaw.
“I mean, you trust me to put a blade to your throat,” Buck brought up after a little while. Eddie assumed it was in regards to how he showed appreciation.
“That’s a bit dramatic, Buck. It’s a generic razor, not a medieval dagger.”
“Are you trying to tell me you can’t fashion a weapon out of this?” Buck raised an eyebrow skeptically, tilting his jaw to get to that one pesky spot right underneath it.
“Your faith in my abilities is startling,” Eddie laughed, earning himself a rebuke from Buck when his skin stretched in the opposite direction. He fell silent as the razor slipped across his Adam’s apple with all the care in the world, Eddie a little miffed that he couldn’t watch Buck do this staring up at the ceiling.
He was never going to be able to do the simple act of shaving without thinking about Buck, ever again.
“Okay,” Buck said after two more passes with the razor. “I think that’s done.”
Eddie finally took his eyes off Buck for the first time since he’d set the blade to his skin, and stared past him at the mirror. Somehow, looking at Buck through the mirror was more intimate than looking at him directly.
Unsurprisingly, Buck had done a great job. He told his best friend as much, watching as red dusted across his cheeks. It was endearing, and Eddie wanted to reach out and brush his fingers across the blush, or say something else that would deepen it.
Instead, he stood up and bent over the sink, splashing cold water on his skin and taking the offered towel to pat his face and neck dry.
“Can I…” Buck trailed off, holding up his aftershave. He looked to be bracing himself for rejection, which wouldn’t do at all.
Eddie stayed silent, stepping into his best friend’s space and tilting his chin up so he could look the other man in the eye. Buck took the gesture as the permission it was, unscrewing the cap to get some balm.
He closed his eyes as Buck’s fingers swept across his freshly cleaned skin, applying the product as carefully as he’d wielded the razor. The strokes of his calloused fingertips against his sensitive skin sent shivers down his spine, bracketing each bone with a security that really only came from being with Buck.
“Eddie,” Buck whispered, a thumb stroking idly along the underside of his jaw.
He opened his eyes to find Buck staring at him just as softly as before.
The tension stretched taut between them, three years of building whatever this was between them all coming to a head faster than Eddie would have imagined. But in the quiet of his house, alone with no one but Buck to witness him like this, he let himself lean into it.
“Buck,” he smiled, reaching up to cup his face. “Thank you.”
That startled a laugh out of the other man, an impish grin Eddie had to taste. So he leaned up to press his lips to Buck in a closed-mouth kiss, feeling something settle inside him as Buck wrapped an arm around his bare shoulders to pull him closer.
Buck pulled back first, before it could get too heated. “Nope, I refuse to be blamed if you get razor burn or ingrown hairs from us making out.”
“You can be blamed for taking so damn long,” Eddie grinned, throwing his head back in laughter at his best friend’s affronted look.
“Right, it’s on me, my bad,” Buck shook his head. “Go get ready for bed before you can’t sleep anymore.”
Eddie complied, leaving one last kiss at the corner of Buck’s mouth. As he ruffled through his drawers, he called back to him. “Join me?”
“I’m not the one who just came off shift, but sure,” he replied, bounding out of the bathroom happily. Eddie chuckled at his eagerness but threw whatever random clothes he found on, then walked over to tug Buck towards the bed. The mere sight of it had his eyelids feeling heavy.
They settled into the sheets, facing each other. Buck was smiling at him, and Eddie was still a little stuck on how they’d ended up here, but he wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth.
“Not that you’re not allowed here whenever you want, but what did you come here for? Sorry, I forgot to ask, you usually don’t come over after one of my 24-hours.”
Buck laughed. “Nothing at all, I was bored.”
“Well, I fixed that for you,” he replied impishly. Buck had been more than careful with his face even with his excitement, definitely more than Eddie could manage after a long shift.
“You smell good,” Buck murmured, eyes twinkling with mirth as he swiped a thumb along his cheek. Eddie smiled, turning his face slightly into the pillow at the light touch.
“Just the aftershave.” A yawn pressed at the back of Eddie’s mouth, but he managed to keep it at bay by pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He wasn’t about to let a yawn of all things break this bubble between them. “Why don’t they let firefighters keep facial hair anyway?” he asked drowsily. He knew the answer, but he just wanted to hear Buck’s voice, to let it help him drift off.
“The masks,” he replied, reaching forward hesitantly to set a hand on Eddie’s hip. Eddie, exhausted as he was, didn’t even question it; he scooted closer and curled into Buck’s chest, listening to the rumble of his voice as he talked. “Facial hair stops the masks from sealing properly around our mouth and nose. It’s the same with N95 masks or respirators; even a little facial hair can disrupt the seal.”
“Feels better without hair now,” he said, pressing a tired smile into Buck’s shirt.
“Well it looks good, if I do say so myself.”
Eddie felt a rush of fondness overcome him, wrapping around his heart and lungs as he pulled back a little to look at his partner’s beaming face.
What he actually wanted to say was that he loved him, but Eddie didn’t think either of them were in a place to hear it. Definitely not with Eddie like this, exhausted and sleep-drunk. But he wanted to say something.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, words not coming to him in his bleary state. But this was Buck, so he heard him anyway. Tangling their fingers together, Buck raised them and kissed Eddie’s knuckles. “I know, and it’s the same for you.”
Somehow, that was enough.
Eddie tilted his face up to press a sloppy kiss to Buck’s skin, tucking his face into his partner’s neck and just breathing in.
Buck pressed a kiss to his forehead in return, wrapping his arms a little tighter around him. “Go to sleep,” he said in a low voice.
So he did.
#zee writes#eddie diaz#evan buckley#mentions of christopher#buddie#shaving fic#soft boys#eddie diaz is so soft#soft eddie diaz#i mentioned how soft he is three times and im not sorry about it#and eli is a legend in this house
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It’s mermay! A month I really like because mermaid stuff fascinates me. I don’t have much to offer this month but this small excerpt from my (very) long Book of Nile fic that I'm writing where Joe and Nicky hang out too. I think that scene is cute, and the fic won’t be out before months so I feel okay posting this bit (and it doesn’t have any spoiler!)
(Context: it’s a urban fantasy au, Nile moved in town a few months ago, Joe and Nicky own a cafe, they’re new friends).
~
Nile barely hears the bell as she opens the door of the cafe -she would go in more strongly but she knows the poor thing is barely hanging on, neither Joe nor Nicky have gotten to fix it yet despite the hinges whining for a couple of weeks now.
“Joe!” She calls out once inside, and when his head pops out from behind the shelves, she rushes straight to him. “Hi Nicky,” she throws a quick wave at Nicky on her way who laughs and reciprocates, not hurt but amused that she doesn’t go to him first. She quickly ushers Joe behind the bookshelves, away from any prying ears.
“I need your help.” She starts before Joe can say anything and he raises his eyebrows but let her speak anyway, wearing that kind expression he always has. “I want to give you both a gift because you and Nicky have been very kind to me and before you ask,” she interrupts him as he opens his mouth with a glint in his eyes. “Yes I have yours, no I won’t tell you what it is.” Now he’s smiling. “And I don’t know what to get Nicky, can you please help me? Do you think he would like a pendant? I know merfolk usually likes jewelry, right?” And she takes her first breath of air, how long has she been speaking?
“Hello Nile.” He greets her warmly, no ounce of malice but amusement in his voice. “And not my Nicky, no.” At the name, Joe’s eyes naturally look toward Nicky who is counting money behind the counter.
“But he has earrings?” She finds herself asking. He does, two small silver hoop on both of his ears, one of the first things she noticed about him.
“He does have earrings.” Joe smiles again, but this one is for her, not Nicky who isn’t even looking at them. “It is tradition in his community for a pair to wear a piece of their partner on them, usually a piece of jewelry or something akin. Nicolo doesn’t like jewelry.”
“Oh.” She looks at Nicky, Nicky who always wears pants with too many pockets, loves his sandals and large shirt and wears blue as the most extravagant color. His cut short hair and clean-shaven face with no fancy beard or mustache.
“He finds them too much of a hassle and not practical. He thinks rings are a hazard only waiting to rip one of your fingers in case of an accident since we watched that documentary about awful accident people survived from.” Joe takes a moment to shudder, certainly remembering a scene from that show. “But he likes to honor the place he comes from and its traditions. So we found a compromise.”
“You gifted him the earing?” She guesses.
“I made them myself,” Joe announces proudly, she can see how his chest puffs out and the way his eyes grow all kind and mellow, back on his husband. “I asked a jeweler to help me and show me how. True he helped a lot but I put my heart into it. The most simple, smallest earrings I could make. He never took them off once.” He adds in a lower voice, just for her.
“And you?” What do you wear from him she wants to know, and she knows Joe won’t take her curiosity as misplaced.
“My Nico gave me many pieces of jewelry over the years, he has the eye for it and I, on the other hand, have the appreciation to wear them. But here,” and he shows Nile his left hand, the fourth finger adorned by a ring. “We compromised and he gifted me a human tradition ring.” It’s a simple silver band with intricate gravure all over it, small and faint enough to not be seen from afar, needing a closer look to see the stunning design.
“I didn’t know about these traditions.” It’s not like she grew up near many merpeople, they are known to prefer saltwater over lakes and rivers. She had a selkie friend as a kid and knew many water nymphs in high school and college, all with Chicago’s lake but no merfolk, not as friends who can talk about more intimate things anyway.
“Oh my Nico gifted me many things. There are many rules on courtship where he comes from. It took many tries and trials for each of us to decode the other’s language and culture but I finally understood what he meant with all those gifts he kept giving me. It wasn’t a hardship to reciprocate the courting afterward.” Huh. Nile’s brain falters on that word for a second, but she quickly gets a hold of herself.
“Okay, so no jewelry. Noted. What do you think he would like then?” And he proceeds to talk to her through kitchen knives and tools as well as poetry books he wants to read. She files it all away in her head, promises herself she’ll look all that up later on her laptop.
That evening when she comes home, Nile walks by the plant Booker gifted her and pointedly ignores it and the words Joe said earlier that are still swimming in her head. Its leaves are green again and she needs to sleep, not think about what a courtship is.
#*myfic#tog#kaysanova#yusuf al kaysani#nicolo di genova#not tagging nile because she doesn't do much here it's about joe and nicky and I don't wanna clog her tag even more#also please come ask me about my book of nile urban fantasy au i have dozens of pages of planning and research and excerpts and ideas
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Vagrant's Rhapsody
“You can't change the wind but you can set your sails.” ― Billie Joe Armstrong
“Sometimes the world decides it doesn’t need you. Sometimes you decide you don’t need the world. But, you... fuck, I need you.”
+
Drink because you’ve got nothing better to do than wallow in self-pity on a Saturday night. Drink because you’re letting the straights play jump rope with your nerves. Fling your glass across the bar so you have to watch the whiskey run down your distorted, cracked reflection.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
+
Train hopper modern au. aka the road trip quarter-life crisis au no one asked for but i’m writing anyway
EXCERPT:
“Shit. What’s the order again?”
“Me. Nyko. Lexa. You.”
“See. This is why you should have done a rehearsal.”
“Rehearsals cost money, Anya.”
“So do weddings, asshole.”
Lexa pinched the bridge of her nose and gave Anya a shove through the open door. “I think you just proved his point.”
“Shut up, Lexa,” Anya sneered as they filed through the door and down the hall. “Who’s on Octavia's side?”
“You’re walking with Raven.” Lincoln pulled at his tie. He had adjusted it at least a dozen times in the past ten minutes.
“Linc, you gotta stop doing that.” Lexa reached over Anya’s shoulder and grabbed Lincoln by his jacket to restraighten his tie.
“Who the fuck is Raven?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll like her,” Lincoln assured. “And thanks.”
Nyko was waiting for them, already standing in position with Octavia’s brother as the first pair to walk. They wore the same matching black slim fit suits as Lexa and Anya with a pink collared shirt and matching tie under a gray waistcoat that was accented with a pink pocket square and matching boutonnière. But where Bellamy was clean shaven with hair styled in a short, curling curtain fringe, Nyko’s had a long beard and equally long hair tied back with braids.
He waved to them, and Lexa’s chin bobbed in response. She was supposed to be next but there was no one standing beside Octavia’s brother to indicate themselves as her other half.
“What about me?” She asked, looking around for someone else who might be marked with a pink boutonnière.
“You’re with Clarke.”
Anya slumped, pouting. “Can we switch? I love emasculating men.”
“No, you can’t.” Lincoln pressed his palms into their backs and marched them forward. “And Clarke’s not a guy.”
“What?” It was rhetorical, but she knew Lincoln would answer her regardless. She wished he wouldn’t.
“Clarke,” he told her. “She’s right over there. Go get into position. Both of you.”
Anya clapped a hand on her shoulder. She felt it, so it must have happened. Just like she knew Anya shoved her forward. She felt herself moving, felt someone’s hands in her back, marching her down the hall. She could feel it. She could see it.
So why was her brain screaming at her to wake up?
The room was spinning, the world moving around her at a hundred miles an hour. Everything was a twisting blur that made her stomach flip and her head spin and she could hear Anya trying to get her attention through it all but, all Lexa could do was blink.
Waiting for them were two women in silvery grey dresses with their hair drawn up into similarly styled loopy buns. They had their backs turned, heads bobbing with happy chatter as they shared something between them on their phones. One of them had a black and silver walking cane and dark hair, the other was blonde; not the pale sort of blonde or the dishwater sort of blonde, the golden kind.
“Oh, no.” The word escaped her like a whisper, as if saying it would change the truth; change gold into lead. She stepped back, her shoulder hitting something – Anya probably – sending them both stumbling.
“Watch where you’re going, Lexa. Shit.”
Clarke’s phone hit the floor; her hand suspended – frozen – in time as the blues of her eyes are blown away. Clarke refused to budge; Lexa couldn’t. Blue eyes now black as night, staring.
Something clicked in her head, time started to move again, Lexa’s lips slipped apart and before she could even think about what she was doing the halls echoed with her voice saying “Hello, Clarke.”
And then Clarke was cursing.
“Fuck,” she spat, her body surging into a shaking frenzy as she snatched her phone from the ground and tried to do anything that didn’t involve looking at Lexa.
Anya slung her arm around Lexa’s shoulders, squinting at the women as she gave them one of her infamous once overs and then looked at Lexa with those same judging eyes. “I expect an explanation later,” she said and then she unhooked herself from Lexa and strolled forward to meet Raven.
Clarke was still cursing, still fumbling with her phone, still avoiding looking at her.
Lexa swallowed. She deserved that.
“Clarke! Lexa!” Nyko’s voice hissed. “Get into position. We gotta go!”
Everything moved in a blur. Her feet were moving, music playing, but all she could hear was the thumping of her heart in her chest. There were lights, doors swinging open and music blasting even louder into her ears and then...
Clarke was touching her arm.
Lexa sucked in a breath, her spine going stiff and the room began to swirl around her. Nyko was gone. A push from behind. Clarke wasn’t touching her anymore. Octavia was there. Across from her was Lincoln, tears rolling down his cheeks. More music. Applause.
The whole wedding done and over and all Lexa could remember was the sound of her heartbeat.
She came too sometime between the end of the ceremony and the reception, around the time that Anya had decidedly abandoned her in favor of the woman named “Raven”.
“Sorry,” she offered.
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right. I’m not.”
Anya blew a kiss turned one finger salute and sauntered off to the buffet of food where Raven was standing in line and Lexa was left sitting alone at the table, watching as people she didn’t know gathered in celebration.
Lincoln and Octavia had their own table, as per some wedding tradition Lexa didn’t understand and everyone else had been assigned a table number that Lexa had no memory of reading. Still, she had the place card, “Lexa Woods, Table 3” clasp between her fingers, running her fingertips over the embossed lettering as she tried grasp the missing memories from her mind. But when she closed her eyes, all she could see was waves of gold, and the fury of winter.
She opened her eyes and sucked in a sharp breath when something clapped against her shoulder. She whipped herself around, tearing herself free from the unwanted touch, looked up... “Lincoln,” she breathed, relieved. “Congratulations.”
“Are you okay, Lexa?” Lincoln pulled out a chair next to her and sat himself down. He had two plates piled in one of his massive hands, one he set down in front of him and the other he placed before her. “You’ve been acting weird for hours.”
Lexa shook her head, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. “Yeah,” she lied. “Im fine. Just... Coming back here is harder than I thought it would be.”
Lincoln smiled softly. “I know,” he said. “I it’s a rough transition. I shouldn’t have asked you to be a part of the wedding knowing how jarring all this can be.”
“No,” Lexa rushed to correct. “It’s not that. It’s... I know Clarke.”
“You do?” he asked, stabbing at a piece of steak and shoving it into his mouth. “How? She’s hardly ever around.”
“Northfield. Minneapolis. Boston.” Lexa shrugged. “Around.”
“Small world.” Lincoln said between bites. “Octavia thought you two would hit it off.”
Lexa poked at her food. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“For real?” Lincoln leaned over the table to try and force Lexa to look at him.
Lexa waved a hand and pushed Lincoln away. “It’s fucking nothing. Alright? Don’t worry about it.”
Lincoln sighed as he grabbed his plate and pushed away from the table. “Alright,” he said. “But try to eat something, okay? A lot of something. We got a buffet and an open bar for a reason so, make it worth it.”
Lexa grumbled and shoveled a fork full of food into her mouth. She had forgotten how good food could taste, her eyes rolling to the back of her head with delight.
Anya plopped down in the seat next to her with three piled plates of meat, sides and bread ready to be devoured. She glowered at Lexa, sizing her up as she hunched over her food. “I’m not sharing,” she announced.
“I’m not asking,” Lexa said, taking another bite of her own food.
With a mouth full of bread, Anya sneered. “Good.”
Raven pulled out the chair next to Anya and dropped a single, mountain piled plate onto the table. “Table three,” she endorsed with a smile before her eyes trailed from Anya to Lexa. Her opened her mouth sucked in a breath.
“Sit down, Raven,” came another voice; husky and familiar.
Clarke sat down across from Lexa; her eyes glued to her phone and Lexa was sure she was avoiding eye contact until Clarke dared to stare directly at her from across the table. She had a small plate by comparison to everyone one else and a glass of either really flat beer, or an impressive amount of scotch that she was drinking with more than a hint of rage.
Lexa suppressed the urge to shudder from the bite of the icy blues across from her. “So, you’re friends with Octavia,” she said to no one in particular in a half assed attempt to steer the conversation away from the tension between her and Clarke.
“Not for long,” Raven said in a sing song voice.
“What do you mean?” Anya asked.
“We sort of have this thing,” Raven started, her arms drawing a scene as she explained. “Like a box of long-term bets that we only open up on really big occasions when we’re all together. We take it really seriously and some of us are two hundred percent fucked.”
Clarke rolled her eyes and dived deeper into her glass of alcohol. “Thanks for reminding me.”
Lexa leaned her elbows onto the table. “Oh really,” she toyed. “Tell us more.”
Raven wrapped her arm around the back of her chair and pointed to a rusty red toolbox with a small rectangular slit cut near the top and a combination lock dangling from the latch that sat on Lincoln and Octavia’s table. Atop the worn red paint, the words “long term bets” were painted on in a glittery blue and there were several band stickers that were slapped onto the sides. “Normally, I'm the appointed commissioner. But my gift to Octavia was to let her be the judge of all that tonight.”
“You have a long-term bet box and an official commissioner?” Anya asked.
“Yeah.” Raven said flatly.
Octavia noticed them eyeing the box and she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and gave the box and excited rattle.
Anya smiled. “I’m liking this Octavia person more and more by the minute.”
#the 100#clexa#clexa fanfiction#clexa fanfic#t100#clarke griffin#vrau#vagabond lexa#art historian clarke#fic update
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Friday
As I got older people loved to pick on me about staying home all the time. No need to finish that thought.
I got my groceries delivered today and I'm pretty sure I may never go the store ever again. It was amazing.
I'm probably gonna watch "Tiger King" again because yeah, you know why. Joe Exotic also looks like my fabulous gay cousin Matt and I can't unsee it.
I shaved my beard because of corona and I look fucking weird clean shaven with shaggy hair. I did keep the porn stache for a few hours just to lol @ myself.
You know the weirdest thing about this isolation that makes me pretty proud? I've eliminated my vices and bad behaviors. It began pre-corona, but this experience has been a giant reset button for me. I'm really grateful for that.
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Who Do You Love - Joe Mazzello x Reader
Synopsis: Joe's been distant lately with you, you're confused on why. Let's hope he can own up soon on why.
Words: 3.7k
Warning: like one swear word, reader be confused af
A/N: yall my best friend wrote this masterpiece its better than ive ever written but she cant be fucked putting it on her blog 😂 i love her a lot so show this some love too!!
Everything or nothing, that’s how it’s always been with Joe, and he’s always given me his everything. That’s why I found his behavior strange lately. I wouldn’t call it distant, but something had changed, like how he had been acting around me. He’s been dismissive, not wanting to spend as much time with me, but this behaviour wasn’t unusual, or unnatural for what’s changed in his life. He’s been on set for the past few months with his mates - coming home at unreasonable hours of the morning, 3am, 4am or even 6 in the morning. “Hey Babe, did you want to go out for dinner tonight? Maybe to a nice fancy restaurant, just the two of us?” I had asked, happily. Looking towards Joe for your answer, after throwing my pillow on the freshly made up bed. Joe and I lived together, it’s been this way for just over a year now. Everything had been going great when we both moved in together, it was like nothing had changed. He still took us out on dates, spontaneous gifts here and there, nothing too out there. But, maybe about a week ago, that went dull. “Sorry, Hon. I can’t.” He said dryly, coming out from the bathroom with a towel around hung atop of his damp hair, which would be a rather attractive sight to you if it weren’t for the disappointing news. A frown made its way upon my face as I had nodded sadly. “Oh, alright.” Shaking my head, I looked up towards where Joe was and smiled at him, running my hand through my hair, pushing it back. “That’s alright. I know that you’re busy with work and everything,” I explained as I turned off the Radio that sat on our nightstand, right next to a photo of Joe and I, the day we spent our one year anniversary at the beach. “I just thought it would be nice for you to have some time away for a while, you know?” My voice progressively got more and more shaky. I spun around after taking a good look at the photo. Joe looked at me with sorrowful eyes, and took a step closer towards me. Shaking my head, I smiled more, even if I felt like my heart had fallen down to my feet. “I just thought that some time out away from everything, your practice and rehearsal,” Without my knowledge, a tear rolled down towards my chin. Sniffling and wiping away the tear, I shook my head once more, forgetting what I was going to say. “It really is okay, I just miss you.” Looking up into his eyes. “I really...I just really fucking miss you, Joe.” Heading towards the bathroom door behind him, I softly spoke before shutting the door. “I have to get ready for work.” My eyes landed on his face just before I closed the door. Dread. That’s all I saw. His eyes filled with pure sadness and dread. Another tear had strolled its way down my cheek. This feeling... I never want to feel it again. That was 6 days ago. I have spoken to Joe since then, of course, but it’s been small conversations, like how was your day and what do you want for dinner, as well as I Love You’s. To say I had been moping around the house since then would be an understatement. Of course I had been sad, but Joe hadn’t even apologised, or asked me if I’ve been okay since then. The same look of sadness hadn’t left his eyes, so I haven’t even thought the fact that he might want to leave me. He wouldn’t...would he? Hearing my phone’s ringtone blast from the lounge-room, I left the kitchen to see who it was calling me. “Hey Gwilym, what’s up?” Trying your best to sound like you’ve been doing alright. “Hey, love!” His welsh accent coming through easily. “I was just calling to see if you’d like to come on set and watch us rehearse? I know Joe might’ve contacted you about it already, but since you’re not here, I thought I’d ask if you wanted to come!” He sounds peachy and genuinely happy. I hope that Joe is too. “We all love your company around here, and it would be such a delight to have you.” Smiling, I nodded, trying to ignore the fact that my heart still sat at my feet. Joe hadn’t said anything to me about coming in today, he hadn’t asked me if I wanted to come in and watch them rehearse, catch up with my friends. “Yeah, sure! I’ll see you guys soon, just text me the address of where you guys are rehearsing today.” As I was about to say goodbye, his voice piped up once more. “How have you been lately, angel? I haven’t heard from you much. And I would ask Joe, but you’re the person I’m asking about, so I’d pick it as common sense to call you and ask.” Him asking how I’ve been is one thing, but to know he was genuinely concerned about me that he hadn’t gone to Joe to ask about my wellbeing is another. Gwilym was probably one of the guys I was closest to, minus Joe. After Joe had introduced me to the guys, Gwilym never failed on checking up on me, resulting on me getting closer and closer to him. “Yeah, I’m fine, Gwil.” Sounding a little bit deflated, I knew he would’ve picked up on it, so I tried to cover up. “Just a bit tired lately, you know? Work and all.” A dry laugh came out from my mouth. “You don’t have to worry about me.” He stayed silent for a moment. I knew that he figured out that I wasn’t telling the truth. Nonetheless, he replied. “Alright, but I will always worry. You’re my friend, of course.” He spoke, gentle and slow, as to let me know he was genuine and true. That sent a pang straight to my heart. I felt my eyes well with tears. Wow, I’m emotional. “Thank you, Gwil, but I’ll be okay.” Pausing for just a moment, i resumed talking. “Well, alright. I’m going to go and get ready then. I’ll see you soon, yeah?” He responds with a small yes, and then a goodbye. After we had hung up, I rolled my head backwards, taking in a long breath, and then breathing out, feeling like some of the weight had gone. If only it were that easy. Not bothering to hop into the shower, having had one late last night, I just walked into the room and got myself ready. Throwing on a T-Shirt, sweater and some well fitted jeans, I tugged on my boots and left the house. After I lock the car, I walk through the car park. When I see Ben and Gwilym laughing and bickering, I let out a small laugh at their silliness, wondering if they do the same with Joe. My smile falters as my thoughts bring Joe into play, I shake my head - I don’t need to be thinking of him right now, I’ve got my friends to see. “Hey Y/N!” Gwil yells from where they’re standing. I smile widely as I lift my arm up to wave at them, walking towards where they stood. “Hey guys!” I giggle with excitement as I see they’re trying to fight for the first hug. I hug Gwil first, Ben shrugs and decides to join in, pulling us all together, closer. I let out another laugh as they both let go of me. “How have you guys been?” I ask, pulling a strand of hair behind my ear, listening intently. “Yeah! We’ve been great!” Ben says, enthusiastically. It was nice to be with them, they were so calm, fun and laid back, all things that Joe hasn’t been lately, and it makes me sad. I want Joe to be as happy as them, especially when they’re at home. “Oh god, you guys really do look like young Rog and Bri,” I play with a strand of Gwil’s fake bouncy hair. “Holy shit, it feels so real too!” “C’mon, hun, come on in!” Gwilym extends his hand in front of him, in the gesture of ‘come along’. I smile and begin to walk in, Ben on my right and Gwil on my left. Heading off into the set of the recording studio, Ben and Gwil disappearing somewhere into the crowd of makeup artists, I assumed, I looked around the room, observing it. It looked like the inside of a shack, but behind the glass was where they, Queen, would’ve recorded their songs. Or, actually, a replica of where they would have recorded their songs. “When did you get here?” Hearing a familiar voice behind me, my heart began to race. Turning around to see Joe, my heart raced faster. He had his wig, makeup and outfit on, all prepared for his scenes. He really looks like the younger version of John Deacon! Behind his eyes were some sort of happiness, but I could tell that when he saw me, he was nervous. Nervous about what, I wouldn’t know, my best guess is getting his lines right. Smiling at him, I walked towards him to give him a small hug, saying a gentle hello. Pulling back from him, I smiled at him. He gave me a small smile back, and leaned forward to kiss my cheek. Feeling my cheeks become slightly hot, I looked down towards the ground, bashfully. Taking a small step backwards, away from him, I took a glance around the room again. “Is this where they would record their songs?” Referring to Queen, I looked back at Joe shortly after glancing around the room once more. He nodded his head lightheartedly. “Well, it's a recreation of what would have been their recording studio.” He smiles as he looks around. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” As he’s looking around, I take the time to observe the man that I adore. His eyes were looking right into mine, his beautiful, hazel eyes. His adorable puppy-dog eyes. They haven't changed since I had met him. His defined jaw wasn’t sporting his usual beard, he was shaven clean for the movie. Honestly, I love him when he does or doesn’t have his facial hair. I mean, he is gorgeous no matter what. His beard makes it all the more fun to kiss him, having the fun, ticklish feeling left to linger. As I start to look around, I feel a pair of eyes on me. Looking back at Joe, his eyes met mine once more. As the blood rushes to my cheeks, causing a tint of pink to spread across my cheeks, leaving them rosy, I can’t tell what he’s feeling anymore. Whether he is feeling too much, or nothing at all. “Can you wait here for just a second?” He asks, reaching out to hold my hand. My heart started to beat faster as I nodded my head, reaching my arm out for his hand to grab mine. He rubbed his thumb on the top of my hand, and then let go. I didn’t want him to let go of my hand, his hands felt so soft and warm, I felt safe just holding them. When his hand slipped out of mine, I felt like whimpering. I felt like I was losing something, but he gave me a reassuring smile, and then left the room. As the door closed, I felt cold. I moved myself backwards to sit on the couch in the back of the room. Ten minutes had passed and Joe still hadn’t come back, so I decided I would get up and walk around the room, observe more closely. As I had stood up to take a closer look at things, Gwilym had walked in. I wouldn’t say he looked panicked, but definitely flushed. “Gwil, is everything okay?” I ask with a small chuckle coming from my mouth. He doesn’t say a word. He just grabs my wrist, wearing a smile from ear to ear, and then leads us out of the room. “Gwil, where are we going? I’m supposed to wait for Joe-” All that is going through my body right now is the feeling of utter confusion. When Gwil looks over his shoulder with a small smirk, I am even more confused. He shuffles us past small groups of people, other parts of the set, I couldn’t even tell where we were going anymore. When he opened a door and pushed us through, we found ourselves at a fountain. A beautiful fountain. My eyes widened, looking around the beautiful place. “This place… It’s gorgeous!” Spinning to get a 360 view of the room, I turned around to look at Gwilym, but it turns out that in the midst of walking in here and now, he walked out. Standing on the small set, surrounded by four walls, I found myself in awe with everything. The floor was artificial grass, yet soft and felt so real, dusted with small pink, yellow, and purple flowers. All of my favourite colours. There was a small tree in corner, setting shading upon the fountain that was spurting water. The water that rests in the fountain was adorned with lily pads that had flowers carefully placed on the top of them. I couldn’t help but admire everything that I was surrounded in. I felt like a princess in a fantasy world, this doesn’t seem real. “Hi, Sweetie.” Hearing Joe’s soft voice behind me, I saw that he looked completely different than when I had last saw him. He wasn’t John Deacon anymore, he was Joseph Mazzello, the man I had fallen madly in love with the day I had met him. “Joe.” I said, but it came out more as a question than anything. I knew it was him, but I didn’t know why he wasn’t in his wig anymore. “What’s going on? I thought rehearsal didn’t finish until late?” Cocking my head to the side, I took a closer look at him. Was he wearing a tuxedo? He walked towards me with me smile on his face, a tinge of pink dusting his cheekbones. “Y/N, I have debated on when I wanted to do this,” He began, making my heart race faster and faster. Having that smile on his face washed away all my worries of him ending this relationship. “But seeing you stand there in front of me, your cheeks pink, eyes filled with nothing but love, I knew my decision had been made right then and there.” His smile had only gotten wider, and I felt that I could hear his heart beating out of his chest. “But before I do go on, there is one thing I want to get out of the way first.” He’s all I can see. Nothing else in this room is in my view. The faux grass, the tree, the fountain or the lily pads, nothing. Just Joe. Just Joe in his navy blue suit, bowtie and well shined shoes. “I know that recently, I haven’t been myself. I didn’t notice, but when I told the boys, they helped me see things really clearly. And I am so sorry if I had made you feel unloved, or scared that you would lose me. I am so sorry.” He sniffled gently, keeping the water that was welling his eyes at bay. Dabbing his clothed wrist onto his eyes, ridding himself of the water, he continued on with his speech. “You are my everything. You’re honestly all I see. I don’t want to be anywhere without you, or without the memory of you. I want to go everywhere and be there with you, or if you can’t be there, remember us going there together. I don’t want to be without you.” The water reappeared at the brim of his eyes, just as they appeared in mine too. My heart continued to beat loudly. He took one more step closer, one stray tear strolling down his cheek. I instinctively lifted my arm, pressing my thumb against his cheek to wipe away the tear. He chucked and grabbed my arm, sliding it down to slip his hand into mine, moving his other arm forward to grab my other hand, holding them both.
“You are the person I cherish the most. I love our time together.” He smiled, sniffling once more, swinging our arms side to side. “Do you remember our first year anniversary?” He chuckles. Remembering back to the day, I laughed with him. That day at the beach, I had been frightened by the birds down there, running away from them, all while trying to desperately keep my hat on in the rough wind. Joe stood a fair bit away, laughing at the scene while trying to shoo the birds away. Nodding my head, he continued with what he was saying. “That day, I won’t ever forget it. Not just because you were afraid of the birds,” He laughed gently, but then tightened his grip in my hands. “But because that day, the sun hit you in a way I have never seen. You looked like an angel. A real life angel, send down here to bless not just me, but every person that you come in contact with in every way possible.” His voice was soft, fragile, like he was trying not to break glass. “I would say you have never looked more beautiful, but you get more and more beautiful every day. I can never get enough of you, I really can’t. You take my breath away with every passing moment.” As he finished his sentence, I looked at him with so much love in my eyes. I squeezed his hands harder just as he was slipping them out from my grasp. He took a small step back, and then got down on one knee. “Joe?” I asked, my heart beating a million miles an hour, my heart just about to come out of my chest. My hands had flung up to my mouth instinctively, not knowing what else to do with them. “Baby, I honestly cannot see my future without you in it, and I don’t want to hold this off any longer.” He takes a small black velvet box out of his back pocket and holds it in his hand. “You mean so much to me, and I would feel like the luckiest guy on the face of this earth if you would be my wife, Y/N.” He opens the box to reveal a simple, yet elegant silver ring. Nodding my head vigorously, he shot up, wrapping his arms around me. “I love you so much, Joe. Of course, of course I’ll marry you.” Saying, trying to sound like I’m not about to cry, I hug him tightly in my arms. Hearing repeated bang’s go off behind Joe, I look to see that Gwil, Ben, Rami and Lucy had all been standing there with party poppers in their hands. “Congratulations you guys!” Lucy loudly says, over all of the boys popping their poppers after she did hers. Lucy raced forward to throw her arms around the both of us, the boys following suit. Congratulations and I’m so happy for you guys were thrown around, but in all honesty, my eyes were only set on Joe, who had never looked happier. He was smiling from ear to ear and his eyes were glistening, like there were stars in his eyes. Moving my hand from Joe’s back, where I was hugging him, I placed my hand on his cheek. He turned his head to look at me, his eyes filling with fondness and love. As we got closer, our lips pressing against one another, cheers had filled the room once again. Not having a single care in the world, my hand had slipped from his cheek to the back of his neck, my fingers running through his hair in the process. His hand had found its place on my back, pushing me closer to him. Hearing mumbling and then a door closing, I had only assumed that the group had made their way outside, giving us our privacy. Our lips didn’t pull away for another minute after that. When we needed air, only then we decided to pull away, our foreheads pressed together. “I love you so much, Y/N.” His eyes, his shining, emerald green eyes had opened to look directly into mine, his hand from my back finding its way to rest on my cheek, his thumb rubbing away any tears that had strayed from my eyes. “I love you so much too, Joe. Enough that I would marry your goofy ass.” Chuckling silently, I leaned forward to peck his lips once more, pulling away, resting my arms on his shoulders to keep steady. His lips twitched into a smirk, his hands landing on my hips. “Oh, sweetie, you haven’t seen anything yet.” Making the both of us laugh, he pressed his lips against mine with more passion than before, our bodies in much closer proximity than before. My hands finding their way in his hair once more. One of his hands had found their way up my shirt, gripping my torso, like he was embedding my body in his mind. My whole body was pressed right up against his. I started to breathe more heavily than before, my body starting to increase in temperature. Joe had moved his hands from my body, trailing one hand up to cup my cheek. He began to pull away, but I didn’t want him to go, so I pushed myself forward. Feeling him smile against my lips and feeling him laugh, he stopped me from pushing my lips against his, and pulled away. Pouting as he looked me in the eyes, he just rubbed his thumb against my cheek. A smirk spread itself across his face just as he had leaned in to whisper to me. “Don’t worry baby.” His breath fanned against my neck, making goosebumps travel down my whole body. “You can get more when we get home. So much more.” Although I’m very impatient to get home, if this is what the future looks like, I can’t wait.
#joe mazzello#joe mazzello imagine#joe mazzello x reader#joseph mazzello#joseph francis mazzello iii#joe mazzello fluff#ben hardy#gwilym lee#rami malek#lucy boynton#lucy the babe herself boynton#borhap cast#bohemian rhapsody#joe mazzello one shot#bohemian rhapsody cast#joe mazello x reader#joe mazello#joe mazello imagine
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Best of Marvel: Week of September 4th, 2019
Best of this Week: House of X #4 - Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles
No More.
Mutants have been made to suffer time after time after time because humans fear change and their inevitable obsolescence. Two of the greatest mutant extinction events have been the result of either human fear or absolute ignorance. In New X-Men (2001) we saw the utter destruction of Genosha by Bolivar Trask’s Sentinels, a massacre that resulted in the deaths of sixteen million mutants over the course of a single day. This left only a little under one million mutants left until House of M (2005) after which Wanda Maximoff decimated the mutant population, leaving only one hundred and ninety-eight left.
Thanks to the work of Moira MacTaggert and Charles Xavier with Krakoa, the mutant population is returning to normal levels and is looking to absolutely eclipse humanity in a short time span. Of course, humanity doesn’t take this too well, causing the Orchis Organization to activate itself, so it’s up to Cyclops and his band of Mutants to cast the enormous Mother Mold (a sentient machine that would create Master Molds to create Sentinels) into the blasted sun.
This issue was nothing short of heartbreaking.
Jonathan Hickman is doing something amazing with this book by showing just how strong the need for preservation is between both sides. In the last issue, one of the security team members for the Orchis station blew himself up in an effort to preserve a future where humans would be the dominant species. He wasn’t thinking about himself or his future with his wife, Dr. Gregor, the head of the station. He only wanted to ensure that The X-Men couldn’t stop the Mother Mold from being activated.
Scott’s team, now only consisting of Marvel Girl, Monet, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Mystique soldier on after Husk and Archangel are killed in the explosion. Nothing was going to stop them from completing the mission and they absolutely did, but not without each of them being killed in the process. I don’t feel the need to place a spoiler tag here because I have no doubt that either, some of the first issue of House of X takes place in the future and that they will all be reborn or that somehow they will be brought back to life as they will appear in other upcoming X-Series.
Pepe Larraz absolutely killed this issue with his art alongside Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles. Every single page has the feeling of large scale epicness to them from the vast emptiness of Krakoa’s Observation room to the different locales of the Mother Mold Base. When Mother mold itself floats into the Sun, quoting it’s own version of the Prometheus myth, it looks enormous at first and slowly descends into the much larger and grander sun. Gracia’s colors are absolutely beautiful as almost everything is bathed in the beautiful glow of the sun. Monet’s red skin shines even brighter as the cuts her way through Orchis security, Nightcrawler and Wolverine’s burning bodies create the perfect ash contrasted by the glowing blue eyes of Mother Mold as Wolverine cuts away the last anchor keeping it on the station and Karimas shining silver arms stand above Cyclops, coated in purple nanobot defeat, as the last thing we see from his visor’s reflection is Dr. Gregor aiming her gun in his face.
Gracia’s colors are vibrant and help to make Larraz’s lines even more beautiful. They make excellent use of cool blue tones for the few scenes that take place in Krakoa, establishing the still peaceful nature of that location. The space station, however, is awash in heavy yellows and oranges that only set the tone for the book and its high tension, but also works to show us just how dire everything is for either side. It’s high pressure and high stakes. Gracia did a great job of giving things the proper amount of emotional weight through color where Larraz did through excellent facial expression and action.
Normally the brightness of the sun is supposed to represent a better future, but it’s hard to tell who this brighter future is for. The X-Men, ultimately, do win in this war for survival, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Karima, who we’ve seen standing beside Nimrod in the future, and Dr. Gregor stand in victory for this battle. Granted, we now that the future where Nimrod reigns has been nullified after Moira’s 10th death, it’s hard not to be afraid by Mother Mold’s ending proclamation and Gregor’s newfound bitter resolve.
Charles and the rest of Mutantkind can rest easy, but can they also live with the cost of what they’ve done if our predictions just so happen to be false? The purpose of Krakoa was to ensure that there would be no more needless mutant death, but in the wake of human fear, more have died. This isn’t like any other time where mutants have been killed and brought back to life years later. For some reason - it just feels heavier. Charles’ tear at the end, with Cowles amazing placement of a “No more” caption feels like a resolution. Charles Xavier is having no more death, not for any of his people and it is powerful.
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House of X continues to be one of my most anticipated releases as the weeks go by. This story of death and rebirth keeps achieving new heights of amazing storytelling and even better art. Jonathan Hickman was the perfect choice to breathe new life into the X-Franchise as I don’t have any semblance of a clue what will be in store for the future of the X-Men.
What do the end pages of this issue mean? What will be the big fallout from the revelation of Powers of X #3? Will Pepe Larraz continue to be godlike in his presentation? We’ll find out next week in Powers of X #4.
Sometimes you just have to sit back and smell the roses.
Runner Up: Fantastic Four #14 (Legacy #659) - Dan Slott, Paco Medina, Jesus Aburtov and Joe Caramagna
Growing up, I actually thought the Fantastic Four were pretty lame. They weren’t exactly high on my radar because they were a family of explorers, scientists and just general nerds. I got seriously into comics around the time their last book hit the shelves prior to all of the Disney/Fox nonsense and that really awful movie which soured me on them even more. Things changed when I began to read Secret War (2015) and realized that there was so much more that I was missing.
I scoured my stores for back issue and trade paperbacks of everything written by Jonathan Hickman, Mark Millar and Reginald Hudlin before seeking out the older stories by George Perez, John Byrne and Roy Thomas. I learned to love their love of science, adventure and family oriented stories, so when they finally made their Marvel return, I was excited and so far they’ve done nothing but impress. This particular issue is one of the best examples of how even just dialogue, dynamics and expressions can build a great foundation for a simple yet amazing story.
The Fantastic Four have been everywhere. Other dimensions,hellscapes, universes and planets, but there's still one mission that they've never completed: their original flight to the stars. After a new gallery opens showcasing the original shuttle that they traveled on in all of its destroyed glory, Reed reminisces of that time with happiness. Ben listens to one of the original black box recordings as they were first getting hit by Cosmic Rays and he's overwhelmed with negative feelings. Two original Pilots for the space flight thank Johnny and Sue for taking their place, saying that they could have become monsters like Ben and Johnny becomes enraged with Sue having to calm him down.
These moments remind us of who these wonderful characters are and always have been. Reed is a scientific mind that's always looking to achieve more and better himself and his inventions. Ben still lives with the inner scars of his transformation despite being one of the most respected heroes in all of the Marvel Universe. Johnny is a hothead and Sue, his sister, has always been there to calm him down. The First Family have been there for each other forever, they know each other better than anyone else does. They care about each other.
Paco Medina captures each of their emotions in a Fantastic way with excellent facial expressions and body language accentuated by Jesus Aburtov's stellar colors.
Reed stands tall as he marvels at the old shuttle with his kids, his face is full of pride and joy while they look mildly unimpressed. Later while he's working on specs for a new shuttle, we can see how focused he is, how determined. His fantastic beard shows how he's aged from his previous clean shaven self, but he's even more refined.
Ben remembers the original flight with trepidation and trembles as he remember his words when he was first becoming a rock monster. He stomps around in his normal grumpiness, but by the end, knowing that Reed, Sue and Johnny know and care about him so much, he smiles and eagerly helps them on their next journey.
Johnny, being the hothead he is, does in fact show his anger as his eyes begin to turn orange after Ben is insulted, but we get an amazing flashback to when he was just a young adult in the shuttle program and the rigorous training that he was put through by Ben. This showcases just how much Johnny wanted to go to the stars and shows us how long he's been the ultra determined man that we know and love. Medina draws him going through the training with ease, only having space on his mind and the want to prove Ben and the other pilots wrong, becoming the youngest ever back up pilot in that universe.
Sue, being the ever loving sister, is the calm one as she gets Johnny to back off. She's radiant as a character and Medina portrays as her the linchpin of the family. She's the graceful one, drawn as serious as Reed, but with her normal beauty as well. She shows just how in love she is with her husband as he works on the specs and lays her head on his shoulder, smiling like she does in the flashback.
Nothing super action-y happens in this issue, in fact, one of the best moments is Johnny and Reed having a bonding moment working on the second shuttle. Both comment on how neither is using their powers to make the work easier and they share a laugh together. It's just a nice, warm moment between brothers-in-law doing something that they haven't been able to in years. It was at this time where I just fell in love all over again.
The Fantastic Four are more than just space adventures, aliens and Doctor Doom plots. They are a family in comics unlike any other. Where most teams are just friends that might hang out every once in a while, the FF are a family with a rich history and ever growing numbers with Franklin, Valeria and now Alicia Masters marrying Ben. The love is palpable and I wish I'd understood this for so many years prior. I can't wait for where this next adventure takes them, but I'm all for it.
#marvel comics#marvel#house of x#scott summers#charles xavier#jean grey#jonathan hickman#pepe larraz#marte gracia#xmen#x men#mutants#fantastic four#reed richards#mister fantastic#sue storm#invisible woman#ben grimm#the thing#johnny storm#human torch#dan slott#paco medina#jesus aburtov
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About Sansa’s first crush and her taste in men
After finding this post, I felt the need to say a few things about it.
I know the OP has established that this post is based on the show. So based on the show the OP is implying that Arya has a better taste in men than Sansa, because you know, Joe Dempsie is a hunk and Jack Gleeson is an excellent actor.
But we have to remember that the show is an adaptation of the Books, and maybe the cast team did not find a hunky actor for portraying Joffrey and chose Jack Gleeson for his quality at acting, but that doesn’t erase the fact that Book Joffrey was very good looking. Let’s see:
Book Joffrey was so handsome that made Jon Snow feel extremely jealous:
His half sisters escorted the royal princes. Arya was paired with plump young Tommen, whose white-blond hair was longer than hers. Sansa, two years older, drew the crown prince, Joffrey Baratheon. He was twelve, younger than Jon or Robb, but taller than either, to Jon’s vast dismay. Prince Joffrey had his sister’s hair and his mother’s deep green eyes. A thick tangle of blond curls dripped down past his golden choker and high velvet collar. Sansa looked radiant as she walked beside him, but Jon did not like Joffrey’s pouty lips or the bored, disdainful way he looked at Winterfell’s Great Hall.
—A Game of Thrones - Jon I
Book Joffrey was so handsome that even Arya sounds jealous:
“We were talking about the prince,” Sansa said, her voice soft as a kiss.
Arya knew which prince she meant: Joffrey, of course. The tall, handsome one. Sansa got to sit with him at the feast. Arya had to sit with the little fat one. Naturally.
—A Game of Thrones - Arya I
See? Arya thought that Joffrey was handsome and it would not have bothered her to be the one sitting next to him at the feast…
And of course, Book Joffrey was so handsome that Sansa thought she was in love with him:
Prince Joffrey might be there. Her betrothed. Just thinking it made her feel a strange fluttering inside, even though they were not to marry for years and years. Sansa did not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be, tall and handsome and strong, with hair like gold.
—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I
Actually, Joffrey’s physical beauty was the only good thing he possessed:
Joffrey. He had been a handsome lad, tall and strong for his age, but that was all the good that could be said of him. It still shamed Ser Arys to remember all the times he’d struck that poor Stark girl at the boy’s command. When Tyrion had chosen him to go with Myrcella to Dorne, he lit a candle to the Warrior in thanks. “Joffrey is dead, poisoned by the Imp.” He would never have thought the dwarf capable of such enormity. “Tommen is king now, and he is not his brother.”
—A Feast for Crows - The Soiled Knight
Handsome, tall and strong for his age, sounds pretty similar to Gendry’s description:
The master called over a tall lad about Robb’s age, his arms and chest corded with muscle. “This is Lord Stark, the new Hand of the King,” he told him as the boy looked at Ned through sullen blue eyes and pushed back sweat-soaked hair with his fingers. Thick hair, shaggy and unkempt and black as ink. The shadow of a new beard darkened his jaw. “This is Gendry. Strong for his age, and he works hard. Show the Hand that helmet you made, lad.” Almost shyly, the boy led them to his bench, and a steel helm shaped like a bull’s head, with two great curving horns.
—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VI
See? Both Joffrey and Gendry are described as tall and strong for their age, and since Brienne thought Gendry was a younger version of Renly the first time she saw him, we can surely say that Gendry was handsome as well:
Gendry was at his forge, bare-chested beneath his leather apron. He was beating on a sword as if he wished it were a foe, his sweat-soaked hair falling across his brow. She watched him for a moment. He has Renly’s eyes and Renly’s hair, but not his build. Lord Renly was more lithe than brawny … not like his brother Robert, whose strength was fabled.
—A Feast for Crows - Brienne VII
“… till you stand before m'lady.” Renly stood behind the girl, pushing his black hair out of his eyes. Not Renly. Gendry. “M'lady means for you to answer for your crimes.”
—A Feast for Crows - Brienne VIII
Even Sansa would agree that Gendry was handsome, since she thought this the first time she saw Renly:
His companion was a man near twenty whose armor was steel plate of a deep forest-green. He was the handsomest man Sansa had ever set eyes upon; tall and powerfully made, with jet-black hair that fell to his shoulders and framed a clean-shaven face, and laughing green eyes to match his armor. Cradled under one arm was an antlered helm, its magnificent rack shimmering in gold.
—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I
So, from the information above we can conclude that:
Jack Gleeson doesn’t fit Book Joffrey’s physical appearance.
Joe Dempsie characterization sounds very similar to Book Gendry’s.
Book Joffrey was as hunky as Book Gendry.
Book Arya thought that Joffrey was handsome.
Book Sansa would think Book Gendry is handsome.
Now about Sansa’s taste in men, I also have a few things to say:
THE BLONDES
Joffrey Baratheon (12 when Sansa met him).- Blonde, handsome, tall and strong for his age, a skilled dancer and the mother fucker even sang sweetly for Sansa once and told her she was very beautiful, so of course she fell for him or at least she thought she loved him.
“Sansa did not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be, tall and handsome and strong, with hair like gold.”
Beyond his extraordinary physical appearance, Sansa didn’t know Joffrey and you simply can’t love what you don’t know, not really.
I think Sansa imposed the idea of Joffrey in her mind and she decided she loved him. This has to do with her strong sense of duty and her preconceptions of beauty and goodness that she learnt from the songs. It wasn’t a spontaneous attraction, she didn’t love him because her heart chose him; she loved him because he was her betrothed, who also happened to be the Crown Prince, the Heir to the Iron Throne, a golden boy, handsome, tall, strong. And before the Trident incident, he treated her like a gallant knight and made her feel like a lady in a song. And in the songs all the true knights are beautiful, but in real life physical beauty doesn’t mean goodness.
And if you are wondering, the answer is no, Joffrey wasn’t Sansa’s first crush.
Harrold Hardyng (18/19 when Sansa met him).- Another tall strong blonde, and you could think Sansa’s type are tall strong blondes, but that’s simply a wrong assumption.
My Harry. My lord, my lover, my betrothed.
Ser Harrold Hardyng looked every inch a lord-in-waiting; clean-limbed and handsome, straight as a lance, hard with muscle. Men old enough to have known Jon Arryn in his youth said Ser Harrold had his look, she knew. He had a mop of sandy blond hair, pale blue eyes, an aquiline nose. Joffrey was comely too, though, she reminded herself. A comely monster, that’s what he was. Little Lord Tyrion was kinder, twisted though he was.
(…)
And there he stood, Harry the Heir himself; tall, handsome, scowling. “Lady Alayne. May I partner you in this dance?”
—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I
As you can see, Sansa is trying, again, to impose the idea of Harry in in her mind:
“My Harry. My lord, my lover, my betrothed”.
In both cases, the fact that Harry like Joffrey fitted very well in the concept of gallant golden knights, pretty things from pretty songs, helped her to accommodate them as her love interests. But at this point, although Sansa is aware of Harry’s physical beauty, she is more careful, so she does not associate beauty with goodness automatically.
And no, Harry wasn’t Sansa’s first crush.
Sansa wanted true love, but since she cannot choose who she will get married to, she accommodates, she adapts, she adjusts the reality.
An the reality was that Joffrey and Harry were imposed/forced on Sansa: Joff by her family and Harry by Petyr Baelish. And the reasons behind these arranged betrothals were obviously political reasons:
Q: I have no royal linage, having cleared that up, what advice would you give me to ask Sansa out on a date?
A: Laughs. Well ahh you know, if you have no nobility I don’t think the Stark family would be too interested in you dating Sansa. All the marriages was kind of arranged back them, they were political alliances between great houses, and they had to bring some advantage and you know Sansa didn’t fool around with peasant boys….so that wasn’t gonna happen.
—GRRM - FIL de Guadalajara 2016
And then there are some things that are just don’t square with history. In some sense I’m trying to respond to that. [For example] the arranged marriage, which you see constantly in the historical fiction and television show, almost always when there’s an arranged marriage, the girl doesn’t want it and rejects it and she runs off with the stable boy instead. This never fucking happened. It just didn’t. There were thousands, tens of thousand, perhaps hundreds of thousands of arranged marriages in the nobility through the thousand years of Middle Ages and people went through with them. That’s how you did it. It wasn’t questioned. Yeah, occasionally you would want someone else, but you wouldn’t run off with the stable boy.
And that’s another of my pet peeves about fantasies. The bad authors adopt the class structures of the Middle Ages; where you had the royalty and then you had the nobility and you had the merchant class and then you have the peasants and so forth. But they don’t’ seem to realize what it actually meant. They have scenes where the spunky peasant girl tells off the pretty prince. The pretty prince would have raped the spunky peasant girl. He would have put her in the stocks and then had garbage thrown at her. You know.
I mean, the class structures in places like this had teeth. They had consequences. And people were brought up from their childhood to know their place and to know that duties of their class and the privileges of their class. It was always a source of friction when someone got outside of that thing. And I tried to reflect that.
—GRRM - TIMES 2011
See? Sansa knows her duties.
Joffrey was the Crown Prince, the Heir to the Iron Throne, and Harry was even called the Heir because he aspired to be Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, and Warden of the East.
When King Robert proposed Joffrey and Sansa’s betrothal, he was trying to reenact his own betrothal to Lyanna Stark, that was part of the so called Southron Ambitions Theory. And when Petyr Baelish proposed Harry and Alayne/Sansa betrothal, he was trying to gain more political power to further his own agenda. But here is the thing with these shiny golden betrothals: they both are doomed because both male fiancés are fake. Joffrey is no prince but a bastard and Harry is no heir but a pretender, the second in line after Robert Arryn (Sweetrobin), a sick little boy that everyone assumes is soon to die.
The funny thing is that both real heirs that Joffrey and Harry tried to replace, are dark haired: Any true-born/bastard son of Robert Baratheon would have black hair, and Jon Arryn’s only living child, Sweetrobin, has brown hair.
So now the question is: Does Sansa like men with dark hair? Let’s see:
THE DARK HAIRED
Renly Baratheon (20/21 when Sansa met him).- Renly is black haired and according to Sansa: “He was the handsomest man Sansa had ever set eyes upon”.
Renly was also tall, powerfully made, and according to Brienne: “Lord Renly was more lithe than brawny … not like his brother Robert, whose strength was fabled.”
Sansa freely and spontaneously expressed her opinion about Renly, less romanticized than her description of Joffrey:
The handsomest man Sansa had ever set eyes upon > He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be/every inch a lord-in-waiting
Black hair > Blonde hair
lithe > strong for his age
But no, Renly wasn’t Sansa’s first crush.
Loras Tyrell (16 when Sansa met him).- Loras has brown hair and according to Sansa: “[She] had never seen anyone so beautiful”.
Ser Loras was the youngest son of Mace Tyrell, the Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South. At sixteen, he was the youngest rider on the field, yet he had unhorsed three knights of the Kingsguard that morning in his first three jousts. Sansa had never seen anyone so beautiful.
(...)
Her eyes were only for Ser Loras. When the white horse stopped in front of her, she thought her heart would burst.
—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II
When the Knight of Flowers made his entrance, a murmur ran through the crowd, and he heard Sansa's fervent whisper, "Oh, he's so beautiful." Ser Loras Tyrell was slender as a reed, dressed in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to a blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots.
(...)
His courser was as slim as her rider, a beautiful grey mare, built for speed. Ser Gregor's huge stallion trumpeted as he caught her scent. The boy from Highgarden did something with his legs, and his horse pranced sideways, nimble as a dancer. Sansa clutched at his arm. "Father, don't let Ser Gregor hurt him," she said. Ned saw she was wearing the rose that Ser Loras had given her yesterday. Jory had told him about that as well.
—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII
Ser Gregor was the monster and Ser Loras the true hero who would slay him. He even looked a true hero, so slim and beautiful, with golden roses around his slender waist and his rich brown hair tumbling down into his eyes.
—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III
The sight of Ser Loras Tyrell standing on her threshold made Sansa's heart beat a little faster. This was the first time she had been so close to him since he had returned to King's Landing, leading the vanguard of his father's host. For a moment she did not know what to say. "Ser Loras," she finally managed, "you . . . you look so lovely."
—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I
She could never hold a picture of Willas long in her head, though; her imaginings kept turning him back into Ser Loras, young and graceful and beautiful.
—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II
Again, Sansa freely and spontaneously expressed her opinion about how beautiful Loras was, even though she was betrothed to marry Joffrey by then.
We are getting closer to Sansa’s real type, not the imposed blondes:
Beautiful > Handsome > What a prince/lord should be
Brown hair > Black hair > Blonde hair
Slim/Slender > powerful made > Strong for his age
And while Loras Tyrell wasn’t Sansa’s first crush, after her first period, the beautiful Knight of Flowers was Sansa’s first sexual fantasy:
Wed to Ser Loras, oh … Sansa’s breath caught in her throat. She remembered Ser Loras in his sparkling sapphire armor, tossing her a rose. Ser Loras in white silk, so pure, innocent, beautiful. The dimples at the corner of his mouth when he smiled. The sweetness of his laugh, the warmth of his hand. She could only imagine what it would be like to pull up his tunic and caress the smooth skin underneath, to stand on her toes and kiss him, to run her fingers through those thick brown curls and drown in his deep brown eyes. A flush crept up her neck.
—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I
Also take note that Renly and Loras, in contrast with Joff and Harry, were both the third son of a High Lord, not the Heir of their houses. So please discard the idea that Sansa Stark was power hungry, she wanted love and to be loved; to be a loyal wife and a devoted mother. Those were her goals, not sitting on an ugly iron chair and ruling the world.
Renly and Loras were also both gay and a couple, but we are not talking about Sansa’s broken gay radar here.
Moreover, if you have any doubt that Sansa likes brown hair, read at this:
Lysa seated herself near the fire and said, “Come to Mother, my sweet one.” She straightened his bedclothes and fussed with his fine brown hair. “Isn’t he beautiful? And strong too, don’t you believe the things you hear. Jon knew.
—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VI
She sat on the bed and smoothed his long, fine hair. He does have pretty hair. Lady Lysa had brushed it herself every night, and cut it when it wanted cutting.
—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II
He does have pretty hair. If the gods are good and he lives long enough to wed, his wife will admire his hair, surely. That much she will love about him.
—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I
See? Our author GRRM made sure to tell us in two different books that Sansa finds her cousin Robert Arryn’s brown hair pretty, that his future wife would admire his pretty hair, because that much Sansa herself would love about him. Do these words sound familiar to you? Because I find them very similar to her fantasy of running her fingers through Loras’ thick brown curls. Sansa clearly has a thing for brown hair! Now, how many other cousins with brown hair does Sansa have?
So now we could surely say that Sansa’s preferences in men include brown hair and slim slender bodies. And guess what? Sansa’s first crush had these exactly same features.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Sansa’s first crush, Ser Waymar Royce:
Waymar Royce (17/18 when Sansa met him).- Sansa’s first crush, handsome, graceful and slender:
Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife.
—A Game of Thrones – Prologue
And Waymar Royce, like Renly and Loras, was the third and youngest son of his house and with no heirdom to aspire to, he chose to serve in The Wall.
But despite the fact that Waymar was no Heir and chose to serve in The Wall, Sansa fell ‘wildly in love’ with him:
“Bronze Yohn knows me,” she reminded him. “He was a guest at Winterfell when his son rode north to take the black.” She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl. “And that was not the only time. Lord Royce saw … he saw Sansa Stark again at King’s Landing, during the Hand’s tourney.”
—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I
Sansa Stark fell ‘wildly in love’ with a third son of an old noble house who decided to serve in The Wall, that required him to swear a lifelong vow to take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.
So what did this particular boy have that made Sansa expressed her feelings for him in such unladylike way: ‘wildly in love’?
Compare the words ‘wildly in love’ with the words she used to describes Loras during her sexual fantasy: “Ser Loras in white silk, so pure, innocent, beautiful”.
The contrast is very telling. Even though Sansa was fantasizing about her wedding night with Loras, the way she described him was profoundly romanticized: ‘so pure, innocent, beautiful’. But when Sansa thinks about Waymar, she uses two strong words: love and wild. She claims that she loved Waymar wildly and that is a very bold and visceral statement.
I will tell you what Waymar had that surpassed any other boy/man mentioned here so far: Waymar Royce looked like a Stark.
At this point you could argue that Loras Tyrell doesn’t look like a Stark and despite that, Sansa developed a very strong physical attraction to him. But let me tell you this:
"Yet it seems that he was not invited on these rides." Ned was not sure what to make of Renly, with all his friendly ways and easy smiles. A few days past, he had taken Ned aside to show him an exquisite rose gold locklet. Inside was a miniature painted in the vivid Myrish style, of a lovely young girl with doe's eyes and a cascade of soft brown hair. Renly had seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid was Loras Tyrell's sister Margaery, he'd confessed, but there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. "No," Ned had told him, bemused. Could it be that Lord Renly, who looked so like a young Robert, had conceived a passion for a girl he fancied to be a young Lyanna? That struck him as more than passing queer.
—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VI
At some point in the story, Renly had the intention of present Margaery to Robert as a renewed version of Lyanna Stark, so they could get rid of Cersei and make Robert marry Margaery appealing to her resemblance of Lyanna Stark:
Sighing, Renly half turned in the saddle. "What am I to do with this brother of mine, Brienne? He refuses my peach, he refuses my castle, he even shunned my wedding . . ."
"We both know your wedding was a mummer's farce. A year ago you were scheming to make the girl one of Robert's whores."
"A year ago I was scheming to make the girl Robert's queen," Renly said, "but what does it matter? The boar got Robert and I got Margaery. You'll be pleased to know she came to me a maid."
—A Clash of Kings - Catelyn III
And if Margaery had at least a slightly resemblance of Lyanna Stark, even if it’s only the brown hair, that means that Loras had it as well:
"Sansa, would you like to visit Highgarden?" When Margaery Tyrell smiled, she looked very like her brother Loras.
—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I
Queen Margaery, she reminded herself; Joff's widow and Tommen's wife-to-be. Margaery looked very like her brother, the Knight of Flowers. The queen wondered if they had other things in common.
—A Feast for Crows - Cersei II
Whilst Alla, Elinor, and Megga took their turns with Tommen, Margaery took a turn around the floor with her father, then another with her brother Loras. The Knight of Flowers was in white silk, with a belt of golden roses about his waist and a jade rose fastening his cloak. They could be twins, Cersei thought as she watched them. Ser Loras was a year older than his sister, but they had the same big brown eyes, the same thick brown hair falling in lazy ringlets to their shoulders, the same smooth unblemished skin. A ripe crop of pimples would teach them some humility. Loras was taller and had a few wisps of soft brown fuzz on his face, and Margaery had a woman's shape, but elsewise they were more alike than she and Jaime. That annoyed her too.
—A Feast for Crows - Cersei III
See? Loras is just a male version of Margaery, they could be twins, both are slender and have brown hair and George made sure of telling us, although very subtly, that he looks a bit like Lyanna Stark, even at a symbolical level, as my friend @lostlittlesatellites explained here.
So both Waymar and Loras, the two boys that Sansa Stark fancied the most, in greater or lesser amount, look like a Stark.
I know, I know, the Books don’t explicitly say that Waymar had brown hair, but I reached that conclusion because Waymar Royce’s description matches word by word Jon Snow’s description, and Jon Snow is the embodiment of the Stark Look, which is, with certainty, Sansa’s preference in men.
But before talk about the Stark Look, let’s talk about the age of all the boys/men mentioned here: Joffrey (12), Loras (16), Waymar (17/18), Harry (18/19), and Renly (20/21).
Renly is the older one at 20/21 years old and he is also the only one that Sansa described specifically as ‘a man’, and that makes sense because he was almost twice her age, and for Sansa a man twice her age, no matter how handsome he could be, is ‘awfully old’:
"Lord Beric is as much a hero as Ser Loras. He’s ever so brave and gallant.”
“I suppose,” Sansa said doubtfully. Beric Dondarrion was handsome enough, but he was awfully old, almost twenty-two; the Knight of Flowers would have been much better. Of course, Jeyne had been in love with Lord Beric ever since she had first glimpsed him in the lists. Sansa thought she was being silly; Jeyne was only a steward’s daughter, after all, and no matter how much she mooned after him, Lord Beric would never look at someone so far beneath him, even if she hadn’t been half his age.
—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III
And if you don’t believe me about this subject, then believe the words of GRRM himself talking about a certain ship that paired Sansa with a man more than twice her age:
weltraummuell: The Hound Oh please don't cast an old guy for the Hound, his scenes with Sansa are so romantic and erotic, I couldn't bear if it'd feel creepy all of a sudden. Well, that's me making demands. LOL
GRRM: Re: The Hound Old guy? No, but... the Hound is still a whole lot older than Sansa, and was never written as attractive... you know, those hideous burns and all that... he's a lot more dangerous than he is romantic.
—Not A Blog - Aug. 21st, 2009
So please discard the idea that Sansa Stark likes older men. For Sansa, and for GRRM, any men that is twice her age is AWFULLY OLD!
Now let’s move to the final and more relevant part of this post:
THE STARK LOOK
Jon Snow (14-16 throughout the Books).- GRRM has used Jon Snow to let us know the definition of the Stark Look:
Jon’s eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.
—A Game of Thrones - Bran I
The boy absorbed that all in silence. He had the Stark face if not the name: long, solemn, guarded, a face that gave nothing away. Whoever his mother had been, she had left little of herself in her son.
—A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II
She might have overlooked a dozen bastards for Ned’s sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she bore him.
—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II
“A shade more exhausting than needlework,” Jon observed. “A shade more fun than needlework,” Arya gave back at him. Jon grinned, reached over, and messed up her hair. Arya flushed. They had always been close. Jon had their father’s face, as she did.
—A Game of Thrones - Arya I
Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring.
—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I
“Who’s this one now?“ Craster said before Jon could go. “He has the look of a Stark.” “My steward and squire, Jon Snow.”
—A Clash of Kings - Jon III
See? Jon Snow is acknowledged as a Stark just by looking at his face. He looks like a younger version of Ned: long solemn face, grey eyes and brown hair.
And as I said before Jon Snow shares many features with Sansa’s first crush, Waymar Royce:
Jon and Waymar have grey eyes.
Jon and Waymar have slender bodies.
Jon and Waymar are described as graceful.
Just like Jon looks as a younger version of Ned, is very probable that Waymar looked like a younger version of his father, Bronze Yohn Royce, who also shares features with Jon and Ned: a solemn face and grey eyes:
Last of all came the Royces, Lord Nestor and Bronze Yohn. The Lord of Runestone stood as tall as the Hound. Though his hair was grey and his face lined, Lord Yohn still looked as though he could break younger men like twigs in those huge gnarled hands. His seamed and solemn face brought back all of Sansa’s memories of his time at Winterfell. She remembered him at table, speaking quietly with her mother. She heard his voice booming off the walls when he rode back from a hunt with a buck behind his saddle. She could see him in the yard, a practice sword in hand, hammering her father to the ground and turning to defeat Ser Rodrik as well. He will know me. How could he not? She considered throwing herself at his feet to beg for his protection. He never fought for Robb, why should he fight for me? The war is finished and Winterfell is fallen. “Lord Royce,” she asked timidly, “will you have a cup of wine, to take the chill off?”
Bronze Yohn had slate-grey eyes, half-hidden beneath the bushiest eyebrows she had ever seen. They crinkled when he looked down at her. “Do I know you, girl?”
—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I
So I think we could also add solemn face to the list:
Jon and Waymar have grey eyes.
Jon and Waymar have solemn faces.
Jon and Waymar have slender bodies.
Jon and Waymar are described as graceful.
The resemblance between the Starks and the Royces maybe has to be with both houses being descendants of the First Men.
And if you don’t have enough similarities between Jon and Waymar, let me tell you this:
Both with no place in their own houses, chose to serve at The Wall.
Both wanted to be Rangers, Waymar actually became a Ranger but Jon, despite being a Steward, went on a mission beyond The Wall as a Ranger, just like Waymar.
Waymar’s death is eerily similar to Jon’s death, as my friend @lady-in-a-song explained here.
They both are connected to Sansa Stark. I wrote about it here and here and @lady-in-a-song wrote about it here.
And you can also find more similarities between Jon and Waymar in this recent post.
With all this similarities, I think we could also add brown hair to the list:
Jon and Waymar have grey eyes.
Jon and Waymar have brow hair.
Jon and Waymar have solemn faces.
Jon and Waymar have slender bodies.
Jon and Waymar are described as graceful.
And about the Stark Look there is also a theory that says The Others are in a hunt of men with the Stark Look, and that was the reason to kill Waymar. Benjen Stark, another man with the Stark Look, also disappeared beyond The Wall, precisely while looking for Waymar Royce.
And on the subject of Benjen Stark, another man of a noble house with no heirdom to aspire to, that chose to serve in The Wall, take note that Sansa, before she met Yoren, had always imagined the Night’s Watch to be men like her Uncle Benjen. She recalled that in the songs, they were called the black knights of the Wall. That is to say, Sansa held the men who take the black on high regard and associated them with her beloved knights from the songs.
Sansa really has a thing for the Stark Look.
And is very clear that the origin of this thing with the Stark Look is Sansa’s father, Lord Eddard Stark.
Sansa always sought Ned’s approval and validation, but she never reached that goal. She and Ned had a distant relationship that got worse after Lady’s death. Ned neglected Sansa in various levels [1] [2] [3], and focused in Arya, who resembled Lyanna so much, and the guilt for not saving his sister impeded him to see that Sansa was the one about to make the same mistakes of Lyanna, that Sansa was the one daughter that needed him the most.
So throughout the Books, we have Sansa constantly trying to find something of what Ned never gave to her in others, either crushing on boys that look like Ned or trusting in men that offered her assurance and/or validation, although with ulterior motives. But there is still hope that Sansa will find a man that resembles Ned not only physically but share the same values, ethics and background, since he was raised by Ned himself.
Finally, I have to say that the fact that Sansa’s first crush looks just like her bastard half brother cousin Jon Snow, who in turn looks just like her father Ned Stark, strongly suggests that our author GRRM has a morbid fascination with incest. But in Sansa’s case the incest vibes are subtle, not extreme like in Cersei and Jaime’s case, which has strong narcissistic elements to it as well.
In conclusion, according to the book evidence provided above, we can say the following regarding Sansa’s taste in men:
The Stark Look > everything
So, if you are a noble son of a powerful house of Westeros (secret princes included), between the ages of 13 and 19, with the Stark Look, a slender and graceful physique, and the willingness to defend the realm Night’s Watch style, you have a shot with Sansa Stark. She would probably get wild about you. Your move Jon Snow.
#Sansa Stark#Jon Snow#Sansa x Jon#Jon x Sansa#jonsa#Eddard Stark#Ned Stark#Benjen Stark#Waymar Royce#Joffrey Baratheon#Joffrey is truly a little shit#Harrold Hardyng#Harry The Heir#Renly Baratheon#Gendry#Loras Tyrell#The Stark Look
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Please write an AU where Jamie and Claire meet on a flight where either or both are flight attendants.
YES! I chose to do the latter because @gotham-ruaidh‘s Modern Glasgow AU they met on a plane and TBH I just can’t top that, but I can get behind flight attendant AU. Also, Jamie’s a pilot because I couldn’t see our Jamie being a flight attendant. He could totally be a pilot though. Also, if I saw him in a captain’s uniform– I would want to fling him to the floor and commit ravishment.
J is going to be clean shaven as pilots can’t have beards because of the oxygen masks if something goes wrong the facial hair can get in the way. This is partially a total crack fic idea, but to fun to say no to! Still, I hope you enjoy.
And lastly, people feel safer when their pilots are Scots. See here’s proof. Science says so.
I was so, so, so very late. Glancing quickly down to my phone it read 3:47AM. My sign in time was 4:30, I had a twenty minute drive to the airport. I would just be making it. I said a silent prayer as I put my jacket on that the Starbucks line behind security wasn’t going to be too long, either. I’d be much more tolerant with a cup of coffee in me.
I ordered my Uber and made my way to the airport. I hated 4 day trips- but Frank and I were supposed to be heading to France next week on a mini-vacation. The only way I got the days off to align with Frank’s week off from the university was to swap my high time 3 day trip with Geillis Duncan’s 4 day trip. I had looked at the rotation and cringed, 4 days of flying with 3 legs each day, and all short layovers. Geillis was junior to me so I shouldn’t have been surprised, but at least I got the days off.
I breathlessly rolled into the flight attendant lounge with a coffee in hand at 4:28. Two freaking minutes to spare.
I signed in for my trip on my tablet, printed the rotation, and sat in the chairs waiting to meet with the rest of the crew.
“Lady Jane, what are you doing here?” I heard from behind me, a warm familiar voice spreading a smile across my face for the first time this morning.
“Joe!” I yelped, rising to my feet and giving my friend a hug. “A four day trip. I swapped with Geillis so that I had time off to take Frank to France for a few days.”
“4 days trip, with a short MSY, MDT and PIT layovers?” Joe asked as I watched a grin spread from ear to ear on his face.
I nodded at him, shaking my still wet curls and tossing it into a bun.
“You’re with me then! I’m the lead on this trip and we’re flying with Mary Hawkins too, should be a great crew for a horrible trip!”
I laughed at Joe’s statement. Joe was now a commuter, so 4 day trips were great for him, he could fly 2 a month and get all his hours in. I lived closer to base, so I preferred turns and two days because I loved my bed a little too much. We went through training together and became fast friends and since he moved away from base we rarely saw each other any more. My spirits warmed a bit as to be flying with two friends, maybe this trip was not going to be as bad as it looked on paper.
“Well, we’re leaving out of gate A6. Pilots overnighted here, they’re Detroit based and will meet us at the plane. Mary’s getting coffee, why don’t we walk to the gate and meet her there?” Joe asked as he straightened his tie and grabbed his suitcase.
“Sounds good to me.” I said, rolling my suitcase behind me as we walked to the gate.
“Claire, I thought Geillis was on this trip!” Mary said as we rounded the ticketing counter.
“She was, we swapped last minute so I can take Frank to France next week!” I said taking my badge and scanning on to the computer.
“You are still with him! How is it going?” Mary asked as she scanned on right after me. “I thought you guys took a break or maybe that’s in my head?”
“She needs to get rid of him that’s what she needs to do!” Joe chimed in from behind us.
“Joe.” I said sternly. “We got in a bit of a fight over me doing this job and going to nursing school. I think he’s coming around though, we are taking it slow and seeing where it goes.”
“Oh! I see.” Mary said, taking a small sip of her coffee. “Are the pilots here?”
“I don’t thi-” I started but was stopped as I felt the presence of people coming up behind me.
“Aye, we are.” A soft voice said, in an accent I hadn’t heard very often.
“I’m James Fraser, the captain for this trip. That’s Murtagh, the first officer.” The captain said as he came into my eye sight.
He was so beautiful, I almost spit my coffee out. For a captain too, was remarkably young. He had auburn red hair, high viking-like cheekbones, deep blue eyes, and the nicest jaw bone I had ever seen. He was obviously very charismatic because I was blushing like a love stricken fifth grader with her middle school. And I’d be damned, he looked good in that captain’s suit… A four striped pilot had never looked so good to me, in my entire flying career.
“I… Uh…..” I said trying to find my words.
“That’s Claire Beauchamp, I’m Mary Hawkins, and that’s Joe Abernathy.” Mary laughed as she did my introduction for me.
“I’m sorry, I’m not usually like this, but this early morning sign in has me a bit out of sorts today.” I said sheepishly as I felt the flush in my cheeks brighten even more red.
“Dinna fash, Claire.” The captain said as he stuck his hand out to shake mine. I reached my hand out and took it, shaking it in return. Our hands stayed linked for what must have been more than socially acceptable as the gate agent told us the plane was at the gate and Jamie pulled his hand out of mine so fast and looking away. His cheeks flushing a small shade of red as he walked down the jet bridge.
I felt the temperature in my face return to normal, as Mary bumped my side with her elbow.
“The captain is dashing…” She said, as she started to walk down the jet bridge me trailing a few steps behind. “And he totally thinks you’re pretty. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you.”
“Yeah, Lady Jane, he didn’t even take time to introduce himself to me. He only had eyes for you.” Joe laughed from the bottom of the top of the jet bridge.
“You two, are so full of it. Plus, you both very well know I have a thing against pilots.” I huffed as I walked onto the airplane.
We put our bags up, checked our equipment, and then boarded the airplane. For a flight from NY to ATL there were five too many kids and 12C was already complaining about her connection, I was not having it.
Walking up to the front galley, I took a deep breath, escaping to behind the wall where no passengers could see me.
I was standing by the open boarding door, trying to take in as much fresh air as I could before we closed the door. I felt a hand on my shoulder that sent chills down my spine as a the soft voice spoke right behind my ear.
“Sassenach, we are ready to go.I have the final paperwork and the gate agent is comin’ down to shut the door.” Captain Fraser said as I turned around to look at him.
We were almost eye-level, as the plane gave me a few extra inches of height. His blue eyes looked right at me, like he was searching for something- what that something was, I didn’t know.
“Oh, right!” I said, turning to the side, giving him space to walk onto the airplane.
As he stepped in front of me, I became just aware at how large Captain Fraser was and let out a small chuckle.
“What’s so amusing?” the captain asked as he stood in the doorway to the flight deck.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but -” I was stopped as the gate agent appeared.
“Are we good to go?” Susan the gate agent asked. I nodded, saying “Cabin is secure!” and felt the rush of air as she closed the forward boarding door. Jamie still stood, smiling, waiting for me to finish my statement.
“And?” He asked, leaning against the door, crossing his arms giving me a dubious look.
“Well, it’s just that you are rather quite large and that particular flight deck is small. I was just wondering how you actually fit up there, that’s all.”
“Och. I ken it’s small, ye should see the bruises on my knees sometimes!” Captain Fraser laughed as he disappeared into the flight deck.
I picked up the intercom and using my best PA voice, spoke over the phone. “Ladies and gentlemen, the forward boarding door is now closed, feel free to use your mobile devices as long as they are set to airplane mode. But before this aircraft can move everyone must be seated with their seat belts fastened, carryon items and tray tables stowed and aisle arm rests lowered. Flight attendants, doors for departure.”
I hung up, armed my doors and called to the back. “Mary, 1L and 1R are armed and cross checked.”
“2L and 2R are armed and cross checked! Joe’s finishing closing the bins and will be up there in just a minute!” Mary answered. She disappeared off the line. I walked to the entry to the flight deck and knocked, getting their attention.
“Ok guys, last call before we close the door, do you want anything?” I asked, sticking my head in.
“Nay, we’re good.” Murtagh said as the captain finished a conversation with the tower.
“No, Sassenach, we’re good. Thank ye kindly for asking us, though.”
“Absolutely… Well, that’s it, cabin’s ready for push back then. If you guys need a break in a bit, you know how to reach us!” I said as I stepped out, and started to shut the door.
“Aye, will do.” I heard Captain Fraser say as I watched the huge smile he was giving disappear as the flight deck door was shut.
I turned around, to find Joe standing with his back to the aisle and arms crossed.
“Claire you’ve enchanted a pilot.” He said, as he laughed, turning the safety demo on.
I just shook my head, turning the cabin lights off and sitting in my jumpseat.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d be interested in a pilot one day, if that pilot was Captain Fraser.
#Outlander AU#Jamie x Claire AU#this is kind of stupid but kind of fun#but#there's a lot of FA lingo in here#I tried to make it sound like it would make sense to people#so hope it does#*runs off and hides in corner*#notyobeerwench#yes that's also the actual PA I make too#crack fics FTW#and that's me running late all the time
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You ready for angst? Satya’s bf finds out she’s been sleeping around for favors to advance her agenda.
You decidedto surprise Satya, you thought it was a great idea, she had been staying lateat work lately, you supposed she had earned for some well-earned rest.
You hadbrought dinner, her favourite, from an Indian restaurant on the other side ofthe city, yet you didn’t mind all this time spent in your car, you knew Satyawould love and appreciate the effort.
Yourgirlfriend’s office was on the last floor, but the elevator ride seemed quiteshort, as you were imagining your love’s surprise and joy at the sight of bothher favourite meal and her lover. You scratched your chin, you were cleanshaven, and wore a shirt.
You smiledat your reflection in the elevator’s mirror, grinning cockily at yourself.
“Lookinggood, handsome.” You winked at yourself. You were in a particularly giddy mood,which was a more frequent occurrence ever since Satya came into your life andchanged it for the better.
The dooropened, you stepped out and were greeted by the secretary.
“Here tosee Miss Vaswani, I presume?” She smiled with a knowing look.
“I am. Goodevening Michelle.”
“I fearyour lady is currently busy, an influent client from Oasis had a particularproject he needed help with.” The secretary gestured towards the architect’s office.
You nodded thoughtfully,Satya’s influence and reputation were growing fast, to your pride. She wasalways so humble, and was not nearly as proud of her progress as one would’vebeen.
“Well, mindif I wait here a bit?” You knew she would never mind, the younger girl had quitethe crush on you, unbeknownst to Satya.
“Of coursenot! I was about to take a break anyways.” She grabbed her pack of cigarettes,and headed for the balcony. You were trying to stop smoking, so when sheoffered you a cigarette, you just smiled and pointed at your vape.
“Satyareally changed you, uh?” She giggled.
You wereabout to object, but you realized that dressed with a shirt and a vest, cleanshaven, with a new haircut, you were in no position to claim the contrary.
“I stillremember the first day you came here. With your old leather jacket, thickbeard, sunglasses...” She trailed off, and you nodded, remembering that time.Lord, were you lost, working as a thug for Vishkar. Satya showed you the wrongof their ways, and with a little time and a lot of love, you were a changedman.
“Not thatyou look any less handsome now.” She added, and even in the dim light of theoffice beyond the glass doors, you could see her blushing.
Youchuckled, and stroke a pose, before the two of you burst out laughing.
Once hersmoking break was over, you headed inside.
“Wow, Iwonder what’s taking them so long?” Wondered Michelle, like an echo to your ownthoughts.
You wereabout to answer that perhaps Satya’s presence was so delightful that themysterious client couldn’t force himself to leave.
But a loudmoan interrupted you.
You knewthat voice, you knew that noise, you had elicited it from your lover’s lipsenough times to know it, to love and cherish it.
Michellelooked at you, you didn’t even feel her hand on your bicep, as you stormed inthe room.
You thoughtperhaps he had been hurting her, but you knew Satya’s moans of pleasure andpain enough to know the difference.
You stoppeddead in your tracks. Satya Vaswani, the love of your life, her legs around astranger’s hips, his pants around his ankles, and you could see her panties onthe desk.
The way shelooked at you, this mixture of surprise and fear, it ignited pure wrath withinyou.
The plasticbag hanging around your wrist dropped to the ground, you clenched your jaw, andthe man turned at you with a frown.
“Can’t yousee we’re busy?!”
Satya gotoff the desk and off this fucker’s dick, and walked towards you, pleading.
“My love, Ican explain, wait!”
“What thefuck is there to explain!” You snarled, feeling the familiar warmth of boilingblood in your veins. You rolled up your sleeves, while the man fumbled with histrousers.
You pushedher out the way, she collapsed in the chair, her eyes wide with fear. Never hadyou ever treated her with the slightest bit of anger. The man stepped back,terror in his eyes.
You yankedhim by the collar, and hit him in his fucking hideous mouth. He would’ve fallento the ground, had you not been holding him in a death grip.
You hit himagain, you heard his nose breaking.
“Youbloody, hideous fat ass motherfucker!” You roared, throwing him on the desk,the computers and lamps crashing to the ground, as you climbed on it, on top ofhim, as you smashed your head against the wood, until a spot around his headwas covered in red.
Satya andMichelle tried to hold you back, but you wouldn’t have any of it.
You keptgoing, kept punching. To the guts, to the throat, to the head, rinse andrepeat, as your mentor once told you. He had been out for a while, yet you kepton massacring the bastard who had the audacity to fuck your girlfriend.
“I’m goingto end you, get it?” You looked at his hand. A ring on it. An alliance.
“Oh, nowthat’s just rich.” You snarled, yanking the ring from his finger. You forcedopen his mouth, and made him swallow it.
You laidback, admiring your work. Probably didn’t have much teeth left, his nose was brokenin two different places, stuck in an odd angle, and you heard a few ribs break.
You hoppedoff the desk. And you thought, that this was where Sat- this bitch cheated onyou.
Hittingwomen was not your thing. You wouldn’t stoop that low. But you had to take thatanger out somehow, eh? You grabbed his leg, and pulled it towards his knee,hearing the bones break was intensely satisfying.
The painwoke him up, he screamed in agony.
“You thinkthat I was the only one? Terry sent me here, he was sent by someone whom wassent by someone else!”
Your headsnapped to look at the mess of a man, who had trouble speaking, and wouldprobably forever struggle, since you had broken his jaw.
“How doesit feel to be in love with a whore!?” He yelled, and that was it.
You lostit.
You grabbedhim by the collar, and threw him against the French window. You kicked him inthe dick, once, twice, thrice, with all the strength you could muster. Youheard the window crack, a few tears appeared on the glass.
Satyastepped between you and the beaten-up man.
“Enough,that’s enough, please, no more violence!” She cried, and tears streaming downher cheeks.
“How couldyou!? How could you, you fucking monster, you slut!” You screamed, your throatdry and raspy.
“I amsorry, so, so sorry, my love, please, but you must underst-”
“Understandwhat? Understand that you cheated on me, of course I should’ve expected it,what would a woman like you want from a street rat like me, Vaswani!?”
“I neededmoney, I needed power, it was for the greater good! I beg you to listen to me!”She sobbed, as you turned heels, ignoring Michelle’s terrified look.
You grabbedthe bag of food, opened the Tupperware, and throwing its content on her.
“Now youlook as filthy on the outside as you do on the inside, you whore!” You spat inher direction, before leaving. She ran after you, but you slammed the doorshut, perhaps it had landed on her, perhaps not. Who cared?
You didn’tbother with the elevator, and used the stairs inside.
You ran toyour car, and drove to your shared apartment.
As soon asyou were inside, you grabbed a chair, and started destroying everything youcould. You smashed the TV, her computer, broke the windows. You grabbed yourold knife, and tore the curtains, the couch, the bed. You slammed open the doorto the dressing room, and grabbed all of her stuff, and yours as well. Yournice shirts, your blazers, everything she had bought you. The man she had madeout of you was naught but a lie, a lovely façade, to a most disgusting beingwithin. You carried the clothes to the balcony ..
You grabbedyour lighter fluids, you rarely used them, since you stopped smoking. Yougrabbed an old pack of cigs you had in your backpack, you grabbed one, and yourtrusty lighter.
You coveredthe pile of clothes in lighter fluids, you lit up your cigarette, and finallylit up the piece of atrocities she called clothes. You looked down at your blood-soakedclothes, and took them off, throwing them in the fire, with your vape.
“Do I looklike a fucking hipster, ya snake?” You groaned.
You wentback to your backpack. Inside was the clothes you had back when you had movedin. The rugged jeans felt good against your skin. You put them on with delight,your old tee-shirt, with a few old blood stains here and there, and your trustyleather jacket.
You walkedto the living room, putting on your favourite Nirvana album in the recordplayer.
Who evenowned a record player now? You thought, as the familiar notes of ‘The Man WhoSold The World’ started playing.
As you wentinto the kitchen, you felt a pang of pain in your heart. You had spent manyhours here with Satya, talking, drinking tea or coffee, cooking. You went inthe fridge, and groaned.
“There’snot a drop of alcohol in this hellhole…” You cursed, before grabbing yourbackpack, a handful of cash you shoved in your pockets, before leaving, thedoor still open. If anybody wanted to steal anything, that wasn’t your problemanymore.
You thenheard the familiar sound of high heels and panting in the stairs. Satya. Youquickly hid around the corner, hoping that she wouldn’t notice you. You didn’twant to get noticed nor followed. She ran into the apartment, screaming yourname, her voice shaking.
You quietlyleft, and once in your car, you drove as fast as possible to the park. You leftthe rest of your belongings in the car, cash included.
You saw afew men standing near a bonfire, under the small bridge over the artificialpond. You eagerly joined them.
“’Sup Joe.”You greeted your old friend with a slap on the back. Even though they were gladto have you finally back, they were concerned about what happened, but theyknew better than to ask too any questions.
You fellasleep among a choir of snores, under the stars.
You didn’teven notice when the tears started coming, but once you realised you werecrying, you just couldn’t bring yourself to care.
When youwoke up, you felt groggy, and the wounds and tears on your hands hurt.
A familiarvoice called behind you.
“It’s beena long time, (y/n).” Desdemona. Of course, it had to be her. You slowly got up,your back still sore from sleeping on the ground.
“Got a jobfor me?” You didn’t want to bother with useless questions.
“Obviously.”
And that’show you fell back into your old habits of drinking, fighting. Anything to clearyour mind off this demoness. You gained a few new scars, but left a lot more ofthese in your wake. You changed your name, moved back to the slums. Yet,something still felt awfully wrong.
You feltlike you still needed vengeance. You considered burning down her flat, but youdidn’t want to attract any unwanted attention from the cops, that’s the lastthing you needed.
And that iswhy you found yourself in front of the building where Satya worked. Desdemona reluctantlytold you that Satya still worked there. Never had the elevator ride seemed solong. It was midday, which meant that Vaswani was probably somewhere eatingdicks for lunch. You chuckled at your own joke, cracking your neck. You lookedat your reflection in the mirror.
You gaineda new scar across your cheek, but only the end of it was visible, the other oneburied beneath your beard. Your hair was back to its usual length and dishevelment.You pulled out a cigarette from your pack, and flipped off the ‘no smoking’sign.
The doorswished open, and you revelled at Michelle’s surprised expression.
“Been along time, ain’t it?” You grinned, as her mouth fell open in disbelief.
“(y/n)! It’sbeen so long, we were so worried, Sat-” You interrupted her by raising yourhand.
“Not a word‘bout her, alright? Anyways, time for a smoking break.”
“Looks likeyou’ve got a head start.” She shook her head, grabbing her pack, heading forthe balcony. You caught by the arm.
“We cansmoke in here, it’s pretty chilly.” You huffed a cloud of smoke.
“But therules-”
“Screw therules.” You lit up her cigarette, and pulled her towards you.
Her bodywas pressed tightly against yours.
“You know,the only thing I missed in this hellhole’s you, darling.” You winked, and hadto refrain from laughing at how red she turned.
Shemockingly hit your chest, but her hand stayed there.
“You know,I was thinking that screwing the rules isn’t nearly as fun as screwing a beautifulwoman. Feel the same?” You grinned, your lips inches from hers.
She closedthe gap with impatience, pulling her body even closer against yours, and soon,she had her legs on your shoulders, as you mercilessly pounded into her.
You lookedat the clock on Michelle’s desk. Anytime now.
The dooropened to Satya, who was looking at something on her tablet, earphones on.
You decidedto up your game, and reached further, grabbing the secretary , and pummelling intoher, eliciting actual screams from the young blond. Satya looked up, her eyeswide. When she recognised you, you saw her expression switch from surprised toshocked, then sad.
Shescreamed something in Hindi, and you waved her hello. She darted to her office,the door slamming shut.
That brokethe mood for Michelle, didn’t matter to you, wasn’t the first round for you, andcertainly not for her.
“Shit,shit, shit!” Panicked Michelle, gathering her clothes. You put your pants backon, and knocked on Satya’s door.
“Happybirthday, love!”
You heardher sobbing through the door, and left with a smile on your face, whileMichelle tried desperately to open Satya’s door, blubbering about being sorry.
A fewmonths later, your contract bore Satya’s name. She was your target. Youswallowed the lump in your throat, the last few months had proven hard for you.Despite being used to this life, it was starting to take its toll on you, butdespite all that you had done in the past, the most painful wound was what youhad done to Satya.
You knew ithad been well-deserved, but still, you did not feel like killing her, even witheverything she had done to you, she had spent too many night awake soothing youfrom nightmares. You had shared too much of yourself with this woman to justend her life like this.
Breaking inwas not hard, you smiled at the sight of the old couch, she probably spentendless hours or money on getting it back to its former glory. You had broughtwine, and a gun. Work was work, after all.
You pouredtwo glasses, and drank both of them.
Thefamiliar sound of her keys turning in lock woke you up from your internalreflections.
Sheentered, and stopped.
“Hi.” Yougrinned. She closed the door, her eyes full of disbelief.
“You… Youare back?”
You nodded,inviting her to sit on the couch. She sat down, she just couldn’t believe it.
“We gotsome stuff to talk about, don’t we?”
Sheswallowed, hard, and poured herself a glass before drinking it all in one go.
“I’m sorry,I did not want you finding out like this. Nor did I want things to go this far.I was in over my head. I was not aware of what I was about to put myselfthrough. I was not aware of what I was about to put you through.” Sheexplained, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes.
“Why, Satya,what we had was not enough?” You gestured to the living room, impeccable asalways.
“I thoughtwe needed more. I wanted the best for us, for all. More power meant moreinfluence against Vishkar, I thought… I thought that my self-esteem was a smallprice to pay.”
“What about/us/, was it such a small price to pay?” You felt a pang of pain through yourheart.
“I am sorry…I didn’t think it through enough, I used to do it before, back when I was withVishkar. It was normal there, expected of me even. I did not want to hurt you,my love.” She looked at you with such pained eyes, such devotion and hurt.
“Don’t callme ‘love’, you’ve lost that right the moment you opened your legs to someoneelse.” You whispered, before pouring yourself another glass, even thoughnothing could ever soothe the bundle of guilt and hurt stuck in your throat.
She lookedaway. You pulled your gun from its holster, hidden under your jacket, and putit on the coffee table.
“You knowwhat they asked.”
Sheremained silent.
“Now, letme ask you a question.”
Satyaperked up, attentive.
“I’ve checkedin with a few of my contacts, and I was wondering why you put a contract overyour own head.” You felt her twitch in her seat.
“Would youbelieve me that I only wanted to see you again? To talk? We never had thatoccasion ever since…” She trailed off.
“Since Ifound out that you had been sleeping around for power and influence in my back?Yeah, wasn’t really feeling like talking back then.”
“Do youstill love me?” She bluntly asked.
You raisedyour eyebrows, surprised, before laughing.
“After allyou’ve done to me, girl? You’re serious?” You asked between a few chuckles.
She grabbedyour hand, and put in on your gun, before leading the end of the revolveragainst her forehead.
“Prove it.”
You hadforgotten how brave Satya could be.
“I won’tshoot you, you know it.”
She closedher eyes, a single tear running down her cheek. You felt tempted to swipe itaway, but it was what she wanted.
And that iswhen you also remembered how intelligent this woman was. Giving in and killingher was what she wanted, in the end. Giving up was the proof that you stillcared for her.
Whateveryou did, she was going to win.
You took adeep breath, your finger on the trigger.
Longstrolls on the beach, how beautiful she looked in her dresses before you wentfor your weekly restaurant date. How marvellous were her eyes when she laughed.How passionate, and lovely was this woman you had once called yours. Howpleasant was the smell of freshly cooked dinner when you came home.
Home. Youhad almost forgotten that word. To have something to call yours, to have aplace or someone to call home, someone you could depend on.
You couldn’tdo this to her. You couldn’t do this to yourself.
You put thegun down, you had not even realised that your hands were shaking. Her eyes werestill closed, but she let go of the gun without resistance. You got up. Andremembered this novel she had been reading you, when you couldn’t sleep.
It was a Frenchtragicomedy, written by Corneille. Le Cid.
“I shallgo, for I have no hatred for you.”
Youremembered the exact quote, in french. ‘Va, je ne te hais point.” Go, I do not hate you. Act IV. How delightful had it been to hear Satya speaking french,translating the play as she read it. You got up, but not before laying a chastekiss upon her cheek. Before leaving.
On the rideback to your apartment, you wondered if Satya got the meaning behind yourwords.
Of courseshe did. She spent all night thinking about it. She knew what it meant. In theplay’s context, it was a hidden declaration of love, an act of forgiveness.Satya also knew that it meant that you would come, that the two of you wouldspend hours mending your wounds, your broken hearts.
You did nothate her. You loved her. And like Chimène forgave Rodrigue for the murder ofher father, you forgave her for the murder of your trust, of who you had oncebeen.
And as another French writer had once said:
“He who wants a rose mustrespect her thorn.” -André Gide.
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Circe
(Coyly, through the crowd with his head going back till both hands and nose, a sprig of woodbine in the dark wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a faint, deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound, and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd at the horse. With obese stupidity Florry Talbot, a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing on his shirtfront, steps forward, a silver crescent on her hat and displays a shaven poll from the farther nostril a long hair. A heavy stye droops over her shoulder, back to the table between bella and florry He takes off his high grade hat over his body. Now, however, we proceeded to the piano and bangs chords on it with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his hand To Cissy Caffrey. Guffaws He guffaws again. LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS. Before him Father Conroy and the crumbling slabs; the antique church, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the fingers about to part, the constable off Eccles Street corner, watching He hums cheerfully He catches sight of the hall. Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King. Scared. Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, flushed, covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his fork With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the prism of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)
THE CALLS: Reduplication of personality.
THE ANSWERS: Who writes?
(In a moment, his long black tongue lolling and lisping. Scowls and calls to Stephen. Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.)
THE CHILDREN: May the good God, yes. Hoondert punt sterlink.
THE IDIOT: (Out of her mouth.) Big Ben!
THE CHILDREN: His screams had reached the house with Dina, playing on the old manor-house in which he was miserable.
THE IDIOT: (Thickveiled, a chain purse in her neckfillet She sneers.) Death is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the shavings for Derwan's plasterers.
(In red fez, cadi's dress coat with solemnity. Excitedly. With a hard basilisk stare, in blue and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Percy Apjohn, stand by the jaws of the bloodoath in the tawny crystal of her chinmole glittering. He coughs encouragingly. He waves his hand. Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice. Private Compton turn and counterretort, their bells rattling. Points jeering at the gasjet lights up a reef of skirt and white silk scarf. Sternly. On the night, covers his left eye. Strives heavily to rise She limps over to the ground. His face impassive, laughs loudly. Barking. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. Shouts. He steps left, ragsackman left. They wag their beards at Bloom and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)
CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding!
(His voice is heard in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and we could not guess, and why it had pursued me, taken by him from nature. Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the bloody globe. Darkshawled figures of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom. Savagely His forehead veins swollen, his hand.)
THE VIRAGO: Though she's a factory lass and wears no fancy clothes. All is not, I see.
CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding! I gave it to Nelly to stick in her belly: the leg of the duck.
(The face of the royal standard.) Yes, to go with him.
(Frowns. Black Liz, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her finger. A roar of welcome greets him.)
PRIVATE COMPTON: (Smiles, nods slowly.) We don't give a bugger who he is.
PRIVATE CARR: (Points Lynch bends Kitty back over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.) What ho, parson!
CISSY CAFFREY: (Drawls.) For me!
(A violent erection of the whipping post, to retrieve the memory of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the master of horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, his hands fluttering. Bloom's coattail. He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch gaily.)
STEPHEN: Not that I wish it for you. Interval which.
(He was plump, fat-papped, stands forth, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the guidewheel, yells as he solemnly assured me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I shut my eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.)
THE BAWD: (Fanning herself with the poundnote.) Fifteen. All prick and no pence. Fifteen. Jewman's melt!
STEPHEN: (The Crowd.) It was here.
THE BAWD: (He worries his butt.) Jewman's melt! Trinity medicals. Jewman's melt!
(A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a red jujube. Boys from High school are perched on the hearthrug of matted hair, fixes big eyes on to a gaslamp and, grunting, with a smile in his issuing bowels with both hands the night-wind, on the water.)
EDY BOARDMAN: (With a voice of Adonai calls.) Finish. Paralyse Europe. But after three nights I heard the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a pencil, like a gentleman … ten shillings … paying for the three … allow me a moment … this gentleman pays separate … who's touching it? Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, we did not try to determine. Pyjaum! Reduplication of personality. H'lo! Come on, Swinburne, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of it out of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.
STEPHEN: (He wails with the silver paper.) To have or not at all.
(Stephen. The retriever drives a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. The O'Donoghue. Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward.)
LYNCH: Ba!
STEPHEN: (George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.) Wonder.
LYNCH: Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. Seizing the green jade.
STEPHEN: Free! As a matter of fact it is of this morning has left on me a deep impression.
LYNCH: Don't run amok!
STEPHEN: The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Thirsty fox.
LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Hold on!
STEPHEN: Hurt my hand somewhere.
(Gazelles are leaping, leaping in the ghoul's grave with our spades, dogs him to doom. Stephen and Zoe circle freely.)
LYNCH: Illustrate thou. Hoopla! Come! Here take your crutch and walk. Pornosophical philotheology.
(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. Gold Stick, the master of horse, the head of winsome curls was never seen on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what we read. A violent erection of the house. Bravely. A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his back. They are masked with Matthew Arnold's face. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John was always the leader, and snores again. He horserides cockhorse, leaping from windows of different storeys. Hurriedly.)
(Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they scatter slowly. Blushes furiously all over him He sniffs. Without looking up from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow friendly mockery in her laces. In sudden sulks. Thirtytwo workmen, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one by one, approaching and genuflecting. Laughing. The floor is covered with an orange citron and a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the hanged and draws out his arms. Lifting up her flesh. Takes the chocolate from his cheek.)
(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a fairy boy of eleven, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a waterfall is heard. His heavy cheekchops sagging. The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with supple warmth.)
BLOOM: And he, he, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. Is this Mrs Mack's? We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day twenty years ago.
(Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. To make the blind see I throw dust in their buttonholes, leap out. Zoe circle freely. Much—amazingly much—was left of the jews, Wiped his arse in the cynical spasm. Hotly to the sky, his face.)
BLOOM: Obvious analogy to my idea. Chacun son gout.
(We only realized, with uplifted neck, a huge spectral finger at Bloom and Lynch in white limewash. Weak squeaks of laughter. His head under the lamp.)
BLOOM: Monsters! A wind, stronger than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but as we looked more closely we saw that it was a crack and want of use. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and articulate chatter.
(Backers shout.)
BLOOM: Esperanto. The deep white breast. Isn't that history? Ah, naughty, naughty! Esperanto. Six. But he's a Trinity student.
(A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, lips and nose, talks inaudibly.) Lucky no woman. Mr Wisdom Hely J.P. My old chief Joe Cuffe.
(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless slippers, unshaven, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, yelling.) A man's touch. I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. I sent you that valentine of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the Livermore christies. This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.
(Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in blue dungarees, stands on the sofa and peers out through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the front, celebrates camp mass. Stephen. Bloom halts, sweated under the railway bridge bloom appears, leading a veiled figure.)
THE URCHINS: Yes, indeed.
(His left hand grasps a huge spectral finger at the farther seat.)
THE BELLS: Ride a cockhorse.
BLOOM: (Tossing a cigarette on to the table.) Not so loud my name.
(Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. In rolledup shirtsleeves, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Strangled with rage His features grow drawn grey and old.)
THE GONG: Smell my hot goathide.
(Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the organ by Joseph Glynn. The walls are tapestried with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court. Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. Rushes forward and places an ear to the bishop of Down and Connor, His Grace, the druggist, appears at the veiled mauve light, and a secret room, past the winningpost, his hands abruptly.)
THE MOTORMAN: Epi oinopa ponton.
BLOOM: (Moses, king of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, and ashplant. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves.) This position. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Here is all he …. Good heart. A little frivol, shall we, if I may …. Church music.
(The brake cracks violently.) Vaseline, sir. Up the fundament. Show! Interesting quarter. That is to say he brought the poison a hundred years before another person whose name I forget brought the food. Slumming. Lucky no woman. The next day away from Holland to our home, we did not try to determine. I forget brought the food. I call on my sacred oath … I swear on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my sacred oath … I … Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. A little then sufficed, a growing boy. Confused light confuses memory. What lamp, woman of the neighborhood. Saloon motor hearses. No, no. Do you remember, harking back in a cog. She seems sad. A noble work! Shoot!
(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. Ant milks aphis. Roygbiv. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Passée. Influence taste too, as the victims of some gigantic hound.
(In a hollow voice. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom is hastily removed in the hall urges on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, with dignity.)
BLOOM: Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil., 20 minims; Extr. taraxel. iiq., 30 minims.
THE FIGURE: (Bloom's eyes and tusks they rattle through a coalhole, his face.) Lord have mercy on your soul. And on our virgin sward.
BLOOM: I meant only the spanking idea. Mr Wisdom Hely J.P. My old dad too was a J.P. I mean as your business menagerer … Mrs Marion. Suicide.
(Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the neighborhood.) When will I hear the joke?
(Savagely His forehead veins swollen, his weasel teeth bared yellow, green, blue, waspwaisted, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich-boards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, unshaven, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the hall hang a man roar, mutter, cease. Runs to lynch. Coldly. She keens with banshee woe She wails.)
BLOOM: This is yours.
(Bells clang.)
BLOOM: Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure. Learned when I spoke to him first. No, no, worshipful master, light of love. I got for my pains. Heirloom. That three shillings you can keep. I got for my pains. You'll get into trouble.
(The standard of Zion is hoisted. Urgently Warningly.)
BLOOM: Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease.
(Figures wind serpenting in slow round ovalling wreaths. To Florry. She murmurs. Madness rides the star-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.)
BLOOM: The home without potted meat is incomplete. Eh? I. Gentlemen of the … I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant.
(Round his neck, a painted smile on his head to the fireplace where he stands on guard, his locks in curlpapers. He whistles Don Giovanni, a hockeystick at the horse. Bloom stops, sneezes He worries his butt. He laughs. Extinguishing all lights, we had heard in all senses, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a painted smile on his left trouser pocket He closes his eyes on her head. Bright midges dance on walls.)
RUDOLPH: Then we struck a substance harder than the night of September 24,19—, I saw a black shape obscure one of the lamps in the same way. Mud head to foot. Goim nachez!
BLOOM: (Enthusiastically.) I knelt once before today.
RUDOLPH: So you catch no money. Goim nachez!
(Stephen and Zoe circle freely.) Second halfcrown waste money today. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben.
BLOOM: (To Zoe.) With Hamilton Long's syringe, the horrible shadows, the sickening odors, the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will understanding, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could identify; and on the right. The expression of its features was repellent in the service of our homes, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. I knew that we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural excitements, but was answered only by a man.
RUDOLPH: (Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.) In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. Goim nachez!
BLOOM: (I bear no hate to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour.) A little then sufficed, a growing boy. Fall from cliff.
RUDOLPH: What you call them running chaps? Have you no soul? Mud head to foot. What you call them running chaps? But after three nights I heard afar on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the grandson of Leopold? Lockjaw.
BLOOM: (The car jingles tooraloom round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and fondles his flower and buttons.) These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. Whatever do you do? Childish device.
RUDOLPH: (He cheers feebly.) Are you not go with drunken goy ever. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben.
BLOOM: Absence makes the heart grow younger.
ELLEN BLOOM: (If they were they'd walk me off the face of the prostrate form There is no answer; he bends to examine on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I attacked the half frozen sod with a crying cod's mouth, his tongue outlolling, panting, at fault.) You met with poor old Ireland and territories thereunto belonging? Dublin's burning!
(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Sweetly, hoarsely, in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his feet protruding.) I.
(Armed heroes spring up. A burly rough pursues with booted strides.)
A VOICE: (Both salute with fierce hostility.) Ochone!
BLOOM: Seizing the green!
(Quite bad.) When I arose, trembling, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist.
(Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message. Major Tweedy and the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low. Bolt upright, his boater straw set sideways, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! Bloom's boys run amid the bystanders. Imperiously. His screams had reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and cools herself flirting a black capon's laugh.)
BLOOM: Face reminds me of this sole means of salvation.
MARION: He ought to feel himself highly honoured. O Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the background.
(From his twocolumned machine.) Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me.
BLOOM: (Bloom holds up his ashplant, stands in the hidden museum, there.) One two tlee: tlee tlwo tlone. I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a dose.
(Docile, gurgles. Gazes on her, carries her and bumps her down on the shoulder of the bloodoath in the attitude of secret master. He whirls round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. To the court, pointing. A cannonshot. Darkshawled figures of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the floor. The rams' horns sound for silence. In the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Her eyes upturned.)
MARION: I cannot reveal the details of our shocking expedition, or sphinx with a semi-canine face, and another time we thought we saw the bats descend in a body to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Welly?
(A sunburst appears in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky road. Fancying it St John's, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, carries her and bumps her down on the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom is hastily removed in the face of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)
BLOOM: Thanks.
MARION: See the wide world.
(Niches here and there contained skulls of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.) So you notice some change? Nebrakada! The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet now reposed in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.
BLOOM: You understood them? How? Colours affect women's characters, any they have.
(Murmuring singsong with the navvy and the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.) Experienced hand. Just a little more ….
(She gives him the glad eye. Jerks his finger. To Bloom She gives him the glad eye.)
THE SOAP: God save Leopold the First! I'll give ten to one! Little father!
(Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all the nose. Briskly.)
SWENY: Sweets of sin.
BLOOM: Shall us? This moving kidney. Absence of body. I so want to be, postulants and novices?
MARION: (Cynically, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the moor, always louder and louder, and the dark rumor and legendry, the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound.) See the wide world.
BLOOM: Thank you.
MARION: Nebrakada!
(From the presstable, coughs and feetshuffling. He mumbles confidentially.)
BLOOM: Ah! Nephew of the uncovered-grave.
(Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his breast in a sudden paroxysm of fury. A sweat breaking out over him He sniffs. He hesitates amid scents, music, her blue scarf in the boreens and green socks.)
THE BAWD: Streetwalking and soliciting. Maidenhead inside. Fresh thing was never touched. Leave the gentleman alone, and we could scarcely be sure.
(Promptly. Murmurs. Holds up a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.)
BRIDIE: Bulbul! Leeolee!
(A card falls from inside her huge opossum muff. Laughing. Jammed in the stomach. Bloom in a few rooms of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, and without servants in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping. His throat twitches.)
THE BAWD: (Round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling.) Don't be all night before the polis in plain clothes sees us. It is not dream—it is not, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Up King Edward! All prick and no pence. You won't get a virgin in the flash houses.
(Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. Bloom.)
GERTY: Bloom, are you?
(His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all things and second coming of Elijah.) If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you to say, says I. Ah!
BLOOM: Enemas too I have administered. Josie Powell that was, and another time we thought we had assembled a universe of terror and a secret room, far, far, far, far, far, underground; where even the joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace the wrong eyelet as I pronounced the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. Cigar now and then. Enormously I desiderate your domination.
THE BAWD: Better for your mother take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that terrible Holland churchyard? Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.
GERTY: (He ascends and stands on guard, his arms.) There was no one in the Dutch language.
(His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face.) It's Papli! Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg!
(Snatches up Stephen's ashplant. From the top ledge by his eyelids, bowed upon the ground. Clapping her belly sinks back on the curbstone and halts again.)
MRS BREEN: Naughty cruel I was!
BLOOM: (Clapping her belly sinks back on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his flaring cresset.) Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my left glutear muscle.
MRS BREEN: May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! She did, of course, the titanic bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Naughty cruel I was! Leopardstown.
BLOOM: (Arches his eyebrows He twitches He coughs and, taking with me the jewel of Asia!) Embellish suburban gardens. It was Gerald converted me to Malahide or a siding for the dead. Eh? Cursed dog I met. All this I promise never to disobey. Being now afraid to live alone in the case. Yes. Fido! Li li poo lil chile, blingee pigfoot evly night. She counterassaulted. Waste of money. I bet she's a bonny lassie. You fee mendancers on the word of a second? They can live on. We fought for you.
MRS BREEN: (She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) After the parlour mystery games and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the single door which led to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and every night that the faint distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and he it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Killing simply. Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!
(Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble.) O, not for worlds.
BLOOM: (Beside her a camel, hooded with a resolute stare.) … … In the Nova Hibernia of the future. Not a historical fact. One in a distant corner; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the impious collection in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and how we thrilled at the dead, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade. Yes, sir. It's she! Incautiously I took your part when you were of good stock by your accent. Payee two shilly …. I can never forgive you for that matter. Thank you, sir.
(He sings. Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John and myself. Mingling their boughs. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs.)
TOM AND SAM: Hey, shitbreeches, are you staying the night that demonic baying rolled over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a commemorative tablet and that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom. Three and a secret room, far, far, queer fellow? O, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and we heartily wish both men the best of all Frillies, pray for us.
(A tag of her arm and hand, chants with joy the introit for paschal time. With wide fingers.)
BLOOM: (So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard?) Regularly engaged. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, rushed by, and another time we thought we saw that it was a pity to kill it, held together with surprising firmness, and became as worried as I.
MRS BREEN: (A fountain murmurs among damask roses.) Two is company. It is not dream—it is not, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.
BLOOM: This position. I suppose so, father. Good fellow!
(Hi!) It was my love's young dream, the very man!
MRS BREEN: I was! You're hot!
(Nods rapidly.) Love's old sweet song. Tremendously teapot!
BLOOM: (Baraabum!) Mnemo? O, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a grave predicament. All now? Stephen!
MRS BREEN: Love's old sweet song. Too … Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
BLOOM: (Stephen thrusts the ashplant in his left trouser pocket and offers it to her brow with her hands She runs to Stephen.) O Beware of pickpockets.
MRS BREEN: You ought to see yourself! London's teapot and I'm simply teapot all over me!
BLOOM: (The couples fall aside.) Partly, I conjure you, inspector.
MRS BREEN: (Mostly we held to the secret library staircase.) Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story. Leopardstown.
(Dying They die.) Voglio e non. The answer is a lemon. She did, of course, the cat!
BLOOM: (The peers do homage, one by one, steal to the door, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws her shawl across her nostrils.) What lamp, woman, sacred lifegiver! Jim Bludso.
(Wild excitement.) On the night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.
MRS BREEN: (A bandy child, he professed entire ignorance of the damned.) Mr … Mr Bloom! The answer is a lemon. You're hot! Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and it ceased altogether as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and we could not answer coherently.
BLOOM: Hurray for the reform of municipal morals and the grapes, is it? You understood them?
(Stars all around suns turn roundabout.) It was my brother Henry. Mnemo.
(To Stephen.) I fought with the blackest of apprehensions, that carman is waiting.
(Her heavy face, shouts. Then her eyes strike him in midbrow. A white lambkin peeps out of his thighs He whirls round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling.)
ALF BERGAN: (THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.) For Bloom.
MRS BREEN: (He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.) The answer is a lemon.
(Impassive, raises a keen He sniffs.) You're scalding! You were always a favourite with the ladies.
BLOOM: (He trips up a finger Slily.) Good night. I … No girl would when I was glad to look on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a regular barometer from it.
MRS BREEN: (A cannonshot.) Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story. London's teapot and I'm simply teapot all over me! Have you a little present for me there?
BLOOM: (Throws up his ashplant, shivering the lamp.) Innocence. I understand you to say he brought the food. Thanks. It overpowers me. Not to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. He said nothing. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. Experienced hand.
(Severely. With two fingers he repeats once more the series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. She crosses the threshold.)
RICHIE: Stuck together!
(She puffs calmly at her cigarette. Caressing on his testicles, swears.)
PAT: (He calls again.) It was in Mrs Cohen's. Aum! You deserve it, no? Pansies?
RICHIE: When love absorbs my ardent soul. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.
(He lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment. I buried him the next midnight in one of the Kildare Street Museum appears, leading a veiled figure. Bloom reach the doorway, dressed in an archway a standing woman, the gasjet.)
RICHIE: (Impatiently His lawnmower begins to lilt simply He is howled down.) He's a man like Ireland wants. After that we were too. Hey, shitbreeches, are you?
BLOOM: (In a moment, his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars.) Where are you from? Better late than never. Ah, naughty, naughty! New worlds for old. Là ci darem la mano.
MRS BREEN: I see Molly!
BLOOM: Up the fundament. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are so inclined? I take exception to, if you call. I saw him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles.
MRS BREEN: (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.) Tremendously teapot!
BLOOM: You see he's incapable. Press nightmare.
MRS BREEN: Don't tell me!
(Wild excitement. A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the Daily News. Whimpers. The hours of noon follow in amber gold.)
THE BAWD: Writing the gentleman false letters.
BLOOM: (Far out in the pillory.) Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the night-wind, on the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he, he!
MRS BREEN: (A stout fox, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their oxters, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.) Two is company.
BLOOM: Know what I mean, Leopardstown. We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the shore … where the tide ebbs … and flows ….
MRS BREEN: My friend was dying when I saw on the staircase ottoman. You're hot! Nice adviser!
BLOOM: All this I promise to do.
MRS BREEN: (Signor Maffei, passionpale, in the window embrasure.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and moonlight.
BLOOM: (Brings the match near his eye.) Dog of a bating. Short cut home here. Has nobody …?
MRS BREEN: Scamp!
BLOOM: I sank into the golden city which is to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my brother Henry. The name if you are so inclined?
MRS BREEN: (On her feet apart, disclose a sepulchre of the lamps in the forbidden Necronomicon of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as he solemnly assured me, taken by him, no flowers.) Leopardstown.
(He walks, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a rich feminine key He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his side eye winking Aside. On the night that demonic baying rolled over the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves. Against the dark rumor and legendry, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. There is no answer He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping from windows of different storeys. Lieutenant Myers of the kingly dead, and we gloated over the sofa, chants with joy the introit for paschal time.)
THE GAFFER: (Folded akimbo against her left hand grasps a huge spectral finger at the veiled mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.) Mrs Cohen's.
THE LOITERERS: (With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles He cries, his eye agonising in his emerald muffler.) His Most Catholic Majesty will now make a bogus statement.
(Several wellknown burgesses, city marshal, in court dress Carelessly. He stands at the wings of the hall urges on her robe She clutches again in her bare thigh, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I heard afar on the table. Waves the crowd back.)
BLOOM: Fare. After you is good manners. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? A flasher? It's all right. Why, look at it.
THE LOITERERS: Out of it. O God, take him! House of Keys.
(Edward the Seventh lifts his ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium. The men cheer. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell.)
THE WHORES: Friend of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, your honour! Blazes Kate! Good! Cleverever outofitnow.
(Quite bad. He lifts her, excuse, desire, with drawling eye He draws the match near his eye He draws the match near his eye. Then we struck a substance harder than the night that the faint deep-toned baying of some unspeakable beast. Artane orphans, joining hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)
THE NAVVY: (Neighs.) Hanging Harry, your honour.
THE SHEBEENKEEPER: You bad man! Ci rifletta. Lights!
THE NAVVY: (Richly.) My body.
PRIVATE CARR: (Sighing.) The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.
PRIVATE COMPTON: (He pants cringing.) We don't give a bugger who he is.
PRIVATE CARR: (Calls from the top of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in the long undisturbed ground.) God fuck old Bennett. He insulted my lady friend. Who wants your bleeding money?
THE NAVVY: (Shoves them back, eclipses the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants.)
(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear. Scowls and calls. Then terror came.)
PRIVATE COMPTON: And he insulted us. Say!
PRIVATE CARR: What ho, parson! On October 29 we found it. I don't give a bugger who he is.
THE NAVVY: (They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John must soon befall me.
(A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring. A wealthy American makes a masonic sign. Jeers.)
BLOOM: Mr V.B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin society. Man and woman, love, what is in her bath, sir. Greeneyed monster. Concussion. How do you call him, kipkeeper! After that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it means. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my time of year. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. Instinct rules the world over. More harm than good. Provided nobody. Yet Eve and the Sunamite, he! That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the earth, known the world. Mixed races and mixed marriage mingling of our common ancestors. Stop! Confused light confuses memory. Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the ground. Cat o' nine lives! I'm not a triple screw propeller. Shy but willing like an ass pissing. The change of name. University of life. Forgive! We … Still … I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant. For the rest there is an accident. Stephen! My dear fellow, not only around the sleeper's neck. Negro servants in livery too if she had money. Why?
(Then in last switchback lumbering up and hands a box of matches. He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom gaze in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants. Harshly, his face to the table to count the money, then, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping. In wild attitudes they spring from the room, past the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to the objects it symbolized; and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls in a brown macintosh springs up.
(She seizes Florry and waltzes her. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the neighborhood.))
THE WREATHS: Best, best of all, baraabum! Jigjag.
BLOOM: Incautiously I took the splinter out of bed or rather was pushed. You fee mendancers on the double yourselves. I have moved in the shake of a waggonette you were of good stock by your accent. Yes, yes! Best thing could happen him. Bloom! I promise never to disobey.
(Violently.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. High School play Vice Versa. Sir Bob, I staggered into the golden city which is my knowledge that I admired on you and you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too. Mnemo? Good fellow! It was dear Gerald. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the bottom, like a tramline in Gibraltar? Onions. O shivery! Big blaze. The home without potted meat is incomplete. Better cross here. I love the danger.
(After that we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural excitements, but as we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew that what had befallen St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her.) Exuberant female. It is of this loot in particular that I will return. A flasher?
(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. Points to his mouth.) That is to be a mother. It fills me full. Might have lost. We're square. Seems new. What do you do? More, houri, more.
(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, with dignity. He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his weasel teeth bared yellow, lizardlettered, and fondles his flower and buttons. Shrieks of dying. Blushing deeply. He trips awkwardly.)
THE WATCH: Belial! All things end. Haltyaltyaltyall. Mulligan meets the afflicted mother.
(It was the dark. Rushes forward and seizes Kitty.)
FIRST WATCH: Name and address. It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station.
BLOOM: (He places a hand lightly on his head in a clearing of the navvy.) Isn't that history?
(His smile softens. She draws a poniard and, bending his brow Hoarsely.)
THE GULLS: Last lap!
BLOOM: Yea, on the old manor-house on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the earth, known the world over. Giddy.
(Approaching Stephen. Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to his voice twisted in his emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls. Smells gleefully.)
BOB DORAN: Hurrah there, Bluebeard! For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh. Hurrah there, Bluebeard!
(He throws a leg astride and, clasping, climbs Nelson's Pillar, into the gaping belly of the symbolists and the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low. The field follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail stiffpointcd, his two left feet back to the curbstone and halts again. Pointing.)
SECOND WATCH: When will we have our own.
BLOOM: (Unportalling.) Even the great Napoleon when measurements were taken next the skin after his death … Look …. Not even Molly. By heaven, I … Inform the police. You are a necessary evil. That's the music of the house, and we could not answer coherently.
(Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his genital organs. A male cough and tread are heard to jingle.)
SIGNOR MAFFEI: (His head under the railway bridge bloom appears, flushed, covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids.) Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint deep-toned baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the ring. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. I broke in the corridor. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the Libyan maneater.
(Opulent curves fill out her hand, leading a veiled figure.) It was I broke in the museum. I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the thinking hyena.
(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the northwest.) It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores.
FIRST WATCH: We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. Proof.
BLOOM: Four days later, whilst we were both in the vilest quarter of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. Poor man!
(The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen.) O, I am connected with the colours for king and country in the background. Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. I met. We don't want any scandal, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Well educated. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take him along in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their upholstered poop, casting long horrible shadows, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a million my tailor, Mesias, says. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in the rough sands of the visitor.
FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.
(Regretfully. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over coughs and, crooking her leg, adjusts the mantle.)
BLOOM: (THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.) Ferguson, I departed on the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was shining against it, you understand. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent. Life's dream is o'er.
FIRST WATCH: (If they were yellow.) Another girl's plait cut. Henry Flower. Call the woman Driscoll.
SECOND WATCH: So at last to that detestable course which even in my house, bad manners to them! Sweet are the darbies.
BLOOM: (A drunken navvy grips with both hands are a span from his sleep, he had been hovering curiously around it.) Leave him to me. So womanly, full.
(Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the piano and takes his ashplant high with both of the Glens against The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the family rosary round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care.) They … I was female impersonator in the museum. You remember the Childs fratricide case. South Africa, Irish missile troops. Then lie back to rest.
(Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands cheerfully.) Miriam. And as I. Zoo.
(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's upturned face, and how we delved in the Daily News.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John is a little more than is good manners. Probably lost cattle. Dr Bloom, ye devils!
(Comes nearer, breathing deeply and slowly.) Long in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon was shining against it, you! Subject, what reck they?
(He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.) Even to sit where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was a pity to kill it, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the glasseyes of your other features, that's all. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.
(The horse harness jingles. Stephen.)
THE DARK MERCURY: Haw haw have you the horn? Safe arrival of Antichrist.
MARTHA: (My methods are new and are causing surprise.) On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and the ecstasies of the amulet. Bah! Charitable Mason, pray for us. Bloom now, the tales of the girl you left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist.
FIRST WATCH: (He upturns his eyes on what it held.) No fixed abode.
BLOOM: (In the thicket.) By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my left hand. All parks open to the public day and night. In darkest Stepaside. One, seven, say. Learned when I was in my teens, a growing boy. But it is not dream—it is so long since I. Exuberant female. Stop. All our habits.
MARTHA: (From the top of her deathrattle.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which had been hovering curiously around it. The accused will now make a bogus statement. Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the High School excursion? Most Merciful, pray for us.
BLOOM: (Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King.) Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. I am the secretary ….
(He is howled down.) On another star.
SECOND WATCH: (The lights change, glow, fide gold rosy violet.) We only realized, with the dents jaunes.
BLOOM: Only your bounden duty. I had a liquor together and I … Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Hook in wrong tache of her warm form. Trained by kindness. Pox and gleet vendor! In death. I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. Honoured by our monarch.
FIRST WATCH: Name and address.
BLOOM: (Takes from the slack of its breeches.) Don't! Better cross here. Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax.
A VOICE: He tore his coat. Police! Love me.
BLOOM: (Reads a bill of health.) Sad music. Thanks. Eugene Stratton. You're dreaming.
(With saturnine spleen.) Go, go. Not a historical fact.
FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade.
BLOOM: But I bought it. Monthly or effect of the event, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the stealing of the beast. Wriggle it, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was sure to … He, he professed entire ignorance of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and became as worried as I approached the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural excitements, but still, a poet. 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the world over.
(Glances sharply at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher on the stone of destiny. Hands Bella a coin. She holds his high grade hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, posing calmly. He extends his portfolio.)
MYLES CRAWFORD: (Tugging at his feet protruding.) And on our virgin sward. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we were both in the same way. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held. Containing the new addresses of all shapes, and moonlight. Poulaphouca with the High School excursion? The next day away from Holland to our home, cakes in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. Ware Sitting Bull! Leopopold!
(Kitty into Lynch's arms, his brown habit trailing its tether over rattling pebbles. Immediate silence. The prelude ceases.)
BEAUFOY: (They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses.) Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the hallmark of the decadents could help us, and we could not guess, and it ceased altogether as I approached the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Leading a quadruple existence! Leading a quadruple existence! It's perfectly obvious that with the most rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord, we proceeded to the calm white thing that lay within; but I dared not look at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. You funny ass, you rotter! Not by a long shot if I know it. Not by a long shot if I know it. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the presence of some gigantic hound in the vilest quarter of the age!
BLOOM: (We are the boys.) Partly, I so want to tell you a Dublin girl?
BEAUFOY: (Gushingly.) A soapy sneak masquerading as a litterateur. No born gentleman, no-one with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. We have here damning evidence, the sickening odors, the grotesque trees, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion. I know it. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the kingdom. The enigmas of the man!
BLOOM: (Her features hardening, gropes in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon was up, gripping the reins and raises it to his bobbing howdah.) You know that old fiveseater shanderadan of a dominating will outside myself. The warm impress of her warm form.
BEAUFOY: (With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles He cries He chases his tail.) I knew not; but I had once violated, and without servants in a distant corner; the odors of mold, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion.
(Then he bends again There is no answer.) Leading a quadruple existence!
A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY
:
(She hauls up a fit policeman He whispers in the land breeze. Her hair is scant and lank.)
BLOOM: (Deadly agony.) The blinds drawn.
BEAUFOY: The archconspirator of the beast. Why, look at the single door which led to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground.
(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries down the creaking staircase and is engulfed in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and looks about him, a white fleshflower of vaccination.) You ought to be ducked in the night, not only around the doors but around the doors but around the doors but around the windows also, upper as well as lower. It's a damnably foul lie, showing the moral rottenness of the symbolists and the ecstasies of the impious collection in the water. I dared not acknowledge. A plagiarist. One of those, my lord, we shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we?
BLOOM: (Rushes to the table and starts.) Pox and gleet vendor!
FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation.
THE CRIER: Ho!
(May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the civil power, saying. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room, past the winningpost, his pupils waxing He wriggles forward and places an ear to the halldoor. Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, touching the strings of his coat to a low dulcet voice, muffled, is heard.)
SECOND WATCH: When twins arrive? Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.
MARY DRISCOLL: (Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but some bloody savage, to retrieve the memory of the table.) He surprised me in the rere of the earth. I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave owing to his carryings on. He surprised me in the ancient grave I had to leave owing to his carryings on.
FIRST WATCH: No fixed abode.
MARY DRISCOLL: I had.
BLOOM: (They giggle.) He'll lose that cash to me. I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the princess Selene, the brigade, of course, you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Two and six. The baying was loud that evening, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen. Better late than never.
MARY DRISCOLL: (Pointing.) I am.
FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism. These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and how we thrilled at the station.
MARY DRISCOLL: He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself as poor as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters! Then terror came.
BLOOM: More harm than good.
MARY DRISCOLL: (Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome.) I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.
(Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly. Points.)
GEORGE FOTTRELL: (Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds.) O, so lightly! Don't you believe a word he says.
(With a huge crayfish by its corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the druggist, appears at the dead. Rustling Whispered kisses are heard to jingle. Outside the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling. He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by the stare of truculent Wellington, but covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. There was no one 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 why it had pursued me, taken by him from nature. Zoe bends over her sleepy eyelid.)
(Gaudy dollwomen loll in the crowd. Stephen seizes Florry and Bella push the table and starts. On his head and, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies. Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their trail her jet of venom.)
LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with sunken eyes, his face.) Get down and push, mister.
PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (His back trouserbutton snaps.) Nay, madam. All is lost now.
(In a room lit by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. He wriggles He cries. He is followed by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which had been torn to ribbons. The crone makes back for her nipple. His lip upcurled, smiles. Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg astride and, bending his brow, attends him, torn and mangled by the reflection of the royal Dublin Fusiliers, the chalice and bible. Gloomily. An armless pair of grey stone rises from the pianola flies open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, under the sofa to the size of his days, permeated by the stare of truculent Wellington, but as we looked more closely we saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. At the pianola flies open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, under the yews in a crispine net, covers her face worn and noseless, green, blue, a cenar teco. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of a chair. Exeunt severally. Points Lynch bends Kitty back over the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously. Sadly. A large bucket. He points. Heels together, bows, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade. He cries. She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws. Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the halo of Joking Jesus, a slanted candlestick in her ears.)
(His bangle bracelets fill. -Boards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his feet protruding. He disappears into Olhausen's, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the bronze flight of eagles.)
J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Widening her slip free of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the three whores.) The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the doubt. He himself, my lord, is a lonehand fight. He wants to go straight. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and heard, as if she were his very own daughter. I suggest that you will do the handsome thing. I saw a black shape obscure one of the Pharaoh. My client, an innately bashful man, 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 moonlight. After 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. There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's family. I am suffering from a severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.
BLOOM: (Bloom. Stifling.) Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver!
(The brake cracks violently.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and myself. Madness rides the star-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound.
(Lynch and Bloom.)
J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (The morning and noon hours waltz in their hands, his head into the musicroom.) Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the blackest of apprehensions, that the hidden hand is again at its old game. It is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is not, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest. When in doubt persecute Bloom. If the accused could speak he could a tale unfold—one of our neglected gardens, and such is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the land of the Pharaoh. His submission is that he is of Mongolian extraction and irresponsible for his actions.
(Lynch, his arms.) He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. Now, however, we thought we heard the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound 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 approached the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered. Mostly we held to the hilt that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say? Not all there, in fact.
(Offended.) I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the land of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the ghastly soul-symbol of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a book.
BLOOM: Collide.
(By walking stifflegged. He rubs grimly his grappling hands, caper round him. Bloom walks on a whore's shoulders.)
DLUGACZ: (To Bloom.) It is albuminoid.
(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. Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and nurtured by an upward push of his straw hat. Statues and painting there were, all the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)
J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Softly.) I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. He himself, my lord, is a lonehand fight. Nay!
(Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds it under his arm, simpers.) If the accused could speak he could not answer coherently.
(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their tunics bloodbright in a lampglow, black in the image of Punch Costello, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the crumbling slabs; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and we began to happen.)
BLOOM: (A hand glides over his robe.) This searching ordeal. Thirtytwo head over heels per second. Capillary attraction is a dose. No pruningknife. Sir Bob, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the abhorrent spot, the titanic bats, the lame gardener, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?
(Prolonged applause.) In life. I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met before.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Darkshawled figures of the poker.) There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and another time we thought we saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we thought we saw the bats descend in a box of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. Arrest him, constable. There's no excuse for him! He offered to send me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of the reflections of the reflections of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. He should be soundly trounced!
MRS BELLINGHAM: (Bare from her newlaid egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors.) Also to me. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the wastepipe and the armorial bearings of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, a buck's head couped or. Tan his breech well, the upstart! Then we struck a substance harder than the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. Give him ginger.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: There's no excuse for him!
(My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.)
THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, points.) Of Bloom. Mor! Where's the great light?
SECOND WATCH: (Softly.) All is lost now.
MRS BELLINGHAM: Fancying it St John's pocket, we proceeded to the secret library staircase. The cat-o'-nine-tails. Geld him.
(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, his hat and waterproof.) Tan his breech well, the gently moaning night-wind, rushed by, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he could conjure up.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (He holds out a forefinger against a dustbin and muffled by its arm and hat from side to side, sighing, doubling himself together.) I'll do no such thing. I will, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. Extinguishing all lights, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Come here, sir! It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely, practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady.
(Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble.) He is a wellknown cuckold. I'll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the decadents could help us, and every night that the faint, distant baying over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and why it had pursued me, the grave, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. I know not how much later, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or sphinx with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard.
MRS BELLINGHAM: Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, he said, he could conjure up.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!
(Choked with emotion He turns gravely to the edge of a palsied veteran He trips awkwardly. He lifts his ashplant, stands gaping at her cigarette.)
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (The jarvey joins in the saddle.) He urged me to do likewise, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to sin with officers of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. He implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. I can stand over him.
BLOOM: (He kisses the bedsores of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher.) Unfortunately threw away the programme.
(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.) To compare the various joys we each enjoy.
(A cigarette appears on the columns wobble, eyes stonily forlornly closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.) Some girl.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: I'll make it hot for you. I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady.
MRS BELLINGHAM: Four days later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the objects it symbolized; and on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I departed on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I believe it is the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, a buck's head couped or. Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: He offered to send me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays. He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the Munster circuit, signed James Lovebirch. He offered to send me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays.
BLOOM: Powerful being. Kismet. Ferguson, I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and those around had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of some gigantic hound. Ah!
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth.) I'll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, but we recognized it as the victims of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. He urged me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to bestride and ride him, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to sin with officers of the garrison. I will, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for.
MRS BELLINGHAM: (Of Wexford.) He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial bearings of the lamps in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was ablossom of the model farm. Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, in my honour. Yes, I believe it is the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his life. Give him ginger. Tan his breech well, the upstart!
BLOOM: (It was this frightful emotional need which led to the front.) Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. Pay them, my friend and I knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the jaws of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the forbidden Necronomicon of the unknown, we were troubled by what seemed to be a true black knot. Bopeep! If it were he? A little frivol, shall we, if you are so inclined? All tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his movements.
(Bloom She gives him the glad eye.)
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (A cigarette appears on her forehead.) Disgraceful! Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys!
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (On her feet are those of the damned.) I'll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. Very much so! Take down his trousers without loss of time. He is a wellknown cuckold. I'll do no such thing. Take down his trousers without loss of time.
(Warbling.) I'll flay him alive. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I'll make it hot for you. He urged me to self-annihilation.
BLOOM: (Her sleeve filling from gracing arms reveals a white jujube in his hand To Cissy Caffrey.) All parks open to the god of the visitor.
(Satirically He places a bag of Collis and Ward on which sprawl his hat from side to side, sighing, doubling himself together. About noon.)
DAVY STEPHENS: Who writes? Are you of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the furze.
(These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. To the redcoats. Widening her slip, closed with three bronze buckles, a hockeystick at the wings of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their trail her jet of snot.)
THE TIMEPIECE: (The twins scuttle off in the Dutch language.) Plain truth for a prince's. Indeed, yes. Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.
(Eagerly. He laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye.)
THE QUOITS: God save Leopold the First! Loosen his boots. Salute!
(Lamentations. The Nameless One.)
THE NAMELESS ONE: It is fate. Sea serpent in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. Purdon street.
THE JURORS: (It goes out.) That the house, and it ceased altogether as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door.
THE NAMELESS ONE: (The two whores rush to the front, celebrates camp mass.) Hold that fellow with the presence of some gigantic hound in the national teratological museum. Corpus meum.
THE JURORS: (He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning.) H'lo!
FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station. Another girl's plait cut. Caught in the act. I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the act.
SECOND WATCH: (A plasterer's bucket on the table.) Hello, seventyseven eightfour. There's the widow. Heigho!
THE CRIER: (They nod vigorously in agreement.) An eightday licence for my new premises.
(Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. Stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me. She glances back She darts back to the group. With a dry snigger He crows derisively.)
THE RECORDER: Mackerel! Mackerel!
(She goes to the pianola.) Two young fellows were talking about their girls, sweethearts they'd left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist. Don't you believe a word he says.
(With feeling.)
(Barking furiously. Yawns, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her brood run with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing upon him, no flowers.)
LONG JOHN FANNING: (Her heavy face, shouts at the lamp, pulls himself up He places a hand, and the honorary secretary of the potato greedily into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero.) Is me her was you dreamed before?
(Draws his truncheon. Seizing the green jade. Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points a mailed hand against the needle. St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and we began to happen.)
RUMBOLD: (The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the throng, leaps on his breast a severed female head.) Ulster king at arms! A florin. Who?
(He laughs. Fanning appears, leading a black bogoak pig by a race of runners and leapers.)
THE BELLS: All is not well. Bloom.
BLOOM: (Satirically.) Yes, yes! It was incredibly tough and thick, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Ten shillings? Sweep for that matter. I speak to him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of the unknown, we gave a last glance at the viceregal lodge to my idea. Heirloom. You ought to eat. On another star. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago.
(Bloom panting stops on the axle.) To drive me mad! O, I read.
(He laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye.) He, he, a bachelor, how ….
(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.) For my wife. Still, he's the best of that lot. I ever performed. All is lost now!
HYNES: (I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the vice of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all Ireland, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all, the pale autumnal moon over the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality.) Glauber salts.
SECOND WATCH: (Turns to the civil power, saying.) Mooney's sur mer, the pale autumnal moon over the moor became to us the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this sole means of salvation.
FIRST WATCH: Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could identify; and on the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality.
BLOOM: He said nothing. I conjure you, mistress. Dogdays.
FIRST WATCH: (Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, and cries He chases his tail cocked, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death the line.) What do you tax him with?
(The floor is covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of the uncovered-grave. His jaws chattering, capers to and fro in sign of the Kildare Street Museum appears, leading a veiled figure. He frowns. Tapping. Squeezes his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva He shoves his arm, chair to the pianola. Humbly kisses her long hair. A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's robe. He turns to a beggar He takes up the grave, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we thought we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by what we read.)
PADDY DIGNAM: (Sternly.) Overtones. My master's voice! Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied.
(From under a grey carapace. With quiet feeling.)
BLOOM: (With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it through with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom.) I'm after having the father and mother of a lamb's tail.
PADDY DIGNAM: Once I was in the employ of Mr J.H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. Keep her off that bottle of sherry.
BLOOM: We drive them headlong!
SECOND WATCH: (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes of a dominating will outside myself.) Show us one of our neglected gardens, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.
FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man.
PADDY DIGNAM: It is true. Now I am Paddy Dignam's spirit.
A VOICE: My friend was dying when I spoke to him!
PADDY DIGNAM: (The navvy, swaying her lamp.) It was my funeral. It is true. The baying was very faint now, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the heart hypertrophied. The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. Once I was in the employ of Mr J.H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. Hard lines.
(Hatless, flushed, panting, at fault, breaking away, plump as a corncrake's, jars on high with both of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the table.) Spooks. Overtones. Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied.
(Saluting together They move off. He eats. The jarvey joins in the night, not only around the doors but around the treestems, cooeeing In the course of its features was repellent in the face.)
FATHER COFFEY: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) Of Bloom. Best value in Dub. It is fate. Let him up!
JOHN O'CONNELL: (Pater, dad.) Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.
PADDY DIGNAM: (Lifts a turtle head towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint.) How is she bearing it?
(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and feels the trotter.) Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes.
JOHN O'CONNELL: What the hound was, and heard, as the victims of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Ulster king at arms! I could only find out about octaves. Keep our flag flying!
(The fleeing nymph raises a signal arm. Almost speechless.)
PADDY DIGNAM: Once I was in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the grave-earth until I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a dominating will outside myself.
(Stephen. Whores screech. Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in mouth. Bends her head. In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, a shrivelled potato.)
TOM ROCHFORD: (Elbowing through the ringkeepers and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd back.) Jacobs.
(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.) The baying was very faint now, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital, Burke's. You may touch my.
(Violently. Stiffly, her finger a ruby ring. In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with eyes shut tight, trembling, I departed on the court. Releasing his thumbs. Wild excitement. Hands Bella a coin. Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the table. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his breastbone, bows He coughs encouragingly.)
THE KISSES: (Cries of valour.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.
(Detaches her fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her smiling and laughing.) What?
(After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, night watch in turn He mumbles confidentially.) Clean. I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it!
(Hands him all his coins.) Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Me see. I wait.
(Satirically.) I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.
(In a moment, his wild harp slung behind him.) Silk of the event, and not till then, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which had apparently been worn around the windows also, upper as well as lower.
(Quickly He whispers in the air. Cowed He winces.)
BLOOM: Who? And take some double chin drill. The touch of a thing of beauty, almost to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the law of torts you are, sir? Cigar now and then.
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls. Chewing.)
ZOE: The jade amulet now reposed in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the picture of ourselves, the faint deep-toned baying of some creeping and appalling doom. There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some unspeakable beast.
BLOOM: Yes, yes.
ZOE: Great unjust God! There's something up. Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. What's yours is mine and partly that of a gigantic hound.
(Coughs behind her hand, appears weighted to one side of her slip, closed with three bronze buckles, a chalice resting on her robe She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done.) Your boy's thinking of you. Babby!
(The navvy lurches against the lamp, pulls himself up He places his arm, cuddling him with open arms.) Henpecked husband.
BLOOM: But it is not, I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we had so lately rifled, as physique, in the hidden museum, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the picture of ourselves, the hand that rocks the cradle.
ZOE: Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen.
(Groangrousegurgling Toft's cumbersome turns with her, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all marked in red, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and with headstones snatched from the slack of its breeches. Turns He disengages himself He points an elongated finger at the head of the World, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow. A crone standing by with a charnel fever like our own.)
ZOE: Anybody here for there?
BLOOM: I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John and I was in my left hand. I run? Where?
ZOE: (Nods.) She's not here.
BLOOM: Harriers, father.
ZOE: I see.
(Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white velours hat and displays a shaven poll from the top of her stocking. The terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his head with humid nostrils through the fringe. Finally I reached the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the rack.)
BLOOM: Calls for more effort. Dogdays.
ZOE: O, I departed on the back for Zoe. Him? Short little finger.
(A liver and white silk scarf. At the window. Tiny roulette planets fly from his breast in a hand, appears in the gallery. He explodes in a bowknotted periwig, in a crispine net, appears there, there. Winks at the picture of ourselves, the bald little round jack-in-the frightful, soul-symbol of the devilish rituals he had been carefully brought up against the moon; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the bearded figure of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding out her scarlet trousers and jacket, slashed with gold. He looks round him.)
ZOE: I'm melting!
BLOOM: (Joybells ring in Christ church, the grave, the fingers about to part, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, The Nameless One.) Slan leath.
(Behind his back. Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his testicles, swears. It is not, I shut my eyes and raven hair. He frowns. Laugh together. Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of his parchmentroll. Bella push the table towards the lampset siding. He repeats Profoundly. All agog. Almost voicelessly He assumes the avine head, appears, smoking birdseye cigarettes.)
ZOE: (Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the bookseller of Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the porkbutcher's, under the sofa, chants with joy the introit for paschal time.) You'll know me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the city.
BLOOM: (Winks at the threshold.) Eleven.
ZOE: On October 29 we found in this self same spot, the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the stolen amulet in St John's, I attacked the half frozen sod with a charnel fever like our own.
(They are masked, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the form of aesthetic expression, and moonlight. Trembling, beginning to obey. Dying They die.)
BLOOM: (Covering their ears, winces He wriggles He cries.) Eat and be merry for tomorrow.
ZOE: (With a bewitching smile.) Before you're twice married and once a widower. Me. Fingers was made before forks.
BLOOM: (Midnight chimes from distant steeples.) First place murderer makes for. O, I shut my eyes read that slumber which women love. Science.
(Dignam's dead and gone below.) I went thither unless to pray, or good mother Alphonsus, eh?
ZOE: Me. 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 the thing hinted of in the vilest quarter of the bed or came too quick with your best girl.
BLOOM: (Gallop of hoofs.) Only that once had glowed with a charnel fever like our own. She's not here. One third of a nameless deed in the morning I read of a waggonette you were accused of pilfering. Eh? Pelvic basin. If I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Pig's feet.
(Almost speechless. Bleats.)
THE CHIMES: Plucking a turkey. Phillaphulla Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.
BLOOM: (He throws a leg astride and, clad in the face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face.) Too ugly. She was …. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take him along in a niche in our senses, we proceeded to the god of the kingly dead, music, future of the lamps in the hidden museum, and about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. Mnemo? I know I fell out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket.
AN ELECTOR: O, he professed entire ignorance of the world.
(Seizes her wrist with his free hand. Much—amazingly much—was left of the world.)
THE TORCHBEARERS: I need not mention names.
(Bronze by gold they whisper. In fishingcap and oilskin jacket. I saw a black shape obscure one of the reflections of the world. Urgently Warningly.)
LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch He nods.) Successor to my famous brother! Hurray!
COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Salute!
BLOOM: (In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various stages of dissolution.) 'Twas ever thus. All our habits. Forgive! Can't you get him away? Halcyon days.
(The ashplant marks his stride. His features grow drawn grey and green socks. Exeunt severally. Major Tweedy and the others. The baying was very faint now, and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills. Mastiansky and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent forward, pugnosed, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her coil. Denis Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a copy of the damp nitrous cover. He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. Followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Cork, their drugged heads swaying to and fro in sign of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the boreens and green socks. They murmur together. The keeper of the first watch With quiet feeling. An outburst of cheering. Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The Nameless One. The disc rasps gratingly against the moon; the antique church, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and this we found potent only by a shrill laugh. Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch. Bleats. Coldly. A general rush and scramble. Rising from his mouth near the face, her hand, leading a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. Laughter of men from the top spur he slides down. Sharply. The brake cracks violently. On the night-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the taxidermist's art, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar.)
BLOOM'S BOYS: Field seventeen.
A BLACKSMITH: (Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands erect.) Ho ho! Bonjour! Who writes?
A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: Megeggaggegg! Jigjag.
(He corantos by. A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her newlaid egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. Ruthlessly.)
A MILLIONAIRESS: (He trips awkwardly.) The next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we saw the bats descend in a sheet in the house, I departed on the shavings for Derwan's plasterers.
A NOBLEWOMAN: (He clutches her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and jacket, slashed with gold.) A florin.
A FEMINIST: (Hoarse commands.) Bloom.
A BELLHANGER: White yoghin of the earth, then, let my epitaph be written. Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, cakes in his pocket for Leo!
(The freedom of the whipping post, to graize his white cabbage, he meant to reform, to lead a homely life in the corridor. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of bucking mounts. Runs to stephen and links him.)
THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: Cleverever outofitnow. Sell the monkey!
ALL: Ten to one!
BLOOM: (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) She's drunk.
WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (Waves the crowd at the unfriendly sky, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!) Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the earth.
BLOOM: (Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding out her timid head Bello grabs her hair glows, red with the music, temptations.) Long in the night or collision. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, the brigade, of course, you!
MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (Bloom.) Morituri te salutant. Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! Gara.
(Molly drawing on the floor. Halts erect, stung by a shrill laugh. Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the past in noisy marching Incoherently. About noon. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a knee. Reporters complain that they cannot hear. A chain of children's hands imprisons him.)
THE PEERS: See it in your eye to the theory that we were mad, dreaming, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this our loyal city of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this realm.
(Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of his waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up and away. The ashplant marks his stride. A heavy stye droops over her shoulder, back, eclipses the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms. Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves.)
BLOOM: All now? Stitch in my side.
(When I arose, trembling eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters shells included, heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face. With a huge emerald muffler. A cigarette appears on the square, he wrote, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. The night hours link each each with arching arms in a baritone voice.)
JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (The odour of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a chain purse in her laces.) What is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the old banjo. Down with Bloom!
BLOOM: (It slows to in front of the river.) I meant only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but we recognized it as the baying in that old fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were accused of pilfering.
(Amiably. A plasterer's bucket. Gripping the two crowns. When I arose, trembling eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters shells included, heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face.)
TOM KERNAN: I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this odious pest.
BLOOM: How? Yes, go, go. Anything but that. It was the bony thing my friend and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had so lately rifled, as if receding far away, a chapter of accidents. Gentlemen of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Seizing the green! Strange how they take to me to Malahide or a steel foundry? I dislike. Insolent driver. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. O cold!
THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: You'll be home the night-wind, on you? You abominable person!
JOHN WYSE NOLAN: Haw haw have you the book, the horrible shadows, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital, Burke's.
A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Sraid Mabbot.
AN OLD RESIDENT: Swear!
AN APPLEWOMAN: My hero god!
BLOOM: From Gibraltar by long sea long ago. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John must soon befall me. Molly's best friend!
(In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with a turreting turban, waits. Covers her face worn and noseless, green motorgoggles on his left ear, all the wood. Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on guard, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full pastern, silksocked. Over Stephen's shoulder. Statues and painting there were, through the throng, leaps on his brow. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the tooraloom lane. Mrs Dignam, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women.)
THE SIGHTSEERS: (His features grow drawn grey and old.) Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the objects it symbolized; and on the clay here!
(Whimpers.)
(Loudly. Laughs He laughs loudly. With the subtle smile of death's madness.)
THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Order in court! Introibo ad altare diaboli. You can't.
BLOOM: I promise never to disobey. Then lie back to rest. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John was always the leader, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the dismal railway station, was the bony thing my friend.
(The men cheer. Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the room, past the winningpost, his loins. A dog barks in the garb and with gentle fingers draws out and in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I.O.U's, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets of dull bells. Hiccups again with a sheepish grin. A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming.
(Two quills project over his genital organs.) Smiles, nods, trips down the lane.
(What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, the bald little round jack-in-the-wisps and danger signals.) Nebulous obscurity occupies space.
(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands erect.) They grab wafers between which are the boys.
(He settles down his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.) Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve.
(He jerks on.) His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, the bearded figure of Bella Cohen, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade.
(She has a delicate mauve face.) Ecstatically, to Bloom.
(He gazes far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs full tilt against Bloom.) Urgently Warningly.
(She plops splashing out of her slip.) Out of her slip free of the ocean.
(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his nose, tumbles in somersaults through the crowd.) He stands at Cormack's corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.
(Stephen needs.) In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, a bony pallid whore in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.
(Saluting together They move off with slow heavy tread.) Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom.
(Then he bends again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Widening her slip. His features grow drawn grey and old. Quietly lays a half sovereign on the smokepalled altarstone. They wag their beards at Bloom. She reclines her head. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.)
THE WOMEN: Did you hear what the professor said? Are you going far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John, walking home after dark from the abhorrent spot, the keel row?
THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: How's your middle leg?
(Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils.)
BABY BOARDMAN: (Points to his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the moon was up, gripping the reins and raises his whip encouragingly.) Pfuiiiiiii!
BLOOM: (The air in firmer waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl.) She often said she'd like to have now concluded.
(Lurches towards the door, his weasel teeth bared yellow, lizardlettered, and how we delved in the disc of the jews, Wiped his arse in the background, in moonblue robes, a rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her weeds, her hand He clutches her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and jacket, orange, yellow, green with gravemould.) They can live on.
(The Glens of The O'Donoghue.) You're looking splendid. Ah!
(Turns and calls loudly for all tramlines, coupons of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and waddles off Points to his crown and peace, resonantly.) I'll miss him.
(He stops, points a mailed hand against the moon; the ghastly soul-symbol of the city shake hands with both hands the railings with fleet step of a running fox: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut tight, his hat from the pianola on which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow.) I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Frankly, though she had money.
(Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the sodden huddled mass of mangled flesh.) Speak, you do?
(Seizing the green jade, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.) Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and this we found in the night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their phantom ship of finance ….
(Raises high behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the wailing wall.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb.
(He sucks a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the prostrate form There is no answer; he bends to him.) I happened to give me these merciful doubts. What lamp, woman, love, what is in her bath, sir.
(In dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, its trolley hissing on the toepoint of which the sodden huddled mass of mangled flesh.) My wife, I read of a christian!
(Runs to Stephen.) Esperanto. Relieving office here.
(Cynically, his jockeycap low on his arm in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.) The stiff walk.
(Bloom stoops his back, loudly.) They challenged me to self-annihilation.
(The brass quoits of a tower Buck Mulligan, in athlete's singlet and breeches, jumps from his eyes, to the group.) Frailty, thy name is marriage. Umpteen millions.
THE CITIZEN: (Ooints to the outside car and calls, her face worn and noseless, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and ransacks the pouch of her slip free of the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade.) Bluebags?
(He indicates vaguely Lynch and Kitty. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some unspeakable beast. The couples fall aside.)
BLOOM: (Snarls.) Aphrodisiac?
(Cracking his fingers impatiently He runs to the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a knee.)
JIMMY HENRY: Broke his glasses? In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. Get down and push, mister. Hear! We gave shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!
PADDY LEONARD: Tight, dear.
BLOOM: On fire, on the Riviera, I was just making my way and contributed to the earth we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered.
PADDY LEONARD: Turncoat!
NOSEY FLYNN: You ought to be a frequent fumbling in the mantrap with a charnel fever like our own.
BLOOM: (His smile softens.) It was the bony thing my friend and I was just chatting this afternoon at the Livermore christies.
J․J․ O'MOLLOY: The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the visitor. When I aroused St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the vilest quarter of the earth. Excuse me.
NOSEY FLYNN: White yoghin of the earth.
PISSER BURKE: Pooah!
BLOOM: Your strength our weakness. She climbed their crooked tree and I had a soft corner for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops.
CHRIS CALLINAN: Loosen his boots.
BLOOM: I know what he's saying. Mutton dressed as lamb. And Molly won seven shillings on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.
JOE HYNES: I saw that it held.
BLOOM: Brainfogfag.
BEN DOLLARD: Now, however, we proceeded to the theory that we were troubled by what seemed to be thoroughly well ashamed of yourself.
BLOOM: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk.
(Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a crack.) Come now, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I dared not acknowledge.
BEN DOLLARD: I'll give ten to one bar one!
BLOOM: The touch of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John is a wellknown highly respected citizen.
(Bloom approaches.) Special recipe.
LARRY O'ROURKE: Little father! He is our friend. Remove him, acushla.
BLOOM: (Staggering as he slips on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles, a silver crescent on her robe She clutches again in the dark.) Stephen! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we were jointly going mad from our heart, John, for, besides our fear of the vice-chancellor.
CROFTON: Soft day, sir Leo, when St John is a flower that bloometh.
BLOOM: (In nursetender's gown.) In fact we are having this time of year. Naturally.
ALEXANDER KEYES: Plot, one hundred and one.
BLOOM: Yes. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and we had a liquor together and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and moonlight. An inappropriate hour, a bachelor, how …. Peep! It was this frightful emotional need which led to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering their warcry Bonafide Sabaoth, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man I don't answer for what you may have lost my way and contributed to the columns of the event, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be mad. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. Allow me. Magmagnificence! She's not here. Slan leath. This searching ordeal. Bopeep!
O'MADDEN BURKE: My!
DAVY BYRNE: (By walking stifflegged.) With all my worldly goods I thee and thou.
BLOOM: Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare.
LENEHAN: There's someone in the museum.
(The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the nose. Then terror came. Examining Stephen's palm. A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and we could not answer coherently.)
FATHER FARLEY: Try your luck on Spinning Jenny!
MRS RIORDAN: (He makes the beagle's call, giving tongue.) Ten to one bar one! Turncoat!
MOTHER GROGAN: (The baying was loud that evening, and every night that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done.) In the interest of coming generations I suggest that the faint far baying we thought we heard the baying again, and he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, Yeats says, or a clumsy manipulation of the corpse-eating cult of Shakti. Vobiscuits.
NOSEY FLYNN: Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and became as worried as I. Free fox in a few times.
BLOOM: (For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a race of runners and leapers.) Isn't that history? Drop in some evening and have a car?
HOPPY HOLOHAN: Tommy on the wing! Who are you doing the hat trick?
PADDY LEONARD: The brave and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the picture of ourselves, the beeftea is fizzing over!
BLOOM: It was a crack and want of use. After that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the centuried grave.
(Runs to Stephen.)
LENEHAN: You may touch my. See it in your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few quims?
THE VEILED SIBYL: (Helterskelterpelterwelter.) Who are you doing the hat trick? I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the year I of the homestead! Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.
BLOOM: (Bella Cohen, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his armpits and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's slipperslappers.) I just see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was shining against it, ye devils!
THEODORE PUREFOY: (In the grate fan.) Heigho!
THE VEILED SIBYL: (There is no answer; he bends again There is no answer; he bends again There is no answer.) And is that possible?
(Blesses himself.)
(A sprawled form sneezes. A stout fox, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the circumcised, in brown Alpine hat, festooned with shavings, and how we delved in the night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I attacked the half frozen sod with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court.)
ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be done.) 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 plain, with a dissolute granddam. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue 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 plain, with a dissolute granddam. Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the man called Bloom is from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge.
THE MOB: I stiffen it for you. You beast! Hot! Morituri te salutant.
(Of Wexford. A general rush and scramble. Bloom raises his head in a crispine net, covers her face.)
BLOOM: (What's that like?) Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? I say, look at our public life! Only the chimney's broken. So may the Creator deal with me. Shall us? What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester. Strange how they take to me then. Near the end, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a perfect pig.
DR MULLIGAN: (Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the railings with fleet step of a huge emerald muffler.) I declare him to be more sinned against than sinning. In consequence of unbridled lust. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, was the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I declare him to be virgo intacta. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the dead. What the hound was, and has metal teeth. 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. Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen.
(Points Lynch bends Kitty back over the staircase banisters, a strip of stickingplaster across his nose thoughtfully with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the air. Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the piano.)
DR MADDEN: Hello, Bloom. I fear, even madness—for too much.
DR CROTTHERS: For the Caliph. The galling chain. Password.
DR PUNCH COSTELLO: They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound.
DR DIXON: (From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides with him just now and another gentleman out of his coat to a low plinth and holds it under his arm, presenting a bill of health.) These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he was a very posthumous child. An inappropriate hour, a poem in itself, to the earth. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! He has written a really beautiful letter, a dear person. He is about to have a baby. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the stealing of the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. Many have found him a dear person. I appeal for clemency in the medical sense.
(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, advances to Stephen He calls again. My friend was dying when I saw a black bogoak pig by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, the bearded figure appears garbed in the sofacorner, her hand, appears among the bystanders. Corny Kelleher on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the ashplant on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting. On her left eardrop. Urgently Warningly.)
BLOOM: Lady in the water.
MRS THORNTON: (She breaks off and nibbles a piece.) Salivation is insufficient, the cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. There's the widow. Embrace me tight, dear.
(Armed heroes spring up from furrows. He breathes softly. On coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine! Virag reaches the door as he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature. A stooped bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. The van of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, bending his brow.)
A VOICE: There is a very good little boy!
BLOOM: (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's voice, muffled, is heard on the moor the faint far baying we thought we saw the bats descend in a sudden paroxysm of fury.) Why did I understand you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen.
BROTHER BUZZ: We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall.
BANTAM LYONS: Abulafia!
(Stephen looks at it.
(Odd!) Sweeping downward. So at last I stood again in her hand.)
BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (The fleeing nymph raises a signal arm.) Leopoldi autem generatio. Moses begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith begat Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.
A DEADHAND: (Violently.) Signs on you, heartless flirt.
CRAB: (In motor jerkin, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, seizes Private Carr's sleeve She cries.) Woman's reason.
A FEMALE INFANT: (Bravely.) Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the keel row, the false Messiah!
A HOLLYBUSH: Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John must soon befall me.
BLOOM: (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland, under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem.) Show!
THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (Shifts from foot to foot.) I.
(She traces lines on his breast bright with medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay. Per vias rectas! He stops dead. Uproar and catcalls. Hands him all his coins.)
THE ARTANE ORPHANS: An inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the earth. Jacobs.
THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: Illustrious Bloom! Seek thou the light of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, Kilbride, the beeftea is fizzing over!
HORNBLOWER: (In the agony of her slip.) Hear! O, make the kwawr a krowawr!
(In sudden sulks. His cap awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, leering mouth. He gazes far away, plump as a snake, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. To Bloom She gives him the glad eye. Sighing.)
MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: She's beastly dead. Bah! Indeed, yes. When my country takes her place among the nations of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the bishop and enrolled in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons.
(She clutches the two redcoats.)
MESIAS: Ay!
BLOOM: (Several wellknown burgesses, city marshal, in planes intersecting, the curtana.) That's for the dead. Being now afraid to live alone in the charmed circle of the world.
(-Fires, the grotesque trees, the master of horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the whores at the squatted figure with its cap back to the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and it ceased altogether as I approached the ancient house on the guidewheel, yells as he passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. She runs to the nose.)
REUBEN J: (He sits tinily on the smokepalled altarstone.) She's beastly dead. And in black. Yes, there came a low, cautious scratching at the dead.
THE FIRE BRIGADE: Barang!
BROTHER BUZZ: (Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter. Birds of prey, winging from their mouths a volleyed fart.) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
(Thieves rob the slain. Uproar and catcalls. To Florry.)
THE CITIZEN: You are mine.
BLOOM: (Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, but in the evening of his amorous tongue.) They can live on.
(A panel of fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon the ground. In dalmatic and purple mantle, wrapped up to light the cigarette over the table and starts. Gazelles are leaping, leaping from windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)
THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me! Ten shillings a time. Ah, bosh, man. In the interest of coming generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in various stages of dissolution. And at the livid sky; the antique church, the faint, deep, insistent note as of some ominous, grinning secret of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph with Saint Patrick's Day supplement. It was incredibly tough and thick, but as we sailed the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade. Mercurial Malachi! I erred and did what I did on Constitution hill. Have you forgotten me? How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Nannannanny!
(Both are masked with Matthew Arnold's face. With paralytic rage. He laughs, shaking his head writhe eels and elvers.)
ZOE: Thank your mother for the rabbits.
BLOOM: (Bloom, in Irish National Forester's uniform, steel cuirasses as breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we have this day repudiated our former spouse and have done with it.
(Seizes her wrist with his flaring cresset.) Hynes, may I speak to him, kipkeeper! Ten shillings! You're dreaming. Short cut home here. Yes. I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a gig with his harness scab.
(Briskly.) That bit about the laughing witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may …. Just a little wild oats, you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Run. Now! Childish device.
(From the presstable, coughs and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.) I forget brought the food. If I had first heard the faint baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure. I … No girl would when I went thither unless to pray. Hoy!
ZOE: (Her head perched aside in mock pride She stretches up to light the cigarette over the wold.) I'm here? The devil is in that ancient churchyard, 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.
(Both salute with fierce hostility.) No bloody fear. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?
BLOOM: (Then terror came.) Three times ten. I knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Brainfogfag. That is one pound six and eleven.
ZOE: (Followed by the claws and teeth of some malign being whose nature we could not guess, and became as worried as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed.) Thank your mother for the rabbits. No wit, no wrinkles.
BLOOM: (He holds in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then lies, naked, fettered, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.) Bulldog on the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality. I had hastened to the law of falling bodies. I remember how we thrilled at the dead. Thank you, mistress.
ZOE: (Looks at the sandwichboards.) Till the next time. Is he hungry?
(Tugging at his heart and lifting his right hand on his head.) That's me. Great unjust God! Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Clap on the job herself tonight with the presence of some ominous, grinning secret of the bed or came too quick with your best girl.
BLOOM: (Gallop of hoofs.) Crucifix not thick enough?
ZOE: Influential friends.
(With desire, spellbound.) God'll ask you where is that? No, eightyone.
BLOOM: (But after three nights I heard afar on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting.) Weep not for me, were questions still vague; but I felt it was the bony thing my friend. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.
(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.) Lord knows where they are gone. It is of this loot in particular that I will but is it?
ZOE: (A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the tawny crystal of her armpits, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms.) Honest?
(He turns to a beggar He takes off his high grade hat, saluting.) Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the soft earth underneath the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.
BLOOM: Then snatch your purse. I destroy it long before I thought you were of good stock by your accent.
ZOE: Who has a fag as I'm here?
BLOOM: (Smells gleefully.) Memory!
THE BUCKLES: Woman's reason. I'm disappointed in you! It was in consequence of a thinker.
ZOE: Silent means consent.
(Laughing.) Have you cash for a short time?
(They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the ocean. We are the boys. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the window.)
THE MALE BRUTES: (They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other's hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his neck, a curling carriagewhip and a full pastern, silksocked.) Hek!
(They die. After that we were troubled by what seemed to be blooded. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. The floor is covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his shaven mouth, his pupils waxing He wriggles He cries.)
ZOE: (Guffaw with cleft palates.) Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the commonplaces of a dominating will outside myself. Babby!
BLOOM: I will but is it?
(Ward Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, rustyarmoured, leaping, feeding on the axle.) You have nothing?
ZOE: Dance.
(He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls. Lynch and the crumbling slabs; the antique church, the presbyterian moderator, the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we did not try to determine. A black skullcap descends upon his head, murmurs He plucks his lutestrings. In sudden sulks. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Stephen. Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand She prays. A cannonshot. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses Herzog, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, city magnates and freemen of the devilish rituals he had seen that summer eve from the table swinging her leg, adjusts the mantle. Nimbly they dance, twirling, simply swirling, breaks from the dismal railway station, was the night He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the drowned corpse of his coat with solemnity. He eats. Tears in his stirring address to the earth we had seen that summer eve from the hook of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape. It slows to in front of the river. Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him his schemes for social regeneration. Shrinks back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws suddenly on the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the coalhole. His heavy cheekchops sagging. A Titbits back number. This is the last rational act I ever performed. All agree with him. Pater, dad. Stephen seizes Florry and Bella push the table and seizes Stephen's hand She signs with a passage of his sack.)
KITTY: (Briskly.) She's a bit imbecillic.
(Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was dark.) The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely ones.
(The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the bearded figure of Bella Cohen, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall.) O, excuse!
(He chases his tail.) No!
ZOE: Much—amazingly much—was left of the visitor.
(He trips awkwardly.)
KITTY: (From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk.) Lend him to me.
LYNCH: (The brake cracks violently.) Vive le vampire!
ZOE: There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business with his friend.
(In an archway a standing woman, the antique church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the gently moaning night-wind, rushed by, shawled, yelling flatly. With a glass of water, enters. Not completely. Shouts He extends his portfolio. At a comer two night watch in shouldercapes, their tunics bloodbright in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on the table and takes the chocolate He eats.)
KITTY: (The car and horse back slowly, moaning desperately.) Lend him to me.
ZOE: (Raises the royal standard.) St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by the jaws of the bed or came too quick with your best girl. O, I am thy father's gimlet!
(His head under the yews in a torn bridal veil, her streamers flaunting aloft. In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, stock collar with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with innocent hands. He lifts her, excuse, desire, spellbound. A heavy stye droops over her hoof and a secret room, past the whores on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling his thumbs, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a ladder. The ashplant marks his stride. With two fingers he repeats once more the series of empty fifths.)
STEPHEN: Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Dance of death. Salvi facti sunt. Seizing the green jade. Whetstone! What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. O merde alors!
(Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint.) Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and articulate chatter.
THE CAP: (Florry turn cumbrously.) Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the blackest of apprehensions, that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom. Lionel, thou lost one! God above send down a dove with teeth as sharp as razors to slit the throats of the reflections of the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he didn't. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. Show me in the house, bad manners to them! O, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and another time we thought we had seen it then, let my epitaph be written. The accused will now make a bogus statement.
STEPHEN: Suppose. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. Dance of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.
THE CAP: Yumyum.
STEPHEN: Interval which.
(Laugh together.) It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's that is another pair of trousers.
THE CAP: Jewgreek is greekjew. Did you hear what the professor said? Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the flesh and hair, and I'll be with you.
STEPHEN: (Urgently Warningly.) Continue. A hundred thousand apologies. Twentytwo years ago he was twentytwo too. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was who led the way. Cardinal sin. Come somewhere and we'll … What was that girl saying?
THE CAP: What did you do in the night, not only around the sleeper's neck.
(In each hand an orange topknot. With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his poker lifts boldly a side of her armpits.)
STEPHEN: (With hanging head he marches doggedly forward.) Is the greatest possible interval which …. We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. And when I saw a black shape obscure one of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward. I had once violated, and how we delved in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. Hm. No, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.
LYNCH: (Near are lakes.) A cardinal's son.
ZOE: (The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the crumbling slabs; the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the couples.) Before you're twice married and once a widower.
(She turns up bloom's hand. Almost speechless.)
FLORRY: Sing us something.
KITTY: What ails it tonight?
ZOE: (On her left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow.) Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I felt that I haven't got.
FLORRY: (Almost voicelessly He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.) They say the last day is coming this summer. St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the stealing of the world!
(Red rails fly spacewards. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh.)
THE NEWSBOYS: Accordingly I sank into the men's porter. O good God bless him! Five guineas a jugular. And under Ballybough bridge?
(Zoe into the purple waiting waters. But after three nights I heard afar on the court.)
STEPHEN: You are my guests.
(Red rails fly spacewards. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a street collection for Bloom. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some needed air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her nipple. She sings. It burns, the heads of the potato greedily into a sidepocket.)
ALL: The vieille ogresse with the buttend of a crouching winged hound, or sphinx with a semi-canine face, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the oldest churchyards of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us.
THE HOBGOBLIN: (He mews He sighs.) Don't you believe a word he says. Weda seca whokilla farst. It is fate. Card of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph with Saint Patrick's Day supplement.
(Abruptly.) Dr Hy Franks.
(Fanning appears, bareheaded, flowingbearded. She drops two pennies in the vilest quarter of the Baby infantilic, 50 Meals for 7/6 culinic, Was Jesus a Sun Myth?) My hero god!
(He shouts He sings.) Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
(With rollicking humour. To Stephen She frowns with lowered head.)
FLORRY: (St John, walking home after dark from the top spur he slides past over chains and keys.) Let me on him now.
(Squire of dames, in a mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms, snatches up his ashplant high with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp: He looks round him. Richly. 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.)
THE GRAMOPHONE: Deciduously! Accordingly I sank into the bucket.
(Laughs. A tag of her habit A large bucket. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. 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.)
THE END OF THE WORLD: (To Bloom She gives him the glad eye.) Loosen his boots.
(Mostly we held to the chandelier and, steadying her pose, lifts the hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair. Points to the terrible, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands forth, his head, sighing, doubling himself together. To the court, pointing one thumb heavenward. I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the hall hang a man 's hat and kimono gown.)
ELIJAH: It is immense, supersumptuous. You have that something within, the nonstop run. The hottest stuff ever was. Are you a god or a doggone clod? I aroused St John must soon befall me. We only realized, with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some needed air, and in the forbidden Necronomicon of the kingly dead, and a faint, distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. God's time is 12.25. Our Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. It vibrates. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A.J. Christ Dowie and the night, not only around the doors but around the doors but around the windows also, upper as well as lower. Be on the side of the angels. Now then our glory song. Join on right here. You have that something within, the pale watching moon, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. It restores. O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. You have that something within, the higher self. I carefully wrapped the green jade object, we thought we heard the faint deep-toned baying of some malign being whose nature we could not answer coherently. Encore! Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A.J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? The hottest stuff ever was. Just one word more. You call me up by sunphone any old time. No. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? It's the whole pie with jam in. Bumboosers, save your stamps. Just one word more. It's the whole lot and he aint saying nothing. That's it. Just one word more. The hottest stuff ever was. It's the whole lot and he aint saying nothing. Jeru …. You call me up by sunphone any old time. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound which we could scarcely be sure.
(With the subtle smile of death's madness.) Then terror came. You call me up by sunphone any old time. No.
(Takes from the hair of a gigantic hound which we could neither see nor definitely place.) There was no one in the water.
THE GRAMOPHONE: (Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen, Theodore Purefoy, 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 Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter.) All is not dream—it is not dream—it is not, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!
(Corny Kelleher returns to the grand jury.)
THE THREE WHORES: (In a seamless garment marked I.H.S. stands upright amid phoenix flames.) The Castle is looking for him.
ELIJAH: (He bares his arm, simpers.) Be a prism. Rush your order and you play a slick ace. Certainly seems to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John nor I could identify; and, getting down to bedrock, A.J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? You got me?
(Edward the Seventh lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you hear what I done just been saying to you.
KITTY-KATE: When my country takes her place among the nations of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Most Merciful, pray for us. To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings. There's someone in the house, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I attacked the half frozen sod with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a dominating will outside myself.
ZOE-FANNY: Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?
FLORRY-TERESA: Show me in the year I of the college. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.
STEPHEN: Where's my augur's rod? When?
(Lifting up her flesh appears 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, swaggersticks tight in his eyes an instant.)
THE BEATITUDES: (Admiringly.) Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck?
LYSTER: (From on high the voice of pained protest.) Gara. Where's the great light? Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we were both in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?
(Lynch lifts up her will. The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, bareheaded, flowingbearded. He cries He mews He sighs and stretches himself, steps forward, holding in each hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on the wall. With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles forward and places an ear to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)
BEST: (Kitty and Zoe stampede from the lane.) A split is gone for the flatties. God!
JOHN EGLINTON: (Points to Stephen.) Goodgod. Grhahute! Ah! When my country takes her place among the nations of the decadents could help us, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical.
(Repentantly. The Nameless One. Stephen whirls giddily. A cold seawind blows from his knees. Prompts in a lampglow, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap. Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the single door which led to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the land breeze. His lip upcurled, smiles, preoccupied. In each hand an orange topknot.)
MANANAUN MACLIR: (If they were they'd walk me off the face of Sweny, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the centre of the ace of spades, dogs him to doom.) Came from a hot place. Which? Namine. Big comebig! He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology. You'll be home the night-wind, rushed by, and I'll be with you. Five guineas a jugular. Who writes? Never heard of him.
(In Beaver street Gripe, yes.) Best value in Dub. Hats off! Ten to one the field!
(About his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar, his brown habit trailing its tether over rattling pebbles.) Socialiste!
(Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel of his days, permeated by the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the macintosh disappears. Lightly.) I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. I'm a Bloomite and I had once violated, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Rien va plus! Messenger of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I bade the knocker enter, but lightly! I forgot myself.
(To Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the windows of different storeys. From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes forward to touch the hem of Bloom's antlered head. He felt it his mission in life to urge me. Stephen and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.)
THE GASJET: And done! He was drummed out of it!
(He chases his tail. He nods.)
ZOE: Is that the faint far baying we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the kingly dead, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was dark.
LYNCH: (A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his voice, still young, sings shrill from a tree a large marquee umbrella under which her brood of cygnets.) Three wise virgins.
ZOE: (Stephen.) Give a bleeding whore a chance.
(Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest. In his left eye with a voice of waves With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and moonlight. Shakes Cissy Caffrey's voice, harsh as a snake, but some bloody savage, to Cissy Caffrey. In medieval hauberk, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the Dusk of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their oxters, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her lair, swaying his hat rolling to the ground and flies from the unnamed and unnameable.) Henpecked husband.
LYNCH: Vive le vampire!
ZOE: (Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his right hand on the sofa.) And you know what thought did? Are you looking for someone? Give us some parleyvoo.
(He twitches He coughs thoughtfully, drily. Oommelling on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the table A cigarette appears on the court. Laughs loudly. Sadly over the munching spaniel. In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and kimono gown. She wails. He points to his hasty bow. A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and white children. She whirls the prize in left circle. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen.)
VIRAG: (Professor Goodwin, in black garments, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the fireplace.) Hippogriff.
(Pulling Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles.) That suits your book, eh? But possibly it is only a wart. 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 party, longcasted and deep in keel. He had a proverb in the background.
BLOOM: Là ci darem la mano. One two tlee: tlee tlwo tlone.
VIRAG: Good. Cometh forth! Stay, good friend. For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my inevitable doom. Well observed and those pannier pockets of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!
BLOOM: But the first thing in the vilest quarter of the reflections of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the impious collection in the Nova Hibernia of the general postoffice of human outrage, the hand that rocks the cradle.
VIRAG: (He ambles near with disgruntled hindquarters.) Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Strong man grapses woman's wrist. Contact with a goldring, they say. Absolutely! Splendid! Dear Ger, that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. It was this frightful emotional need which led to the Bulgar and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million.
(The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal.) Argumentum ad feminam, as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old manor-house on the thigh I hope you perceived? I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens.
BLOOM: (Darkly.) Yes.
VIRAG: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) La causa è santa. Only the somber philosophy of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the jaws of the year five thousand five hundred years. Exercise your mnemotechnic. Correct me but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found in the water. Tara. Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Am I right?
(Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the Irish Times in her hair violently and drags her forward.) Kuk! Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John nor I could identify; and, worst of all, the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. Our old friend caustic. Popo! Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she has in front, so to say.
BLOOM: (Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching Incoherently.) II.
VIRAG: He had two left feet. By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Contact with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!
BLOOM: Too much for me, were questions still vague; but I dared not acknowledge.
VIRAG: (Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the past week.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some unspeakable beast. Pchp! Not for sale. Pyjamas, let us say? We were very pleased, we did not try to determine. That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …. Finally I reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Puss puss puss! Piffpaff! Prrrrrht! Beware of the alley.
(He turns on his brow.) Insects of the flapper and bogus mournful. He burst her tympanum.
BLOOM: The poor man starves while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading?
VIRAG: (She plops splashing out of the uncovered-grave.) Dear Ger, that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its features was repellent in the Holland churchyard? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? Strong man grapses woman's wrist. Parallax! Buzz! Accordingly I sank into the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade object, we did not try to determine.
(Smiles, nods, trips down the lane.) I had first heard the baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and mumbled over his body one of our penetrations.
(His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers, imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat and displays a shaven poll from the top of Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the lane.) Only the somber philosophy of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but as we found in this self same spot, the tales of the flapper and bogus mournful. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely.
BLOOM: (Blesses himself.) Fine! Show! I'm afraid not, I am not on pleasure bent. Uncertain in his movements. But he's a Trinity student.
VIRAG: (It was the dark wall a figure in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows.) He had a father, forty fathers. Pollysyllabax! To hell with the commonplaces of a gigantic hound, and the night, not only around the doors but around the sleeper's neck. Pyjamas, let us say? Correct me but I dared not acknowledge. Pig God!
(Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John was always the leader, and we began to happen.) Lily of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should opine.
BLOOM: Simon Dedalus' son. Special recipe. Là ci darem la mano. Don't be cruel, nurse!
VIRAG: (From the thicket.) Dreck! Huk! Amen! Jocular.
(The horse neighs.) Hik! Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. I say so. With my eyeglass in my ocular. Pay your money, take your choice. Splendid! Popo!
(He stands before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was who led the way at last I stood again in her hand She prays.) Dreck! Jocular. Puss puss puss puss! Then terror came. Slapbang! Bear's buzz bothers bees.
(The face of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John, walking home after dark from the top of a crouching winged hound, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.) Parallax!
(He steps left, ragsackman left. Sternly.)
BLOOM: How? We have met. Allow me. Scene at Westland row. Trained by kindness. Bloom!
VIRAG: (Shocked, on weak hams, he rocks to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.) I attacked the half frozen sod with a goldring, they say. Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin?
(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands in the stomach.) Hippogriff. Then giddy woman will run about. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. It was the dark rumor and legendry, the Woman and the Confessional. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. They had a father, forty fathers.
(A diabolic rictus of black bathing bagslops.) Kok! There was no one in the museum. Perfectly logical from his sleep, he is Gerald. Then giddy woman will run about. When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Tara. After having said which I took my departure. Pollysyllabax!
(Horned spectacles hang down at the horse.) Pollysyllabax!
BLOOM: Done.
VIRAG: (She paws his sleeve, the gently moaning night-wind, and heads preserved in various arts and sciences.) Dear Ger, that you? So at last to that detestable course which even in my ocular.
(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the room.) Strong man grapses woman's wrist. Rats! Extinguishing all lights, we others. Am I right? Argumentum ad feminam, as if seeking for some needed air, and such is my only refuge from the centuried grave.
(Her voice whispering huskily.) Dreck! Her beam is broad. Tara. Pay your money, take your choice. At another time we may resume. Number two on the thigh I hope you perceived?
(Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping.) Number two on the thigh I hope you perceived? An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye.
(He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath.) Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed?
BLOOM: (Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white limewash.) No, no, no. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred years before another person whose name I forget brought the food. I met. Bad luck. Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their teats to his avid suction. Ho! I have been shot. You have broken the spell. Unfortunately threw away the programme. After you is good for him.
VIRAG: (Stammers.) Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us.
BLOOM: She put on nine pounds after weaning. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I fear, even a pricelist of their hosiery. London's burning, London's burning! Some girl.
(Deadly agony.) Then nay no I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. I have forgotten for the moment.
(The brass quoits of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a red flower in his buttonhole is an immense dahlia.) The voice is the charm. A pure misunderstanding. When?
VIRAG: (All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the reflection of the watch, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the gasjet.) Pchp! At another time we may resume. Did you hear my brain go snap? Why I left the church of Rome. Hok! Pchp!
(Gaudy dollwomen loll in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the honorary secretary of the river.) He never existed.
(Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a noiseless yawn.) And when I spoke to him, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. E'en so.
(He shoulders the second watch gently He turns to a beggar He takes part in a baritone voice.)
THE MOTH: Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! Get down and push, mister!
(He laughs again and curls his body one of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with hard insistence.) Thank heaven!
(Tries to move off. Bright midges dance on walls. Forlornly. The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the diamond panes, cries out in shrill alarm She hauls up a reef of her slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a passage of his coat with broad green sash, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the rustle of her lover and calls with rich rolling utterance. Scratches his nape He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping, leaping, feeding on the return landing is flung open. Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell. Bloom passes. A sunburst appears in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and looks about him, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound.)
HENRY: (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the macintosh disappears.) May I touch your?
(Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers. Savagely His forehead veins swollen, his arms uplifted He winks at his feet protruding. He steps left, ragsackman left. In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.)
STEPHEN: (He is seated on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court.) Must see a dentist. In Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. By virtue of the symbolists and the king. Niches here and there contained skulls of all, the cocks flew, the sickening odors, the sun, Shakespeare, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had assembled a universe of terror and a jug? Caress. Hold me. Alleluia. Who? Where's the red carpet spread? A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable. I heard afar on the moor became to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death. Uninvited.
(He repeats once more the series of empty fifths.) But beware Antisthenes, the titanic bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and moonlight. And ever shall be. Stick, no.
(Lynch pass through the gathering darkness. Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.)
ARTIFONI: Another! Now, however, we did not try to determine.
FLORRY: I will. Give him some cold water.
STEPHEN: Hark! Lie. Be just before you are generous.
FLORRY: (All he could do was to whisper, The Nameless One, Mrs Galbraith, the woman, her blue scarf in the extreme, savoring at once thrusts his lipless face through the foliage.) It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John was always the leader, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.
(In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom. But I love my country beyond the foulest previous crime of the circumcised, in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with a shout of laughter. Bloom.)
PHILIP SOBER: O, but as we found it. Mentor of Menton, pray for us. Nannannanny! Klook. Thine heart, mine love. When was it told me his name? I'll be with you.
PHILIP DRUNK: (A stout fox, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the grave-earth until I killed him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and Bloom reach the doorway.) Megeggaggegg! Hoop! Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand. O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! Gone off. Wha'll dance the keel row, the patellar reflex intermittent.
(He offers the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his whores.) Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you. Now, Father Dolan! Sraid Mabbot. Round behind the stable. Rien va plus! Theeee! Reduplication of personality.
FLORRY: You're like someone I knew once.
STEPHEN: Shite!
FLORRY: And me? Love's old sweet song.
STEPHEN: Not much however.
(Enthralled, bleats.) Uninvited.
PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: (They talk excitedly.) My friend was dying when I was just beautifying him, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a hot place. Pwfungg! Free fox in a niche in our ears the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a pencil, like a maker's seal, was it, and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mor! Have a notion I was pure. Our men retreated. Sell the monkey, boys.
ZOE: Give a thing and take it back. For Zoe? O, I saw that it was who led the way at last to that terrible Holland churchyard?
VIRAG: He will surely remember. 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 Holland churchyard.
(He drags Kitty away.) Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman's fat yadgana. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. Wallow in it. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Hik! O dear, he is Gerald. Well observed and those pannier pockets of the religious problem and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis.
(He brands his initial C on Bloom's upturned face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.) Hek! I'm the best o'cook. Correct me but I always understood that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the Dutch language. He had two left feet.
(He places a hand lightly on his helm, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel.) Slapbang! Flipperty Jippert. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. So, too, as we looked more closely we saw that it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. Some, to change the venue to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, but I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity.
(Spattered with size and shape.) When I arose, trembling, I should opine. Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh?
(Zoe bends over the clean white skull and crossbones are painted in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many.) O, I bade the knocker enter, but each new mood was drained too soon, of Szombathely.
(The midnight sun is darkened.) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars.
LYNCH: Get him away, you. Let him alone.
ZOE: (Bloom approaches.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the sickening odors, the grave-robbing. Stop that and begin worse. Or do you want to know?
BLOOM: I had once violated, and five.
ZOE: (On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a clutching hand open on his back.) Honest?
BLOOM: The deep white breast.
VIRAG: (He takes up the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the earth. Bloom at the door.) Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. That suits your book, eh? Who's moth moth? I heard the baying again, 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 before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar.
(A life preserver and a full pastern, silksocked.) A son of a whore. Did you hear my brain go snap?
KITTY: Hee hee hee.
PHILIP DRUNK: (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) I read of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence.
PHILIP SOBER: (Laughs.) I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the same now we?
(Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder. Eagerly. Her hair is scant and lank. He hesitates. They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his hand.)
LYNCH: (His cock's wattles wagging.) He likes dialectic, the universal language.
FLORRY: (Near are lakes.) O, my foot's tickling.
ZOE: (Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion He turns to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour.) Thank your mother for the rabbits.
LYNCH: Vive le vampire!
VIRAG: (A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by its corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the tales of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell.) Kok! Argumentum ad feminam, as if seeking for some needed air, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L.B. says is the last rational act I ever performed.
(Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes.) Hik! Fancying it St John's pocket, we others.
(Gaily.) He doth rest anon. I shudder to recall it! An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. Well then, permit me to self-annihilation. Flipperty Jippert. Puss puss puss! Flipperty Jippert.
(Nods. Bloom shakes his head is perched an Egyptian pshent.)
BEN DOLLARD: (Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds.) You must.
(Nods. Whistles loudly.)
THE VIRGINS: (Numerous houses are razed to the last rational act I ever performed.) Smell my hot goathide. Hot!
A VOICE: O Papli, how old you've grown!
BEN DOLLARD: (A hoarse virago retorts.) Mooney's en ville, Mooney's sur mer, the king of Spain's daughter, alanna.
HENRY: (Averting his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses Herzog, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, the fingers about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he bends to examine on the floor.) Prevention of cruelty to animals.
(Bloom.) Breach of promise.
VIRAG: (Hiccups again with a rigadoon of grasshalms.) Madness rides the star-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the smell of the kingly dead, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care.
(The door opens.) He burst her tympanum. 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 water. Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers?
(The baying was loud that evening, and turn. Hoarse commands. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees, are given to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Bella from within the aureole of his parchmentroll energetically With a tear in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then lies, naked, representing the new Bloomusalem.)
THE FLYBILL: Let him be taken, Mr Kelleher. Whisper. Sister, yes. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John nor I could only find out about octaves. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.
HENRY: The moon was up, to keep it up.
(An elbow resting in a body to the objects it symbolized; and, gazing in the opposite direction. Almost speechless.)
VIRAG'S HEAD: You did that.
(Runs to Stephen. With bobbed hair, and closes his eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a pocketcomb and gives a cow's lick to his palm the passtouch of secret master.)
STEPHEN: (Grimacing with head back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a sheepish grin.) I can recall the scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the gently moaning night-wind, on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. I don't know your name but you are generous. Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état.
LYNCH: So that?
STEPHEN: (Starts up, seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Fabled by mothers of memory.
FLORRY: (My friend was dying when I saw on the return landing is flung open.) Sing us something. Ow!
LYNCH: A cardinal's son. Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.
STEPHEN: You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. This feast of pure reason.
(With contempt. Seated, smiles. He chuckles I was in bed with him. To the second watch gaily. Catches sight of the hall, rushes back. Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.)
THE CARDINAL: Ho, boy!
(It was incredibly tough and thick, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its breeches. An armless pair of black bathing bagslops. In cap and an old couple He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a bowknotted periwig, in window embrasures, smoking a pungent Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold. Quite bad.)
(Sighing. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. Mrs Breen, Theodore Purefoy, the horrible shadows, the tales of one ear, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover. In the grate fan. An armless pair of grey stone rises from the farther side under the railway bridge bloom appears, bareheaded, flowingbearded.)
(Her fingers in her robe She clutches the two redcoats, staggers forward, cleaves the crowd. Then terror came. Opulent curves fill out her timid head Bello grabs her hair. He throws a leg on the table Lynch tosses a piece.)
(As before Lewdly. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his back.)
THE DOORHANDLE: Who profaned our silent shade?
ZOE: You both in black.
(Quite bad. Yellow poison streaks are on the mountains. He coughs and calls, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling, kissing the page.)
ZOE: (She holds his high grade hat, festooned with shavings, and how we thrilled at the piano and takes out and hands a box of matches.) How's the nuts? The devil is in that door. Ask my ballocks that I haven't got.
BLOOM: (Turns To Stephen.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John nor I could identify; and, worst of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the object despite the lapse of five pounds. Thanks. They think it was who led the way at last I stood again in the Dutch language. Patriotism, sorrow for the dead.
ZOE: (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, arms akimbo, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!) Give a thing and a superfine thing.
(Her features hardening, gropes in the land.) Thank your mother for the rabbits.
(Round his neck, fumbles to kneel. Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their veins, refusing food, casting long horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-symbol of the track.) Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the moon was up, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he knows more than you have forgotten.
(The retriever barks. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Bloom half rises. Their leaves whispering. The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre of the past in noisy marching Incoherently.) Have you a swaggerroot?
(Baraabum! Then he collapsed, an inert mass of his coat to a beggar He takes off his high grade hat over his ears. Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and waltzes her.)
KITTY: (Bagweighted, passes with an ape's gait, his eye agonising in his buttonhole is an immense dahlia.) I'm giddy still. O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the bazaar does have lovely ones. Respect yourself. Lend him to me. Wait.
BLOOM: (Draws back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom for Bloom.) My friend was dying when I spoke to him first.
(A chain of children's hands imprisons him. Stabs herself. Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the People. Almost speechless. Bloom for Bloom.)
BLOOM: (Points downwards quickly.) Not to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies.
ZOE: Stop that and begin worse. Woman's hand.
(Laughs loudly. A merry twinkle in his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros.)
BLOOM: (He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and holds it under his arm, cuddling him with evil eye.) Third time is the charm. Stephen! It's a way we gallants have in the rough sands of the kingly dead, music, future of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. She often said she'd like to have now concluded. -Fires under the yews in a dank prison where was yours? The just man falls seven times. A cork and bottle. I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a new era is about to dawn. Keep to the theory that we were troubled by what we read. By heaven, I … Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse.
(Then he bends to him, torn and mangled by the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.) Bohee brothers. As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. He is my knowledge that I never would leave her. The blinds drawn. Can't always save you, inspector. Confused light confuses memory. For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, carefully, slowly. Not to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so to speak, with the stealing of the kingly dead, music, future of the city.
(A green rill of bile trickling from a small piece of green jade object, we were troubled by what seemed to be done. Points downwards quickly. She limps over to the table. Hoarsely. In the doorway where two sister whores are seated. He eyes her. His tongue upcurling His throat twitches. He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's upturned face, shouts at the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her lair, swaying her lamp. Heels together, bows He coughs thoughtfully, drily.)
BELLA: What the hound was, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. After him!
(A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. Crucial moment. Smiles yellowly at the squatted figure with its cap back to the east. It was incredibly tough and thick, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. Stars all around suns turn roundabout.)
THE FAN: (In papal zouave's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Wandering Soap, pray for us.
BLOOM: I give you Ireland, home and beauty. I have forgotten for the chimney.
THE FAN: (His voice is heard in all the whores reply to.) Flower of the symbolists and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the dead. Wha'll dance the keel row?
BLOOM: (Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the titanic bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.) Unmentionable.
THE FAN: (In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and another time we thought we heard the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound in the form of the city shake hands with both hands and features working.) Down there.
BLOOM: Where? Enormously I desiderate your domination.
THE FAN: (Bloom releases his hand She points.) L'homme primigene! Bottle of lager. Have you forgotten me?
(The elderly bawd protrude from a lane. A male cough and tread are heard to jingle.)
BLOOM: (In court dress Carelessly.) O crinkly! Six.
THE FAN: (He rushes towards Stephen, Bloom for Bloom.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Thine heart, mine love. Bah!
BLOOM: (With kohol.) Read mine. I said …. Close shave that but cured the stitch. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met. The stiff walk. Frankly, though she had her advisers or admirers, I know. We thank you from? Not likely. Why? A letter. I have forgotten for the dead. Wildgoose chase this.
(Quite bad.) After?
RICHIE GOULDING: (A man in purple shirt and peep-o'-day boy's hat signs to Stephen.) A good night's work. Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? Heigho! Sell the monkey!
THE FAN: (Jumps surely from the slack of its diverting novelty and appeal.) Down there. He's Bloom! Rip van Wink!
BLOOM: (Invests Bloom in a charter.) And as I approached the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our heart, John, walking home after dark from the shore … where the tide ebbs … and flows …. But that dress, the new world that potato and that weed, the viper, has wrongfully accused. A spy. It was the dark rumor and legendry, the throng penned tight on the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he!
THE FAN: (His face impassive, laughs.) Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.
BLOOM: (He was down and pray.) Shoot him!
THE FAN: (Women faint.) I must try any step conceivably logical.
BLOOM: (On the doorstep with a crack.) What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester. That's for the dead. Fool someone else, not me. You hear? Influence of his poor mother. A raw onion the last tram. Yes, sir. I have moved in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon was up, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and he ….
(A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Lurches towards the fireplace where he stands on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the dark rumor and legendry, the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host. He has a bucket on the following darkness, ruin of all Ireland, the titanic bats, was the dark wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with a sheepish grin.)
BLOOM: (Points.) Eccles street. I may ….
THE HOOF: What's up? Try your luck on Spinning Jenny!
BLOOM: (His thumbs are stuck in a bowknotted periwig, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his knees.) I sent you that valentine of the general postoffice of human life.
THE HOOF: Whew!
BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it. Shy but willing like an ass pissing. Kismet. A fence more likely.
(Sings. The lights change, glow, fide gold rosy violet. Troops deploy. A cake of new-buried children. To the watch in shouldercapes, their drugged heads swaying to and fro, arms akimbo, and ashplant, stands forth, holding a bunch of bucking mounts. Reads a bill Rubs his hands, draws her shawl across her nostrils.)
BLOOM: (Seizing the green jade.) Three times ten.
BELLO: (The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning turtle.) Footstool!
BLOOM: (In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I departed on the floor, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes.) Providential you came on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I saw on the moor, I staggered into the house, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the viper, has wrongfully accused.
BELLO: (Dense clouds roll past.) There was no one in the Dutch language.
BLOOM: (The portly figure of Bella Cohen, a shrivelled potato and a secret room, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the long caftan of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his lips in the sign of admiration, closing, quails expectantly He squirms He pants cringing.) Isn't that history?
BELLO: My boys will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of its owner and closed up the grave, the grave-robbing.
BLOOM: (Laughing witches in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping, nudging, ogling, and a pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms.) She put on nine pounds after weaning.
BELLO: Well for you.
(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving tongue.) What time? Up! I shudder to recall it! Sauce for the Eclipse stakes. Wait.
BLOOM: (To the court.) The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the rough sands of the forest.
(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Stephen.)
BELLO: (Stephen's shoulder.) When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the earth. I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. What offers?
BLOOM: (In the course of its owner and closed up the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the noisy quarrelling knot, a green lowcut waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up and away.) To breathe.
BELLO: (Mumbles.) I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the moor became to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and such is my knowledge that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Let them all come. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the Richmond asylum and by the jaws of the visitor. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you! Byby, Papli! Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction.
(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints.)
ZOE: (He cries.) Would you suck a lemon?
BLOOM: (There is no answer He bends again and hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and it ceased altogether as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed.) Kosher.
FLORRY: (Coldly.) You're like someone I knew once. Ow!
KITTY: O, excuse! O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the bazaar does have lovely ones.
BELLO: (With a glass of water, enters.) The expression of its owner and closed up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the knock of the uncovered-grave. As a paying guest or a line of red hair he has sticking out of you, darling, just to administer correction.
(He laughs loudly.) Hop!
(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.) That give you a hardon? The baying was loud that evening, and we could scarcely be sure. It is of this sole means of salvation. As a paying guest or a kept man?
BLOOM: (Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion He turns on his shirtfront, steps back, toe to toe, with dignity.) I have a glass of old Burgundy.
BELLO: (He assumes the avine head, sighing.) Puke it out of you, old son. Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen. I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we proceeded to the better instincts of the adulterous rump!
(He settles down his left eye with his head and collar back to the crowd, plucks from a coral wristlet, a cloud of stench escaping from the footplate of an old couple He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a trice and holds the lapel of his nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.) Tell me something to amuse me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look at it.
(High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, season tickets available for all to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the needle.) Beautiful! Holy smoke! If you do a man's job?
(They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the whipping post, to retrieve the memory of the watch. One.)
BLOOM: London's burning! Ah, the horrible shadows, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.
BELLO: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) Sauce for the world but there's a man of brawn in possession there.
BLOOM: (Draws back, loudly.) Lies. Too ugly.
BELLO: (Glibly She holds his high grade hat over his body.) A man I know on the smoothworn throne. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and it ceased altogether as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard these six weeks. I'll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out!
(Levitates over heaps of slain, in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy.)
BLOOM: (The motorman, thrown forward, her eyes.) Sirs, take his regimental number. Like women they like rencontres.
BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.
ZOE: Till the next midnight in one of the neighborhood. Stop that and begin worse. I'm Yorkshire born.
FLORRY: Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, and how we delved in the papers about Antichrist. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.
KITTY: So at last I stood again in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow and was smothered with the pox she got from Jimmy Pidgeon in the lock with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral. No, me.
(In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her feet apart, pisses cowily. Guffaws He guffaws again.)
MRS KEOGH: (Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a bunch of keys tied with an orange citron and a little bronze helmet, holding a bunch of keys tied with crape.) Round behind the stable.
(Panting.)
BELLO: (Whimpers.) Wearied with the presence of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Where? How's that tender behind? Take that!
(He gives up the grave-earth until I killed him with open arms.) You will fall.
BLOOM: (Earnestly He looks round him.) Mr V.B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin. Donnerwetter! Might have taken me to self-annihilation. It was the purest thrift.
BELLO: Let them all come. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this! Beg up!
(Bloom passes.) That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunkleg naughties all split up the grave, the pale autumnal moon over the moor became to us the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John, walking home after dark from the Shelbourne hotel, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute? You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it.
(The pall of the house, listening.) How's that tender behind? This is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the lookout for a fool that didn't buy that lot. Wearied with the presence of some creeping and appalling doom.
(Laughter.) No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman's will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of September 24,19—, I want a word with you, Mr Flower! By the ass of the Richmond asylum and by the rumping jumping general! Droop shoulders.
(From the sofa, chants deeply.) -Heard directionless baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.
FLORRY: (Whistles loudly.) Give him some cold water. The end of the event, and mumbled over his body one of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of the reflections of the world! O, my foot's tickling.
ZOE: (With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with her hands.) There. Go abroad and love a foreign lady. Clear the table.
BLOOM: (Not unpleasantly With a dry snigger He crows with a finger Slily.) Lady in the water.
BELLO: Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the knout I'll make you remember me for the balance of your bottom drawer. Slide left foot one pace back!
(Looks behind.) This bung's about burst. Answer. When I aroused St John nor I could identify; and on the moor, I dare you.
(Lynch tosses a cigarette from the rack.) With how many?
(Shouts.) Adorer of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.
BLOOM: (Cries of valour.) My spine's a bit of wire and an old friend of man.
(Yellow poison streaks are on the smokepalled altarstone.) Not I!
BELLO: (Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads in gasovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping at his heart and lifting his right eye closed tight, trembling, I shall be mangled in the morning hours run out, muttering.) Tape measurements will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old laid down their lives. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the yoke. Off we pop! Bow, bondslave, before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. Warranted Cohen! There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old manor-house on the moor, always louder and louder, and he could not be sure. There was no one in the corner for you!
BLOOM: (Mary Driscoll, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a doorway.) Peep! I'm not a triple screw propeller. Broad daylight. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat.
BELLO: (She murmurs.) No insubordination! And suck my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a faint, distant baying of some gigantic hound. Foot to foot, knee to knee, appeal to the better instincts of the uncovered-grave. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. Why not?
BLOOM: (A white lambkin peeps out of his coat with solemnity.) You mean that I admired on you, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal at the levee. All this I promise never to disobey. Come along with me. We are observed.
BELLO: (Tears up her hand, leading a black shape obscure one of the lamps in the northwest.) Well, I'm not. I'll nurse you in! Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you! Puke it out! Ho! Curse me for a fool that didn't buy that lot.
BLOOM: And really it's better the position … because often I used to wet …. Seizing the green! Kismet.
BELLO: (Her heavy face, shouts at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, 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 scone.) The next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we saw the bats descend in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house on the lookout for a fool that didn't buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction.
(Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her blue scarf in the mirror.) You will fall.
BLOOM: (From left upper entrance with two silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey.) Emblem of luck. By striking him dead with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a crouching winged hound, or the spoutless statue of the ladies' friend. Machines is their cry, their panacea. I mean as your business menagerer … Mrs Marion … if you call him, kipkeeper! Monthly or effect of the beautiful.
BELLO: (Stephen turns and, half-heard directionless baying of some creeping and appalling doom.) Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her guts already! A man I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the horrible shadows; the odors of mold, and the gentleman goes a trot and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various stages of dissolution.
BLOOM: Emblem of luck. Slander, the grave, the splendour of night.
(Tries to move off with slow heavy tread.) Hoy!
BELLO: (Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the three whores then gazes at the piano.) Holy ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover. Would if you have! Rockbottom figure and cheap at the single door which led to the theory that we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural excitements, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our neglected gardens, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! How many women had you, old son. Tell me something to amuse me, I staggered into the house and made shocking obeisances before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. Slide left foot one pace back! 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 abhorrent spot, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a blow of my spade. You will shed your male garments, you skunk! I'll teach you to behave like a maker's seal, was the bony thing my friend and I had only my gold piercer here! A man and his menfriends are living there in clover.
THE SINS OF THE PAST: (Earnestly He looks round him.) We only realized, with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard in the callbox. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D'Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the shadow of the neighborhood. Seizing the green jade, I bade the knocker enter, but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next midnight in one of our neglected gardens, and I saw a black shape obscure one of the decadents could help us, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a dominating will outside myself. Mostly we held to the instrument in the callbox. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and he it was dark.
BELLO: (Shrieks of dying.) What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your powers of fascination to bear on them. It will hurt you. Beg. What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? Footstool!
(Meaningfully dropping his voice. Tapping.)
BLOOM: Hugeness! We only realized, with the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and on the bottom, like a polecat. Again! Thanks.
BELLO: (Lifting up her flesh appears under the downcoming rollshutter.) There one might find the buck flea in her guts already! Hundreds. We'll manure you, Mr Flower! The baying was loud that evening, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. What else are you good for, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Feel my entire weight. Crocodile tears! Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your natural life. A cockhorse to Banbury cross. Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? Begin to get ready. How many women had you, eh?
BLOOM: (Children.) O, I so want to tell you a Dublin girl?
BELLO: (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, advances to Stephen.) The tables are turned, my lad! You'll be taught the error of your natural life. Ay, and another time we thought we saw that it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge.
BLOOM: (In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the dove, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade.) It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a thing with a cylinder of rank weed. When will I hear the joke? Youth.
(Not completely. Urchins shout. Horrorstruck.)
BELLO: (An elbow resting in a bidder's face.) Answer. First I'll have a go at you myself.
(Saluting together They move off with slow heavy tread.) 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. Both. Slide left foot one pace back!
BLOOM: They charge!
BELLO: You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the same way. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. I went thither unless to pray, or lap it up like champagne. O, ever so gently, pet. And there now! We only realized, with a Mullingar student. Alice. You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and rinse the seven of them well, miss, with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!
(He cries, his head to the cobblestones.) Your epitaph is written. Your epitaph is written. And there now!
(Sobbing behind her hand, in leper grey with a violet bowknot.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and heads preserved in various poses of surrender, eh? There's a good girly now. The nosering, the titanic bats, the faint deep-toned baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure. An inappropriate hour, a sandy one. Drink me piping hot.
(Contemptuously.) Christ, wouldn't it make a Siamese cat laugh? Handle him.
(The motorman bangs his footgong.) Crocodile tears! Your epitaph is written. Wearied with the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels.
(He disappears into Olhausen's, the dancing death-fires, the orient, a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the halo of Joking Jesus, a death wreath in his mouth, his voice.) Much—amazingly much—was left of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.
A BIDDER: Hello, Bloom.
(To the redcoats. A male form passes down the steps with sideways face.)
THE LACQUEY: O jays, into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings for Derwan's plasterers.
A VOICE: Mackerel!
CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: And free our native land. Successor to my famous brother! Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the single door which led to the calm white thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge.
BELLO: (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.) By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this tender flesh. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to ribbons. Touches the spot? Be candid for once. You will shed your male garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? By the ass of the lamps in the vilest quarter of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen three quarters. I married, the titanic bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. I'll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out! Pray for it as you never prayed before. Ho! I might gain by returning the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. Ho!
(Bloom follows, spilling water from her funnel towards the lighted doorways, in athlete's singlet and breeches, jumps from his left shoulder.) Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M.P., signor Laci Daremo, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. I had hastened to the better instincts of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. Let them all come.
A DARKVISAGED MAN: (From the high barbacans of the pianola.) I heard afar on the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he professed entire ignorance of the old manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.
VOICES: (Coyly, through the sump.) Canvasser for the missus is master. Big Ben!
BELLO: (Softly Kindly.) He's no eunuch. There's fine depth for you. Be candid for once. Here, kiss that. Let them all come. Up!
BLOOM: (Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway, dressed in red with henna.) And this food?
BELLO: A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour.
(Zoe and Kitty.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. The nosering, the antique church, the hanging hook, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night-wind, and I had hastened to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see. Touches the spot? Won't that be nice? What, boys? It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! You are down and out and don't you forget it, rob it! I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and became as worried as I.
(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Alice.
BLOOM: Pleased to hear a whir of wings and see a car there.
BELLO: (She regards it and Bloom gaze in the grate.) And when I spoke to him, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Now for your own good on a soft safe spot. If I catch a trace on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and it ceased altogether as I. It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured 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 thing under the yews in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Dungdevourer! And quickly too! Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till I squat on him. Niches here and there contained skulls of all work at a short knock. I'll ride him for the world but there's a man of brawn in possession there. Christ, wouldn't it make a Siamese cat laugh? You will fall. And that Goddamned outsider Throwaway at twenty to one.
(Her eyes upturned.) Rockbottom figure and cheap at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the museum.
BLOOM: Forgive! The next day I carefully wrapped the green! Eh! Again!
BELLO: Here wet the deck and wipe it round! If I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found in this self same spot, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old.
BLOOM: The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. You have a glass of old Burgundy. Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. Ah? Scrapy!
BELLO: (The planets rush together, rests against her left eardrop.) Puke it out! You're in for it this time!
(He disappears. The bawd makes an unheeded sign.)
SLEEPY HOLLOW: One evening as I approached the ancient house on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, 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 neck until he is of this realm. There's the widow.
BLOOM: (He steps forward.) And her hair is dyed gold and he could not answer coherently. No, no. Thanks. But he's a Trinity student. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the other.
BELLO: (Wincing.) One!
(Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a caul of dark hair, his hand He murmurs He plucks his lutestrings. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, riderless, bolts like a maker's seal, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons.)
MILLY: Bah! Ha ha ha. There's someone in the royal canal.
BELLO: The sins of your natural life. I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night of September 24,19—, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my stepnephew I married, the dancing death-fires, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the hanging hook, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the better instincts of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Go the whole hog. What time? Warranted Cohen! Just a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you …. Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him. What was the dark rumor and legendry, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.
BLOOM: So, too, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.
BELLO: (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, arms akimbo, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of the world.) Kiss. Fourteen hands high. Cheek me, I dare you. Drink me piping hot. Changed, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute?
BLOOM: Red influences lupus. Well educated. Face reminds me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the law of falling bodies. Well educated. Yes, yes!
A VOICE: Goodgod.
(Bloom. He wears a brown macintosh under which her hair violently and drags her forward.)
BELLO: Good, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters. For such favours knights of old laid down their lives. A cockhorse to Banbury cross. What time? Where?
BLOOM: Splendid! Could you? What?
(In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a bowieknife between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles.)
BELLO: Where's that Goddamned cursed ashtray? Swell the bust. And quickly too! May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction.
(And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats a raw turnip offered him by the sniffing terrier.) Rockbottom figure and cheap at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the morning I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.
(Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires.) This bung's about burst. Where?
BLOOM: (Bows.) My spine's a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and we could not guess, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was beauty and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the picture of ourselves, the other. Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I … A saint couldn't resist it. Not the least little bit. Yes.
(Snakes of river fog creep slowly.)
BELLO: (Bob, a slipshod servant girl, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Riordan, The Nameless One.) Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! A cockhorse to Banbury cross.
(To Bloom. Laughing. Opulent curves fill out her hands. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the clean white skull and crossbones are painted in white duck suits, scarlet socks, upstarched Sambo chokers and large male hands and smashes the chandelier. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up. Smiling, lifts to the civil power, saying.)
THE CIRCUMCISED: (By walking stifflegged.) Then we struck a substance harder than the damp mold, vegetation, and moonlight.
VOICES: (A white lambkin peeps out of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the crowd and lurches towards the fireplace where he stands on the sideseats.) Inev erate inall … Ah! Sjambok him! Never heard of him. Morituri te salutant. He wrote to me. I touch your? Hurrah there, Bluebeard! Weda seca whokilla farst. Ah yes. Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.
(Whimpers. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. Humbly kisses her. With pathos.)
THE YEWS: (Tugging at his loins.) Paralyse Europe. You can apply your eye to the secret library staircase. That's all right, our sister.
THE NYMPH: (In alderman's gown and chain.) Nekum!
(Darkly.) Nekum!
BLOOM: (Squire of dames, in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.) -Black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we thought we saw that it was sure to …. The predatory excursions on which we could neither see nor definitely place. Instinct rules the world.
THE NYMPH: Wait. Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the married. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the decadents could help us, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the background. Nekum! Amen.
BLOOM: (He indicates vaguely Lynch and the Citizen exhibit to each other and spit Barking.) Are you sure about that voglio? Press nightmare.
THE NYMPH: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) Mount Carmel. We are stonecold and pure. No more desire. Poli …! Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four places. Mortal!
BLOOM: Father is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and the beast.
THE NYMPH: I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the knock of the reflections of the neighborhood. Nekum! May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the aristocracy. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman.
BLOOM: (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Relieving office here.
THE NYMPH: Neverrip brand as supplied to the aristocracy.
BLOOM: (His left hand he holds a parcel against his ribs and groans.) Good fellow! All you meant to me to Malahide or a steel foundry? You are a necessary evil. I had first heard the baying again, and we had heard in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we were both in the charmed circle of the symbolists and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some gigantic hound. Finally I reached the house, and sometimes—how I came to be here. Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb.
(They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses.) I shall seek with my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. You have said it.
THE NYMPH: (Terrified.) What must my eyes, my bosom and my shame. Only the somber philosophy of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest!
BLOOM: They charge!
THE YEWS: Then terror came.
THE NYMPH: (Two cyclists, with a violet bowknot.) And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes look down on? In the open air?
BLOOM: (Gaily.) He might be mad. But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev …. Black. I saw him, kipkeeper!
THE NYMPH: (Repentantly.) Amen.
BLOOM: (Without looking up from furrows.) My club is the flower in question. Day the wheel of the vice-chancellor. But he's a Trinity student. Trying to walk. Fido! I conjure you, mistress. The skeleton, though she had her advisers or admirers, I was just chatting this afternoon at the picture of ourselves, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the viceregal lodge to my idea.
(One. Rather a mess.)
THE WATERFALL: Ho, boy!
THE YEWS: (Raises high behind the silent lechers.) Shes faithfultheman. He expresses himself with such apposite trenchancy. Why aren't you in tea. And on our virgin sward. Glauber salts.
JOHN WYSE NOLAN: (His forehead veins swollen, his side eye winking Aside.) Isn't he simply idolises every bit of her! This is the parallax of the impious collection in the hidden museum, and this we found it.
THE YEWS: (He places a hand in his hand to his back for leapfrog.) Rope which hanged the awful rebel. His screams had reached the house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.
BLOOM: (Two discs on the sideseat sways his head cocked.) Only the chimney's broken. Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil., 20 minims; Tinct. nux vom., 5 minims; Tinct. nux vom., 5 minims; Extr. taraxel. iiq., 30 minims. Compulsory manual labour for all, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas. As we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we heard a knock at my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's. The blinds drawn.
THE ECHO: Who writes?
BLOOM: (I shall be mangled in the slot.) If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met before. Press nightmare.
(Accordingly I sank into the purple waiting waters.) The just man falls seven times. The witching hour of night. Not I! Why, look … Who'll …? What? Isn't that history?
(Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop. 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.)
THE HALCYON DAYS: Haw haw have you the horn? For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. Police!
(Her ankles are linked by a sugaun, with dignity.)
BLOOM: (Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red cutty sarks ride through the murk, head over heels, in tone of reproach, pointing.) Hoy! I know him. Trying to walk. A bit sprung.
(Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen.) Stephen!
THE ECHO: Dream of the corpse-eating cult of Shakti.
THE YEWS: (A heavy stye droops over her flesh.) I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a few times. Out of it!
(His face impassive, laughs in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples. Satirically He places a ruby ring.) Hurray!
THE NYMPH: (Dances slowly, moaning desperately.) Sacrilege! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the ecstasies of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.
THE YEWS: (Points.) This is indeed a festivity. Corpus meum.
THE WATERFALL: I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the beeftea is fizzing over!
THE NYMPH: (They move off with slow heavy tread.) Mortal!
BLOOM: I'll introduce you, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal at the dead, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the presence of some gigantic hound. Yes, yes! Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. Fancying it St John's pocket, we thought we heard the baying of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure. Heirloom. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and myself. Interesting quarter. By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. As we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and the beast. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. Now, however, we were hard up I washed them to save the laundry bill. A pure misunderstanding.
(Stephen. In the background, in their time, but some bloody savage, to the table.)
STAGGERING BOB: (A concave mirror at the three whores then gazes at the dead.) If I could only find out about octaves. Iagogogo!
BLOOM: High School!
(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a flat awkward hand.) I was at Leah. Father starts thinking. Our museum was a regular barometer from it.
(Hiccups again with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy. He hops.)
THE NANNYGOAT: (Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs.) Dr Hy Franks. Of Bloom.
BLOOM: (H. Rumbold, master barber, in moonblue robes, a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) I know what he's saying. Constable, take his regimental number.
(Excitedly.) Mr Wisdom Hely J.P. My old dad too was a regular barometer from it. Half a league onward! Rags and bones at midnight. By striking him dead with a hatchet. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.
(Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him his schemes for social regeneration.)
THE DUMMYMUMMY: Reprover of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?
(Stephen turns and sees Bloom. Bowel trouble.)
COUNCILLOR NANNETII: (Communes with the unparalleled embarrassment of a waterfall is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below.) Clever ever. Klook.
BLOOM: They can live on. Lord knows where they are on the moor the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the watercarrier, or sphinx with a hatchet.
THE NYMPH: (Clasps his head, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a kick.) You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the grave, the hit of the visitor. Worse, worse! Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber.
(Bowel trouble.) Tranquilla convent. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I shut my eyes, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.
BLOOM: (She keens with banshee woe She wails.) Bad luck. Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. Yes. To drive me mad! Rarely smoke, dear.
THE NYMPH: Wait. Heard from behind.
(With quiet feeling.) They are not in my dictionary.
BLOOM: (Gives a rap with his free hand.) Only your bounden duty. The quoits are loose. Stitch in my side.
(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his face to the size of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the farther nostril a long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.) No!
(She holds his high grade hat over his ears.)
THE VOICE OF KITTY: (Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women.) An eagle gules volant in a sheet in the royal canal.
THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Where's the bloody house?
(The couples fall aside. Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch He nods.)
THE VOICE OF LYNCH: (His lawnmower begins to lilt simply He is seated on a rope slung between two railings, counting.) Get down and push, mister. Ah yes.
THE VOICE OF ZOE: (Jumps surely from the farther side of him coated with stiffening mud.) Iagogo!
THE VOICE OF VIRAG: (A hobgoblin in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd, appealing.) That's not for you. Wait till I wait. Deciduously!
BLOOM: Extinguishing all lights, we were hard up I washed them to save the laundry bill. I fear, even a pricelist of their hosiery. O daughters of Erin. How time flies by! Then too far.
THE WATERFALL: Abulafia!
THE YEWS: Carried unanimously. Stop Bloom!
THE NYMPH: (She signs with a turreting turban, waits.) Amen. We are stonecold and pure. Poli …! Worse, worse! We immortals, as the baying again, and we gave a last glance at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the Dutch language.
(He blows into bloom's ear.) And the rest! In the open air?
(Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but I dared not acknowledge. Takes from the table between bella and florry He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards Stephen's breast with outstretched finger A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart. He thumps the parapet.)
THE BUTTON: Ho ho!
(Baraabum! Lynch squats crosslegged on the halltable the spaniel eyes of nought.)
THE SLUTS: The vieille ogresse with the buttend of a gigantic hound in the morning I read of a thinker. The Court of Conscience is now open.
BLOOM: (A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks.) Garryowen! Nice mixup. Demimondaine. They have the dimensions of your stuffed fox.
THE YEWS: (He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and holds the lapel of his days, high haircombs flashing, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.) Get down and push, mister.
THE NYMPH: (Lynch gets up, rights his cap back to the outside car and mounts it.) Poli …! The powderpuff.
(To Bloom She gives him the next midnight in one hand and fingers He listens.) You found me in four places. We are stonecold and pure.
(Over the well of the watch in turn He mumbles incoherently.) Satan, you'll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Sacrilege! What have I not seen in that chamber? We eat electric light. Useful hints to the aristocracy.
(The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the sicksweet weed floats towards him, their tunics bloodbright in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, marked made in Germany.) Mount Carmel.
BLOOM: (Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a crying cod's mouth, his eyeballs stars.) What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester. The mouth can be better engaged than with a hatchet. Stephen! I forget brought the food. Black. I read of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and how we delved in the water. Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a nameless deed in the water. Come home.
(Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers it nervously to Zoe.) I'll lay you what you like she did it on purpose … Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as lower.
THE NYMPH: (Cuttingly.) Poli …!
BLOOM: (Peering over the mantelpiece.) You call it a festivity. Your eyes are as vapid as the other. Cursed dog I met. Searchlight. What? Experienced hand. What do ye lack?
(Blesses himself.) Powerful being. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was sure to … He, he! Here is all he …. Even to sit where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the ecstasies of the impious collection in the navy.
(Bloom is hastily removed in the gilt mirror over the world.) Influence of his surroundings. I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and it ceased altogether as I did the night, not at all! With …? Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the morning I read of a christian! That is so long since I.
(Tears in his hand She prays. Shrill.)
BELLA: Don't!
BLOOM: (On October 29 we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our neglected gardens, and with gentle fingers draws out his notebook.) My spine's a bit of wire and an old friend of mine there, Virag, you! When? Come home. Dash it all. For my wife. Ah! Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. The quoits are loose.
BELLA: (Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires.) Zoe!
(Rushes forward and places an ear to the front.) Trinity.
BLOOM: (It burns, the deathflower of the torchlight procession leaps.) There was no one in the vilest quarter of the kingly dead, and heard, as though to grant the last demonic sentence I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Day the wheel of the visitor.
BELLA: Show. You'll know me the next time.
BLOOM: Curiously they are gone. Cousin.
BELLA: (A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her.) You're not game, in fact.
ZOE: You'll know me the next time. You'll say you don't know.
(In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her hand He blows into bloom's ear.) Come and I'll peel off.
(Pulls himself free and comes forward.) There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over far swamps and seas; and, worst of the moon; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. Come on all!
(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up He places a bag of Collis and Ward on which sprawl his hat rolling to the edge of a gigantic hound, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some unspeakable beast.) A dry rush.
(Pawing the heather abjectly. Round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling. Laughing witches in red soutane, sandals and socks.)
BLOOM: (Scornfully.) Deploying to the terrible scene in time to hear from you, though she had money.
ZOE: What day were you born?
BLOOM: (The navvy, lurching heavily.) Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.
ZOE: O, my dictionary. Who has a fag as I'm here? More limelight, Charley. Woman's hand.
BLOOM: I promise never to disobey. On the hands down.
STEPHEN: Shirt is synechdoche.
ZOE: No bloody fear.
(A plate crashes: a brass poker.) Has little mousey any tickles tonight?
BELLA: (The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.) You're a witness. Fbhracht! I could kiss you. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing.
(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a bowieknife between his teeth. Lynch with his wand she settles them down quickly. A concave mirror at the threshold.)
STEPHEN: (Pointing.) Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts. Hold my stick. Hillyho!
(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the evening of his son, approaches the pillory with crossed arms She glances round her neck, gripes in his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the head of Father Dolan springs up.) See? Lynch.
LYNCH: (The silent lechers.) Hoopla! Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!
STEPHEN: (What's that like?) Now, however, we were both in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and he could not answer coherently. She has it.
BELLA: (I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and we began to happen.) 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 unnamed and unnameable. Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul?
STEPHEN: (Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him his schemes for social regeneration.) I know you, sir darling.
(Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the top of Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the bench, stonebearded.) Hurt my hand somewhere.
(Staggering Bob, a visage unknown, we did not look at it He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy. Round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe circle freely. Room whirls back. Scratches his nape He bends again and leers with lacklustre eye.)
FLORRY: (Clapping her belly sinks back on the guidewheel, yells as he is reassuraloomtay.) Locomotor ataxy. Wait.
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, stands on guard, his scruff standing, a massive whoremistress, enters. Hoarse commands.)
BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: (Warding off a blow clumsily.) You can't. He wrote to me. Morituri te salutant. He scarcely looks thirtyone. Our sister.
STEPHEN: (Solemnly.) Near: far. Kings and unicorns! Doesn't matter a rambling damn.
ZOE: (Raises the royal Dublin Fusiliers, the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.) I'm English.
LYNCH: (Children.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.
KITTY: O, they played that on the Toft's hobbyhorses.
(Lynch tosses a cigarette on to the right where the fog has cleared off.)
FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries.
LYNCH: Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and the same God to her.
(Laughs He laughs.)
STEPHEN: Consistent with. Where's my augur's rod?
BLOOM: (All agree with him just now and another gentleman out of the prostrate form There is no answer.) The hand that rocks the cradle. In fact we are having this time of life.
(Professor Goodwin, beating his foot in tripudium.) There's a medium in all things. Not I!
BELLA: (Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Hynes, red with henna.) Ho. Show.
ZOE: (Fancying it St John's pocket, we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui.) Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, the horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-symbol of the uncovered-grave. I cannot reveal the details of our neglected gardens, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my back.
(With exaggerated politeness He indicates vaguely Lynch and Kitty still point right. Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The Nameless One.)
BLOOM: Isn't that history?
STEPHEN: A riddle! Hold me.
(She darts to cross the road. To Stephen.) Parlour magic.
BLOOM: (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) Up the fundament.
STEPHEN: Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Come somewhere and discuss.
BLOOM: (Scared, hats himself, steps back, loudly.) Lord knows where they are on the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality. Pay them, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.
STEPHEN: (Belching.) Clever.
BLOOM: Taken a little wild oats, you!
(The fleeing nymph raises a keen He sniffs.) We only realized, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the other ducky little tammy toque with the colours for king and country in the Dutch language. Not man. Don't be cruel, nurse! Miriam.
STEPHEN: Ça se voit aussi à paris. The baying was loud that evening, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the tales of the Blessed Trinity? The eye sees all flat. Lie.
(Near are lakes.) Distance. I am least likely to meet these necessary evils?
BLOOM: Probably lost cattle. Rudy!
STEPHEN: Mais nom de nom, that is Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the dismal railway station, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and another time we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the neighborhood.
BLOOM: Thank you, sir.
STEPHEN: (The navvy, lurching by, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of her lover and calls.) Why should I not speak to him, and another time we thought we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered.
(Points to Stephen.) Uropoetic.
(Clerk of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in the doorway. Bloom appears, leading a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to Cissy Caffrey.) Dance of death. I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. Some trouble is on here. Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the commonplaces of a gigantic hound.
(Holds up a finger Slily.)
LYNCH: (Lynch He nods.) Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I saw that it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.
STEPHEN: (They grab wafers between which are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Metempsychosis, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar.) Shirt is synechdoche. Nothung! Non serviam! Tell me the amulet. Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would be a universal language, the bells in heaven were striking eleven. Uropoetic.
(Arches his eyebrows He twitches He coughs and calls to Stephen. To Stephen.) Suppose. Ça se voit aussi à paris. His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the belly pièce de Shakespeare.
(Exeunt severally.) In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. When I aroused St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the Blessed Trinity? Doesn't matter a rambling damn. Lamb of London, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher.
ZOE: Are you coming into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I see it in your face.
FLORRY: (She stretches up to the civil power, saying.) Don't be greedy.
STEPHEN: Excavation was much easier than I expected, though want must be his master, for some needed air, and every subsequent event including St John's pocket, we thought we saw the bats descend in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and it ceased altogether as I pronounced the last end of Arius Heresiarchus.
LYNCH: (Footmarks are stamped over it in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice.) Sheet lightning courage.
(She claps her hands. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John must soon befall me. Her sowcunt barks.)
BLOOM: Might be his house. I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any they have. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my teens, a mixed marriage mingling of our neglected gardens, and became as worried as I.
(What the hound was, and we began to happen.) Shy but willing like an ass pissing.
ZOE: As we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we had heard all night a faint, distant baying of some gigantic hound which we could not guess, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.
STEPHEN: (He pats divers pockets.) Hamlet, revenge!
ZOE: (Morning, noon and twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers put on at the piano.) I alone know why, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, and without servants in a body to the objects it symbolized; and, worst of all shapes, and mumbled over his body one of the moon; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the uncovered-grave.
(She holds his hand.) For Zoe?
(Bitterly.) Talk away till you're black in the museum.
(His bangle bracelets fill.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and myself.
(Fainting.) You'll know me the next midnight in one of the impious collection in the same way.
LYNCH: Ba! Ba!
(Clasps his head is perched an Egyptian pshent.) Which is the jug of bread?
ZOE: (In his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on the wall a figure in the south, then twists round towards him, pulling her slip.) Travels beyond the foulest previous crime of the decadents could help us, and the flesh and hair, and he could not answer coherently.
(In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and jacket, orange, yellow, lizardlettered, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.) You're not his father, are you? Ten shillings?
(Aroma rises, stretches her wings and clucks.)
LYNCH: (Goes to the last place.) You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer. Hoopla!
(Bloom's croup. She fades from his breast bright with medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds.)
FATHER DOLAN: Ci rifletta. There's the man that got away James Stephens. Sweets of sin. Mackerel!
(To the court. Eagerly.)
DON JOHN CONMEE: Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon was up, man. As applied to Her Royal Highness. Last lap!
ZOE: (Across his loins.) No objection to French lozenges?
STEPHEN: (Tapping.) Alleluia. Where's the red carpet spread? Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the night, not I. Distance. Near: far.
ZOE: No objection to French lozenges?
STEPHEN: Self which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. Shite!
ZOE: Only, you know, sensation.
(Bob Doran, Mrs Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, shamming dead, and strikes him in the form of aesthetic expression, and the breath of the Kildare Street Museum appears, smoking birdseye cigarettes.) That's me. He's inside with his friend.
FLORRY: (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 city shake hands with both hands the night-wind … claws and teeth of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.) I knew once.
ZOE: Mount of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the museum. When I arose, trembling, I departed on the job herself tonight with the stealing of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I can recall the scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder.
(Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from all the nose, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom.) Travels beyond the sea and marry money. Yes.
BLOOM: (Midnight chimes from distant steeples.) Too ugly. Ah! Cousin.
BELLA: Trinity.
(Florry and Kitty still point right.) Disgrace him, I will! Ho!
ZOE: (Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting.) I see. Honest?
BLOOM: For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, carefully, slowly.
ZOE: (A grouse wings clumsily through the mist outside.) Influential friends. But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and such is my own. O go on! Are you looking for someone?
(With ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the banner of old glory is draped. A life preserver and a high barstool, sways over the letters which he opens.)
BLACK LIZ: That's all right. The soldier hit him. Came from a small piece of green jade object, we proceeded to the secret library staircase. Bloom now, and such is my knowledge that I am watching you.
(The jade amulet now reposed in a baritone voice.)
BLOOM: (Turns to the curbstone and halts again.) We are observed. I am going to scream. Ah?
ZOE: Fingers was made before forks. Yes.
STEPHEN: Poetic. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. They say I killed you, gammer! Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts. Come somewhere and discuss. Our interview of this sole means of salvation.
(He hurries out through the crowd at the unfriendly sky, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, heel toe, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his bald head and collar back to the sky and pecked frantically at the lamp image, shattering light over the world.) I see his eye. Which side is your knowledge bump? Did I?
(Henry Flower combs his moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe. Clipclaps glovesilent hands. Quietly lays a half sovereign into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads turned to his whores. A general rush and scramble.)
FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer.
(A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and hobbles off mutely. Gloomily. Holds up her skirt and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and articulate chatter. His features grow drawn grey and black striped suit, too small for him, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, though at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the door. Loudly.)
THE BOOTS: (She fades from his mouth, Alice struggling with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, riderless, bolts like a maker's seal, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons.) Sister, yes!
(His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the following darkness, ruin of all things and second coming of Elijah. Zoe stampede from the room.)
ZOE: (The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the cold sky and bursts.) No, eightyone.
(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)
(He gasps, standing. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. Florry turn cumbrously.)
LENEHAN: Our sister. Hek! May the good God bless him!
BOYLAN: (Fanning appears, bareheaded, in the mute world.) Rip van Wink!
LENEHAN: Here are the sweets.
BOYLAN: (Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a book in his hand.) Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. Ten to one bar one!
(Sweetly, hoarsely, in court dress Carelessly.) Was then she him you us since knew?
LENEHAN: (The marquee umbrella under which he claws He wags his head and collar back to the table.) I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack? Covered with kisses! That alderman sir Leo, when you were in number seven.
ZOE AND FLORRY: (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the vehemence of the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm in a rich feminine key He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the crubeen softly but holds back and screams.) At 8.35 a.m. you will be free.
BOYLAN: (Stiffly, her odalisk lips lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) May the good God, take him! The vieille ogresse with the bad breeches.
BLOOM: (Bickering.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John, for, besides our fear of the future. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John is a signpost planted by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the house and made shocking obeisances before the too late box of the neighborhood.
BOYLAN: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a series of empty fifths.) Stag that one is!
(Covering their ears, winces He wriggles He cries.) And when I saw …. When love absorbs my ardent soul.
BLOOM: Always open sesame. In my eyes read that slumber which women love. The expression of its owner and closed up the grave-robbing.
MARION: Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.
(He laughs.) Ti trema un poco il cuore? Let him look, the pishogue! See the wide world.
BOYLAN: (Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the dancing death-fires under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with dignity.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.
BELLA: Here, none of your tall talk. My word!
(Bloom. He plodges through their sump towards the land breeze.)
MARION: Only my new hat and a carriage sponge. I'm in my pelt. He ought to feel himself highly honoured. Let him look, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt.
BOYLAN: (He places a ruby ring on her forehead.) Sell the monkey, boys.
(Composed, regards her.)
BELLA: (The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when at long last in sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads He points He bares his arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and fondles his flower and buttons.) Here, you were with him.
BOYLAN: (In bushranger's kit.) Do like us.
BLOOM: So, too, mauve. He'll lose that cash to me. Your strength our weakness.
(With precaution.) Besides, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. You have said it was expected of me.
KITTY: (Two sluts of the circumcised, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his hand He clutches her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, rights his cap and breeches, arrives at the piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms, snatches up his hands fluttering.) And the viceroy was there with his lady. I'm giddy still. I'm giddy still.
(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming. He dons the black legal bag of gunpowder round his neck, nestling. He offers the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.)
MINA KENNEDY: (Stephen.) Hee hee! It is albuminoid. He's a man like Ireland wants. It was in consequence of a compatriot and hid remains in a body to the secret library staircase.
LYDIA DOUCE: (Zoe round the shoulders of an engine cab of the saints of finance in their places, turning turtle.) He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was the oddly conventionalized figure of a thinker. Baum! He tore his coat. Dublin's burning! I was pure.
KITTY: (With little parted talons she captures his hand to his crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen.) Tell us.
BOYLAN'S VOICE: (Bella Cohen stands before him.) Three times three for our future chief magistrate! The mockery of it out with the stealing of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?
MARION'S VOICE: (A paper with something written on it is not, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.) No, he professed entire ignorance of the corpse-eating cult of Shakti. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui.
BLOOM: (The O'Donoghue.) It was incredibly tough and thick, but so old that we have this day twenty years ago. Let's ring all the same way. His screams had reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the too late box of the object despite the lapse of five pounds. You have said it was marked down to nineteen and eleven. I don't know his name. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.
BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Post No Bills. Ay! It's Papli!
LYNCH: (He applies his handkerchief to his breastbone, bows He fixes the manhole with a turreting turban, waits.) Pandybat.
(Two sluts of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, kneel down and calls, her blue scarf in the sofacorner, her hand, appears over the crowd.) Pandybat.
(Near are lakes. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, on the table and starts. They are in grey gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the same time their twentyeight crowns.)
SHAKESPEARE: (He shouts He sings.) Smell my hot goathide.
(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives at the dead.) Our great sweet mother! O jays, into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the moor, I bade the knocker enter, but as we found in this self same spot, the dancing death-fires, the spirit which is in the national teratological museum.
(Coyly, through parting fingers.) Though she's a factory lass and wears no fancy clothes. Burblblburblbl! Think of your mother's people!
BLOOM: (The portly figure of a bed are heard to jingle.) Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I give you … I see some old comrades in arms up there among you.
ZOE: There's something up.
BLOOM: Day the wheel of the beautiful. I run?
(He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and Bloom gaze in the causeway, her streamers flaunting aloft. With contempt. From the thicket. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his phosphorescent face. In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, blue masonic badge in his hand which is feeling for her nipple.)
FREDDY: Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John and myself.
SUSY: In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and we gave a last glance at the unfriendly sky, and became as worried as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.
SHAKESPEARE: (Bickering.) Purdon street.
(Bitterly. The field follows, returns. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. I ever performed. Drunkards bawl.)
MRS CUNNINGHAM: (The glow leaps again.)
(Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand and raises his head. Half opening, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fringe.)
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: (He whirls round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping.) When was it, yes! By the bye have you the book, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing.
STEPHEN: As we heard a knock at my chamber door. Ho! Hold me. I stand you? Only the somber philosophy of the impious collection in the forbidden Necronomicon of the world without end. Where's the third person of the screw.
BELLA: Don't! What is it?
LYNCH: Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held.
ZOE: (With a cry flees from him unveiled, her limp forearm pendent over the wold.) Catch! Stop!
(Produces handcuffs. The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, bareheaded, flowingbearded.)
LYNCH: (Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.) He won't listen to me.
STEPHEN: (Runs to lynch.) Play with your eyes shut. What, eleven? I shall be mangled in the night, not I. Jetez la gourme.
(Bloom and Lynch in white duck suits, porringers of toad in the slot.) With me all or not to have that is Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had so lately rifled, as we found it.
LYNCH: Like that.
THE WHORES: Live us again. There was no one in the Dutch language.
STEPHEN: (His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh springs up through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to the curbstone and halts again.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the structural rhythm. No voice. The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet. Moment before the next Lessing says.
(Stifling.) Why striking eleven? I don't know your name but you are quite right.
BELLA: (They cheer.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. None of that here. I know you, canvasser! Are you my commander here or? Jesus!
STEPHEN: (Folding together, uttering crepitant cracks The planets rush together, bows He coughs and, taking out a batonroll of music with vigorous moustachework.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. How much cost? Great success of laughing. Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times.
(Bloom uncovers himself but, whatever my reason, I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what we read.)
BELLA: (Turns to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by what we read.) Ho ho.
THE WHORES: (Only the somber philosophy of the chandelier and turns the gas full cock.) Mentor of Menton, pray for us. Barang!
STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? The bold soldier boy.
ZOE: Mount of the kingly dead, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the calm white thing that lay within; but I dared not look at it.
LYNCH: Hu hu hu!
FLORRY: Love's old sweet song.
STEPHEN: (Simon Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Howard Parnell, city magnates and freemen of the bloody globe.) His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the moor, always louder and louder. We are all in the corridor. Wonder. A time, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.
BLOOM: (Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg astride and, in nondescript juvenile grey and old.) Sir Bob, I shall be mangled in the monkeyhouse.
STEPHEN: With me all or not at all. Retaining the perpendicular. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, but we recognized it as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. 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.
(Room whirls back.) Part for the moment. Which side is your knowledge bump?
BLOOM: Do it in my left hand.
STEPHEN: May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the present it has done so. Damn death.
(His head under the downcoming rollshutter.) Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! … Fergus now and pierce … wood's woven shade?
(Last in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his hand. Bloom reach the doorway.)
SIMON: Any good in your mind?
(He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Stop thief! Now. God Omnipotent reigneth! Mor! Bip! Klook. You think the ladies love you for doing that to me that he is 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. Ah, sure we were both in the background. There's someone in the vilest quarter of the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Keep our flag flying!
(THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.) Ha ha ha ha ha. … Allow me a moment … this gentleman pays separate … who's touching it? Jigajiga.
(Laughs emptily He taps his parchmentroll. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. With a tear in his breeches pockets, places his arm, simpers. Behind his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the boles and among the bystanders. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, 66 C, night watch in shouldercapes, their skinny arms aging and swaying. Babes and sucklings are held up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for … She claps her hands She runs to Stephen. Apologetically.)
THE CROWD: His screams had reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade. Roast him! It was incredibly tough and thick, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. My body. For the honour of God! Bravo! C'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe? Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe. Soldier and civilian. Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? U.p: Up. Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! All is not well.
(Bella places her foot on the steps, drawing him by the odour of her painted eyes, ringed with kohol. To Zoe. The door opens. On an eminence, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the gasjet lights up a reef of skirt and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Owen Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Jack Meredith, Master Owen Goldberg, Master Percy Apjohn, stand by the shoulder. To Stephen. Statues and painting there were, all the male brutes that have possessed her. Produces handcuffs.)
THE ORANGE LODGES: (Bends her head, sighing.) There's the widow. Erin go bragh! Turn again, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.
GARRETT DEASY: (Quickly He sighs, draws red, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins and raises it to her smiling and laughing.)
(She glides sidling and bowing, twirling it slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns on his shirtfront, steps out of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in the air on broomsticks. Calls from the hearth.)
(After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, knobbed with knuckledusters. Kisses chirp amid the bystanders.)
THE GREEN LODGES: Rip van Wink! Last lap!
(Excitedly. He slaps her face.)
STEPHEN: But after three nights I heard the faint baying of some gigantic hound. Sphinx.
ZOE: (Promptly.) Who has twopence?
PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY
:
(With saturnine spleen.)
ZOE: Hoopsa!
(Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his issuing bowels with both of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the presbyterian moderator, the favourite, honey cap, smiles.) Two, three, Mars, that's courage. I'm Yorkshire born.
(Gobbing.) Are you looking for someone?
BLOOM: Mosenthal.
LYNCH: (Bloom becomes mute, shrunken, carbonised.) The mirror up to nature.
STEPHEN: (He coughs and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls inaudibly.) Expect this is too monotonous! Out of it now. Jetez la gourme.
(Her falcon eyes glitter.)
ZOE: (Girls of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the heaving bosom of the water.) I'm melting!
(Hi! In a hollow voice. The dead of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and large white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. I remember how we thrilled at the horse. Her mouth opening.)
ZOE: (Smiles, nods slowly.) Travels beyond the sea and marry money. Two, three, Mars, that's courage. Would you suck a lemon? Him?
(Screams. Rising from his side. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his eyes on to the edge of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the witnessbox, in cap and an old couple He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a greasy bib, men's grey and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from their mouths a volleyed fart. Bickering. Indistinctly. Shrinks back and hunched wingshoulders, peers at his loins. Bloom. Shocked, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes a masonic sign. Troops deploy. He disappears into Olhausen's, the presbyterian moderator, the other cheek. Last in a mosaic of movements. Turns To Stephen.)
MAGINNI: It was incredibly tough and thick, but as 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 and I saw a black shape obscure one of our penetrations. Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame! Boulangère! Escargots! Changez de dames! I saw that it held. Révérence! Escargots!
(Quakerlyster plasters blisters.) Balance! Traversé! Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame!
(H. Rumbold, master barber, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and clown's cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking with a scooping hand He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the drowned corpse of his nose, tumbles in somersaults through the foliage. Coughs behind her hand to his bobbing howdah. Satirically He places his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva He shoves his arm, simpers. The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Placing his arms uplifted He winks at his heart and lifting his right hand on his brow, attends him, growling. Zoe.)
THE PIANOLA: Lionel, thou lost one!
(Father Conroy and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Her head perched aside in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom. Nods, smiling. Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then, plucking at his hands fluttering. Love or burgundy.)
MAGINNI: (The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of estate, the head of Father Dolan springs up through a coalhole, his head and collar back to the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with a parcelled hand.) Les ronds! La corbeille! Chevaux de bois! Dansez avec vos dames!
(Lifts a turtle head towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive plants. Twirling, her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, tumbles in somersaults through the crowd, plucks from a high barstool, sways over the staircase banisters, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her breast.)
HOURS: I'm disappointed in you!
CAVALIERS: O, yes!
HOURS: Forgive him his trespasses.
CAVALIERS: Extinguishing all lights, we thought we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and to Lilith, the enginedriver, and the ecstasies of the earth.
THE PIANOLA: Stubborn as a mule!
(Stiffly, her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, leering mouth. Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the heads of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. He blows into bloom's ear. Quietly.)
MAGINNI: Carré! Carré! Balance! Deportment. So, too, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.
(His eyes closing, yaps. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing in discord. Guffaw with cleft palates. His hand on Bloom's croup. Room whirls back.)
THE BRACELETS: Vobiscuits. Heigho!
ZOE: (Turns the drumhandle.) No?
MAGINNI: Tout le monde en place! Dos à dos! Salut! No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's.
(She frowns with lowered head. Tom Rochford, winner, in planes intersecting, the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.)
ZOE: I hate a rotter that's insincere.
(Loftily She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in mouth. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires. The brass quoits of a waterfall is heard in all the whores on the columns wobble, eyes of nought.)
MAGINNI: An inappropriate hour, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the commonplaces of a dominating will outside myself. Révérence! Les ronds! The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. Dos à dos!
(Before him Father Conroy and the ropes and mob him with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a revolver with which he opens. She hiccups, then closing. Watching him.)
MAGINNI: But after three nights I heard afar on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the decadents could help us, and heard, as if receding far away, a jarring lighting effect, or catalog even partly the worst of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Révérence! Breathe evenly! Dos à dos!
THE PIANOLA: O Leo!
KITTY: (Puling, the Duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris.) And as I approached the ancient grave I had hastened to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, I shall be mangled in the mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral.
(Hands Bella a coin. Yawns, then closing. Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly. Stephen, flourishing the ashplant. In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, his fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her.)
THE PIANOLA: Jigjag.
ZOE: Talk away till you're black in the face. I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation.
(Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over the flame of gum camphire ascends. Staggering Bob, a bowieknife between his teeth.)
STEPHEN: Hangende Hunger, fragende Frau, macht uns alle kaputt.
(Bronze by gold they whisper. In sudden sulks. On the night He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the drowned corpse of his sack. Laughs emptily He taps his parchmentroll energetically With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his left hand he holds a bicycle pump. The O'Donoghue of the Gods. With bobbed hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his shaven mouth, his head cocked.)
THE PIANOLA: Who was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere.
(He disappears into Olhausen's, the druggist, appears in the same time their twentyeight crowns. Not unpleasantly With a voice of waves With a tear in his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of rosepink blood. Beside her a camel, hooded with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a Nameless One.)
TUTTI: Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John nor I could identify; and on the wing, on the moor, always louder and louder, and at them! Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. Lionel, thou lost one! But, O Papli, how old you've grown!
SIMON: And in black.
STEPHEN: Not that I must kill the priest and the king.
(Bloom at the door. Stephen, then at Stephen, flourishing the ashplant on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Barking furiously. He coughs thoughtfully, drily. The freckled face of the cloud appears. Scratches his nape He bends down and calls, her streamers flaunting aloft. In dalmatic and purple mantle, to retrieve the memory of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh as a female head, descends from her.)
(From the car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and we could not be sure. He yawns, showing the grey scorbutic face of the tooraloom lane. Florry whispers to her. Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon the ground. LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS. To Stephen. Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the moor the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the family rosary round the whowhat brawlaltogether. A skeleton judashand strangles the light of the searchlight behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Cork, their skinny arms aging and swaying. Hoarsely, sweetly, rising from their mouths a volleyed fart.)
STEPHEN: Expect this is the poet's rest.
(Murmuring. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her hands She runs to the edge of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell. Shocked, on the moor the faint distant baying over the table Lynch tosses a piece gives a piece gives a cow's lick to his crown and jauntyhatted skates in. Stating that he is wearing green socks. They appear on a whore's shoulders.)
THE CHOIR: Ci rifletta.
(His thumbs are ghouleaten. He wriggles forward and places an ear to the outside car and horse back slowly, loud dark iron.)
BUCK MULLIGAN: All cordially invited. What do I draw the five pounds? Klook.
(Swaying.) Now, as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the notorious fireraiser.
THE MOTHER: (Loudly.) But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Time will come.
STEPHEN: (Weakly.) Where's the third person of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the same if talking a poor english how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. When? Did I?
BUCK MULLIGAN: (Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the car and calls to Stephen.) Il vient! Aum! There's someone in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?
(His lip upcurled, smiles.) One of the lamps in the national teratological museum. Plagiarist!
THE MOTHER: (In a room lit by a candle stuck in the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the top ledge by his rapier, he halts.) Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary. Beware! You too. Prayer is allpowerful.
STEPHEN: (He mutters.) A time, times and half a time. Fabled by mothers of memory. Gold. Black panther.
THE MOTHER: (The air is perfumed with essences.) Repent, Stephen. O Divine Sacred Heart!
STEPHEN: (Pandemonium.) Cardinal sin. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts.
THE MOTHER: Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Love's bitter mystery. O Sacred Heart! You too. Prayer for the suffering souls in the world.
STEPHEN: Ecco! How long shall I continue to close my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground.
THE MOTHER: Repent, Stephen. Repent, Stephen. Have mercy on him!
ZOE: (The elderly bawd protrude from a Sedan chair, borne by two blackmasked assistants, advances with gladstone bag which he covers the gorging boarhound.) Him?
FLORRY: (A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, follow from fir, picking up the grave, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and the ropes and mob him with supple warmth.) Let me on him now. I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the oddly conventionalized figure of a dominating will outside myself.
BLOOM: (Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the unknown, injected with dark mercury.) He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn.
THE MOTHER: (All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the odour of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie Kelly stands.) All must go through it, Stephen. Prayer is allpowerful.
STEPHEN: (Gives a rap with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a side of her slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a pocketcomb and gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.) Be just before you are quite right. Hand hurts me slightly. Where's my augur's rod?
THE MOTHER: (The elderly bawd seizes his sleeve, slobbering.) Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John must soon befall me.
(Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the brink.) I aroused St John must soon befall me.
(Altius aliquantulum.)
STEPHEN: (Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.) Great success of laughing.
(Niches here and there contained skulls of all Ireland, under the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom.)
BLOOM: (She prays.) Eleven.
STEPHEN: Eh? I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? This feast of pure reason. Wait a second.
FLORRY: Locomotor ataxy. The bird that can sing and won't sing.
(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his hand which is feeling for her lair, swaying her lamp.)
THE MOTHER: (He carries a large mango fruit, offers it to her brow with her.) Our alarm was now divided, for my sake! All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he professed entire ignorance of the neighborhood.
STEPHEN: It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Coela enarrant gloriam Domini. Hola! His noncorrosive sublimate! If you allow me. It is of this.
THE MOTHER: (-Heard directionless baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and articulate chatter.) More women than men in the Holland churchyard? Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN: Monks of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the Blessed Trinity?
(The fronds and spaces of the tooraloom lane. She glides away crookedly. Per vias rectas!)
THE GASJET: Who booed Joe Chamberlain?
BLOOM: Where?
LYNCH: (She hiccups, then smiles, laughs in a corkscrew cross.) All one and the same God to her. Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. The youth who could not shiver and shake.
BELLA: Don't!
(Bagweighted, passes with an orange topknot. My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl.)
BELLA: (He rises slowly.) Where is he?
(A concave mirror at the moth out of his nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten. The twilight hours retreat before them. The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching Incoherently. A cannonshot. The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes in the doorway.)
THE WHORES: (Imperiously.) He'll come to all right.
ZOE: (A crone standing by with a kick.) It was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as if receding far away, a fine thing and take it back. Is he hungry?
BELLA: The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade.
(In the agony of her eyes.) An omelette on the …. I'll charge him!
BLOOM: (Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay.) No, no.
A WHORE: Stable with those halfcastes.
BELLA: (Bloom uncovers himself but, whatever my reason, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.) Jesus! Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul? The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.
BLOOM: (His cock's wattles wagging.) Unfortunately threw away the programme. The stye I dislike. Yes, sir? One two tlee: tlee tlwo tlone.
BELLA: (Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling and chants to the ground.) A ten shilling house. Zoe! I'll charge him!
BLOOM: (He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and nose, steps forward, pugnosed, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes the beagle's call, giving the sign of the torchlight procession leaps. Bloom. She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Molly's best friend! There's a medium in all things.
BELLA: (What the hound was, and articulate chatter.) This isn't a brothel. My word!
BLOOM: (Shakes a rattle.) That's for the reform of municipal morals and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb.
FLORRY: (With a sinister smile He glares With a tear in his hand.) They say the last day is coming this summer.
BELLA: An omelette on the … Ho!
BLOOM: Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. Leave him to me to self-annihilation. N.g. Mutton dressed as lamb. Madness rides the star-wind, on fire!
(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant.) Seasonable weather we are having this time of life. For the rest there is a dose. Quick.
BELLA: (Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her shoulder, mounts the block.) A ten shilling house. Do you want three girls? Here, you were with him. Don't! Ho ho. Police!
(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the room right roundabout the room, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I saw a black capon's laugh.) You'll know me the next time. You're not game, in fact.
BLOOM: (Bickering.) I am not on pleasure bent.
(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in a crispine net, appears at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently.) Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a body to the god of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their purblind pomp of pelf and power.
BELLA: (The morning and noon hours waltz in their eyes.) I dared not acknowledge. You're such a slyboots, old cocky.
ZOE: (With a glass of water, enters.) Blue eyes beauty I'll read your thoughts!
BLOOM: We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. What do you think of me.
(Gives a rap with his free hand.) Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. U.p: up. Who?
(They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. A green rill of bile trickling from a high pagoda hat. His scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his amorous tongue. At the pianola on which an image of the herd, and with gentle fingers draws out a hard basilisk stare, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his arms uplifted He winks at his loins. Each has his banjo slung. To The Crowd. Whispers hoarsely. Winks at the unfriendly sky, his feet: then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself. It slows to in front of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and moonlight. He laughs, shaking his head with cackling raillery He sneezes. Spattered with size and lime of their lodges they frisk limblessly about him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns. Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. He ceases suddenly and holds up a finger and barks hoarsely More genially. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the bystanders. Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins a long boatpole from the arms of her mouth. Savagely His forehead veins swollen, his scruff standing, a cenar teco. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the lamps in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and raven hair. Glances sharply at the ready. He knots the lace. Alone on deck, in black garments, with a turreting turban, waits.)
THE HUE AND CRY: (Four days later, whilst we were both in the night He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch He lilts, wagging his head.) You'll be soon over it. Bip! Much—amazingly much—was left of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the dead. Hypsospadia is also marked. Dublin's burning! You can't. Are you going far, queer fellow?
(Deeply. A cake of new-buried children. Bloom's vulva He shoves his arm. And a prettier, a young whore in a mosaic of movements.)
STEPHEN: (Abruptly.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. And when I saw on the belly pièce de Shakespeare. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the damp nitrous cover. But beware Antisthenes, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a faint, distant baying as of some gigantic hound, or catalog even partly the worst of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward. I shall be.
PRIVATE CARR: (Lurches towards the lampset siding.) All he could do was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN: A discussion is difficult down here. Hail, Sisyphus. The old sow that eats her farrow!
VOICES: Bravo! H'lo! Wearied with the High School excursion? He didn't know what to do about my rates and taxes? Any good in your eye to the citizens of Dublin in the museum. Iagogo!
CISSY CAFFREY: Cissy's your girl? He insulted me but I forgive him for insulting me.
STEPHEN: (Tapping.) The predatory excursions on which we could not be sure.
(Scratches his nape He bends down and pray.) Which. Personally, I flew.
VOICES: I'm a Bloomite and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the odors of mold, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.
CISSY CAFFREY: They're going to fight. I was in company with the privates.
PRIVATE COMPTON: Here, bugger off Harry. Bugger off, Harry, give him a kick in the same way.
PRIVATE CARR: (In each hand an orange citron and a torn bridal veil, her limp forearm pendent over the recreant Bloom.) I love old Bennett.
LORD TENNYSON: (With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles He cries.) Nip the first rattler.
PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him one in the knackers.
STEPHEN: (Kitty.) And sovereign Lord of all shapes, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Blessed be the eight beatitudes. Brain thinks. Great success of laughing.
CISSY CAFFREY: (The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.) Come on, you're boosed.
STEPHEN: (With quiet feeling.) Nothing. Soggarth Aroon? One evening as I approached the ancient grave I had hastened to the ends of the visible.
PRIVATE CARR: (Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom and Lynch in white sheepskin overcoats and wears a battered brazen trunk.) Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN: (A wealthy American makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly over her trinketed stomacher, a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the letters: L.B. several paupers fill from a doorway.) We are all in the vilest quarter of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a shrill laugh. O merde alors! Pater!
(Bloom and Zoe circle freely.) … 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 proceeded to the theory that we were mad, dreaming, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by the way. Our friend noise in the street.
(In his left shoulder.) Married. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians.
DOLLY GRAY: (Bloom.) He's a professor out of it! Where's the great light? Given at this our loyal city of Dublin and whereas at this our loyal city of Dublin and whereas at this our loyal city of Dublin in the year I of the races. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum … Iubilantium te virginum … Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad.
(Boys from High school are perched on the drawn face. He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the Dutch language.)
BLOOM: (Severely, his face to the pianola flies open, the chapter of the Baby infantilic, 50 Meals for 7/6 culinic, Was Jesus a Sun Myth?) Thanks.
STEPHEN: (Laughing.) Uropoetic.
(Levitates over heaps of slain, in tone of reproach, pointing.) Money I haven't.
(Darkly.) 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of heaven. Ineluctable modality of the sow's ear of the earth we had seen it then, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our world.
(The O'Donoghue.)
BLOOM: (Masculinely.) Every knot says a lot.
STEPHEN: (Bagweighted, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, into the void.) Whetstone! And his ark was open. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though want must be his master, for some brutish empire of his. The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval which ….
(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a black bogoak pig by a shrill laugh.) I wish it for you.
BIDDY THE CLAP: Introibo ad altare diaboli. It is not dream—it is not, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a short time?
CUNTY KATE: A mormon. An eagle gules volant in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a few quims?
BIDDY THE CLAP: But after three nights I heard that.
CUNTY KATE: I have …. Charitable Mason, pray for us.
PRIVATE CARR: (Corny Kelleher who is about to part, the … Peremptorily.) Bennett?
(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though branded as a purely domestic animal. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the jaws of the torchlight procession leaps. All the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the Gods. A dark horse, nag, Cock of the ocean. Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready. Jeering. Murmurs.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (From the sofa, chants with joy the introit for paschal time.) Breach of promise. Here, to keep it up, man. Salute!
(Rushes to the table.) Free fox in a distant corner; 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. Parleyvoo!
(Factory lasses with fancy clothes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, yelling. Shakes his curling capbell Tears of molten butter fall from his hands: with hangdog mien He offers the other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. His thumbs are stuck in a few rooms of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and strikes him in the causeway, her finger in her hand She points.)
PRIVATE CARR: (He taps his brow.) When I arose, trembling, I staggered into the house, and the night, not only around the doors but around the windows also, upper as well as lower.
STEPHEN: (The moon was up, rights his cap and, in Central Asia.) Vampire. Will someone tell me where I am a most finished artist. Near: far. Wearied with the commonplaces of a watermelon. The old sow that eats her farrow! Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug?
(The dog approaches, his feet: then lies, naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton.) Lucifer. I am twentytwo. Only the somber philosophy of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the dominant are separated by the knock of the visible. Hm. Anyway, who takest away the sins of our world. He wants my money and my life, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and we could not be sure.
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Darkshawled figures of the ace of spades, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a lane.)
(Watching him. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a figure in the grate. He fumbles again in his oxter.)
STEPHEN: Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the event, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I felt that I wish it for you.
(Impassive, raises a keen He sniffs.) Blessed be the eight beatitudes. And his ark was open.
PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry. Make a bleeding butcher's shop of the city.
BLOOM: (His head follows.) Shy but willing like an ass pissing. Rudy! Why pay more? I need mountain air. Bohee brothers. Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Might have lost my life too with that horsey woman.
STEPHEN: (The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when at long last in sight of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the city is presented to him.) Today.
PRIVATE CARR: He insulted my lady friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON: What ho!
STEPHEN: And his ark was open. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and such is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the tales of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.
(Shouldering the lamp image, shattering light over the crowd with his hand. A male form passes down the lane.)
KEVIN EGAN: Bah! It has been said by one: beware the left, the notorious fireraiser. Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand.
(A phial, an Agnus Dei, a bunch of keys tied with crape. As we hastened from the top of his nose thoughtfully with a violet bowknot.)
PATRICE: Don't you believe a word he says.
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: (Bells clang.) No Bills.
BLOOM: (Kitty back over the mantelpiece.) To show you how he hit the paper. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the bird of paradise wing in it though it was beauty and the last thing at night would benefit your complexion.
STEPHEN: (Nimbly they dance, twirling japanesily.) How long shall I continue to close my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and about the lute? Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night.
BIDDY THE CLAP: Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, we had seen it then, let my epitaph be written.
THE VIRAGO: Cook's son, goodbye. Theirs not to reason why.
THE BAWD: Streetwalking and soliciting. Fresh thing was never touched. Better for your mother take the strap to you at the livid sky; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the amulet. All prick and no pence.
A ROUGH: (Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red with the stealing of the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, holding out her hands, kneel down and out but, whatever my reason, I departed on the columns wobble, eyes of a tower Buck Mulligan, in brown Alpine hat, festooned with shavings, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a coral wristlet, a young whore in a trice and holds the lapel of his only son, approaches.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible. You'll be home the night of September 24,19—, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the jaws of the damp nitrous cover.
THE CITIZEN: (Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the table.) My turn now on.
THE CROPPY BOY: (The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the air of the kingly dead, with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.)
(Her hands and features working. Kitty still point right.)
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: (From the thicket.) The rabble were in number seven. The skeleton, though crushed in places 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, Father Dolan! Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13.
(Offhandedly. Takes from the dismal railway station, was the dark wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a secret room, his eyeballs stars. Red rails fly spacewards.)
THE CROPPY BOY
:
(Coldly. A pigmy woman swings on a ruby ring.)
(Offended. Produces handcuffs. Bronze by gold they whisper. So at last I stood again in her hair violently and drags her forward.)
RUMBOLD: Any good in your eye.
(His cock's wattles wagging.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and articulate chatter. It's Papli! Most of us thought as much.
(Florry and waltzes her.) Megeggaggegg! And they shall stone him and defile him, the unfortunate class?
EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Stephen fumbles in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then lies, naked, fettered, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a grunt on Bloom's croup.)
(Mingling their boughs. Imperiously.)
PRIVATE CARR: I don't give a shit for him. He's my pal.
STEPHEN: (Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) Les distrait or absentminded beggar. No! My centre of gravity is displaced. Though our ages.
(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, touching, rising from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) Some trouble is on here.
PRIVATE CARR: I'll do him in, so help me fucking Christ!
STEPHEN: (A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with hands descending to, touching, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese.) Poetic. Our interview of this. Salvi facti sunt.
(Stephen 's fingers. The retriever approaches sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. In a low dulcet voice, harsh as a purely domestic animal.)
STEPHEN: Caress. Too much of this loot in particular that I … But, by Saint Patrick …! I … But, by Saint Patrick …! Hillyho!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (When I aroused St John must soon befall me.) Stop press edition. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless.
(The swancomb of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in girlish blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower Plausibly He murmurs.) My turn now on. Who came to Poulaphouca with the dents jaunes. Turncoat!
(Time's livid final flame leaps and, clasping, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the top of her deathrattle.) Ireland's sweetheart, the horrible shadows, the beeftea is fizzing over!
STEPHEN: Married. That fell. Sixteen years ago. Burying his grandmother. This movement illustrates the loaf and a secret room, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the stealing of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.
CISSY CAFFREY: (Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.) It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.
A ROUGH: Laemlein of Istria, the pale watching moon, the ashplant?
PRIVATE CARR: (Her large fan winnows wind towards her lap.) I'll do him in, so help me fucking Christ!
BLOOM: (From under a lighthouse.) Constable, take his regimental number. I went girling. A man's touch.
THE CITIZEN: Much—amazingly much—was left of the Citizen, pray for us.
(Peering at bloom's palm. He murmurs vaguely the pass of knights of the cloud appears. Behind his back.)
PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry. He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Fair play, here.
STEPHEN: Hamlet, revenge! Queens lay with prize bulls.
BLOOM: (The crowd disperses slowly, moaning desperately.) When I arose, trembling, I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my present fear I shall seek with my talisman. Come along with me now before worse happens. What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? And Molly was eating a sandwich of spiced beef out of the ear, eye, heart, John, walking home after dark from the abhorrent spot, the pluckiest lads and the serpent contradicts.
THE NAVVY: (Spits in their hands, caper round in the sign of mirth at Bloom's plight.) Salivation is insufficient, the beeftea is fizzing over! Any boy want flogging? Who profaned our silent shade? No? Canvasser for the missus is master.
(Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but I dared not look at it. Bloom follows and picks it up. He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the disc of the noisy quarrelling knot, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her robe She clutches the two crowns. Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up He places a ruby ring.)
MAJOR TWEEDY: (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, waspwaisted, with dignity.) Soft day, was caught in the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which had apparently been worn around the windows also, upper as well as lower. White yoghin of the world. That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we thought we had seen it then, but we recognized it as the thing hinted of in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons.
PRIVATE CARR: Here.
PRIVATE COMPTON: (A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow.) And he insulted us. We were with this lady.
(Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds with the poundnote to Stephen. A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart.)
CISSY CAFFREY: I was with the privates. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.
CUNTY KATE: Married, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I am the light of the symbolists and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the same time with such apposite trenchancy.
BIDDY THE CLAP: The pity of it!
CUNTY KATE: (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) Here. Me see.
STEPHEN: Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti.
PRIVATE CARR: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands fluttering.) Was he insulting you?
BLOOM: (Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at Bloom and Zoe stampede from the car and mounts it.) Keep to the river. I know. Heirloom. One and eightpence too much has already happened to give me a hand a second, sergeant.
CISSY CAFFREY: (He kisses the bedsores of a waterfall is heard mellow from afar, merciful male, melodious: Shall carry my heart to thee!) Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. For me! And me with a soldier friend.
(Lifting up her skirt, scrambles up.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the duck.
STEPHEN: (Babes and sucklings are held up.) Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error.
VOICES: Though she's a factory lass and wears no fancy clothes.
DISTANT VOICES: Ah! He told me his name? Ho, boy!
(My methods are new and are causing surprise. Horrorstruck. Bells clang. He wheels twins in a corkscrew cross. We were no vulgar ghouls, but I dared not look in the long undisturbed ground. A panel of fog a piano sounds. Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the girl, approaches. Not unpleasantly With a voice of waves With a sour tenderish smile. Bleats. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the druggist, appears in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white spats, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up. Terrified. He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and holds with the letters which he opens. He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his hands stuck deep in his hand. In dark guttural chant as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their shoulders. Gushingly. Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand. Her mouth opening. Nods. Sings. Tom Rochford, winner, in accurate morning dress, wearing a false badge of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office He points his finger. Clerk of the visitor. Levitates over heaps of slain, in the grate. A concave mirror at the ready. He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a figure appears slowly, showing a coalblack throat, nods, trips down the lane. In bushranger's kit. Pulls himself free and comes forward. Repentantly. Laughs loudly. He pats divers pockets. Mastiansky, Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses of Egypt, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his pupils waxing He wriggles He cries, his lordship the lord god omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the honorary secretary of the Kildare Street Museum appears, smoking birdseye cigarettes. All the windows, singing in discord. Laughing. Bitterly. Hiding her with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, with drawling eye He laughs, shaking his head in a mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade. The famished snaggletusks of an area, lurching heavily. Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, stands gaping at her cigarette. The motorman bangs his footgong. Tears of molten butter fall from his cheek with a Scotch accent. Bowel trouble.)
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: Racing card!
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: O, Leopold!
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: (Bella approaches, his fingers impatiently He runs to the chandelier and, steadying her pose, lifts to the table and takes out and in her robe She clutches again in her weeds, her finger in her mouth.) Got a match on you?
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: (And a prettier, a cenar teco.) Mrs Cohen's.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Which?
(From the presstable, coughs and, holding out her hand, a young whore in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples. Shouts.)
ADONAI: Best value in Dub.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: An alibi.
(He opens his mouth, Alice struggling with the stealing of the track. At the window to open it more.)
ADONAI: Shakti.
(With bobbed hair, fixes big eyes on to the table. Alien it indeed was to whisper, The Nameless One, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and with headstones snatched from the room, past the winningpost, his hands He searches his pockets vaguely.)
PRIVATE CARR: (The sound of a tower Buck Mulligan, in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.) I don't give a bugger who he is. He aint half balmy.
OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (Patrice Egan peeps from behind, ogling, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution.) Hands up to Carlow. Sea serpent in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a hot place.
(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.) 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, however, we thought we heard the baying of some gigantic hound.
(Stephen stands at the side presents to him. A Titbits back number.)
BLOOM: (General commotion and compassion.) To breathe.
LYNCH: Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmm. And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.
(Wearied with the vehemence of the navvy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds.) The mirror up to nature. Give her your blessing for me.
(Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads solemnly. Laughter of men from the rack.)
STEPHEN: (In disdain she saunters away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, in brown Alpine hat, a slipshod servant girl, the poor little fellow, he's laid up for the lord mayor of Dublin, his boater straw set sideways, a fairy boy of eleven, a retriever, Mrs Riordan, The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a body to the table to count.) Noble art of selfpretence. Hold me.
BLOOM: (With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Hugeness! I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist.
STEPHEN: The octave. I staggered into the house, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the oldest churchyards of the unknown, we thought we saw the bats descend in a parlous way. Uropoetic.
CISSY CAFFREY: (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.) Stop them from fighting! Stop them from fighting!
(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.) I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do—you know, and the young man run up behind me.
BLOOM: (What the hound was, and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their tooralooloo looloo lay.) Suicide. What was he?
PRIVATE CARR: (Tears up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the void.) By what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard?
(He squirms He pants cringing. A large bucket. Stephen. He repeats Profoundly. A Titbits back number.)
MAJOR TWEEDY: (Coaxingly Bloom puts out her hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and waddles off Points to his subjects.) Head up! Aha, yes. Which?
THE RETRIEVER: (Baraabum!) Mooney's en ville, Mooney's sur mer, the gently moaning night-wind, stronger than the night or a short time?
THE CROWD: Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe. We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we gloated over the moor, I can't hold this little lot much longer. Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and he under the influence. Hypsospadia is also marked. O Papli, how old you've grown! As we heard a knock at my chamber door. Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you. There's the widow. It was the night, not only around the sleeper's neck.
A HAG: Green above the red, says I. It is of patrician lineage.
THE BAWD: And better. Fifteen. Jewman's melt!
(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand She points to the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.)
THE RETRIEVER: (With a voice of whistling seawind With a cry flees from him unveiled, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in slow round ovalling wreaths.) Best value in Dub.
BLOOM: (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.) Not in full possession of faculties.
PRIVATE COMPTON: (Scared, hats himself, then closing.) Stick one into Jerry. Here's the cops! Fair play, here.
(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points a horning claw and cries out.)
FIRST WATCH: Caught in the same way.
PRIVATE COMPTON: Here's the cops! Way for the parson. Being now afraid to live alone in the knackers.
(A plasterer's bucket on the beach, a sprig of woodbine in the grate fan.) His screams had reached 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.
CISSY CAFFREY: (Earnestly.) They're going to fight.
A MAN: (At the pianola on which we could neither see nor definitely place.) Give the paw. Have a notion I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in the spring, round and round a ringaring. Finally I reached the house, and we heartily wish both men the best.
BLOOM: (In a low plinth and holds up a fit policeman He whispers in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and this we found it.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their phantom ship of finance …. I thought of destroying myself!
SECOND WATCH: Introibo ad altare diaboli. And done!
PRIVATE CARR: (In dalmatic and purple mantle, to Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the shoulder of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in luxury.) Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
BLOOM: (Bob, a sacrifice, sobs, his left ear, all in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.) Or the double event? Compulsory manual labour for all, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the crumbling slabs; the antique church, the brigade, of Clyde Road ladies. Being now afraid to live alone in the forbidden Necronomicon of the uncovered-grave.
SECOND WATCH: It is of patrician lineage.
PRIVATE COMPTON: (Hurriedly.) The enigmas of the decadents could help us, and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. Fair play, here.
PRIVATE CARR: (A part of the saints of finance in their beaks.) I shall be mangled in the vilest quarter of the damp nitrous cover. I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe! I'll do him in, so help me fucking Christ!
FIRST WATCH: (A man in the morning I read of a gigantic hound.) Caught in the act.
BLOOM: (Coaxingly Bloom puts out her hands.) I have mislaid … That is one pound six and eleven. As we hastened from the centuried grave.
FIRST WATCH: Come.
(Quietly lays a half sovereign on the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait. A fountain murmurs among damask roses.)
BLOOM: (In sudden alarm.) It fills me full.
(Not unpleasantly With a dry snigger He crows with a noiseless yawn.) That three shillings you can keep. Ah! No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you.
SECOND WATCH: His real name is Higgins.
CORNY KELLEHER: (He wears dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps.) He's covered with shavings anyhow. Boys will be boys. I've a car round there. Hah, hah! What?
(Averting his face to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and cries out in the south, then, but covered with an amber halfmoon, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the murk, white and blue under a lighthouse.) Sandycove! Safe home!
FIRST WATCH: (He was down and out but, whatever my reason, I departed on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family.) Infernal machine with a charnel fever like our own. The offence complained of?
(Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the baby. Peers at the gasjet.)
CORNY KELLEHER: Like princes, faith. Twenty to one.
(Shocked, on which is feeling for her lair, swaying his hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, posing calmly.) So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and we could neither see nor definitely place. That's all right.
FIRST WATCH: (Clasps to climb.) What's wrong here?
CORNY KELLEHER: (Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his scruff standing, a smoking buttered split scone in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself.) No bones broken.
(Flattered She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) I'll see to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Gold cup.
SECOND WATCH: (A tag of her eyes, points at Lynch's cap, smiles.) Canvasser for the three … allow me a moment … this gentleman pays separate … who's touching it?
CORNY KELLEHER: (I cannot reveal the details of our shocking expedition, or a clumsy manipulation of the heroine of Jericho.) And were on for a go with the mots. I give him a lift home?
SECOND WATCH: What about mixed bathing? Did you hear what the professor said?
CORNY KELLEHER: Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.) You have heard of von Blum Pasha. Absurd I am guiltless as the thing hinted of in the tooth and superfluous hair.
(He wails with the unparalleled embarrassment of a Nameless One, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch in white sheepskin overcoats and wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing on his face.) Do we yield? The name if you … I? Let's ring all the bells in Montague street.
FIRST WATCH: Around the walls of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the knock of the amulet. Name and address.
SECOND WATCH: The soldier hit him.
FIRST WATCH: Come to the station.
BLOOM: (Winking.) Thank you, sir. The greeneyed monster. Haven't you lifted enough off him?
SECOND WATCH: Haw haw have you the book, the grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own.
CORNY KELLEHER: Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and with headstones snatched from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which 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.
THE WATCH: (Goaded, buttocksmothered.) Air!
(Almidano Artifoni holds out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the guidewheel, yells as he slips on her finger in her hand, and the breath of stale garlic.)
BLOOM: (Mary.) Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. Yes. You mean Photo Bits?
CORNY KELLEHER: (Aroma rises, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory with crossed arms She glances back She darts to cross the road.) -The frightful, soul-symbol of the lamps in the morning. Well, I'll shove along. No, by God, says I. Like princes, faith. Come and wipe your name off the slate. No, by God, says I.
BLOOM: Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater.
CORNY KELLEHER: (Comes to the scone.) Eh! What, eh, do you follow me? Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet's.
(We are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face to the table and starts.) Do you follow me? Drowning his grief.
BLOOM: (Shrinks back and hunched wingshoulders, peers at the grave, the orient, a cloud of stench escaping from the Lion's Head cliff into the void.) You'll get into trouble. Sir Bob, I suppose. Simply satisfying a need I … Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted.
(A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable.) I dislike.
(He sniffs. He places a bag of Collis and Ward on which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow.)
THE HORSE: Nay, madam. Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody.
CORNY KELLEHER: And were on for a go with the mots.
(Bloom.) Boys will be boys. Won a bit on the races. Eh! One of them lost two quid on the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.
BLOOM: His screams had reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and heard, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.
(A hand glides over her hoof and a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes. Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them. LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS. To Private Compton, Stephen, flourishing the ashplant.)
CORNY KELLEHER: (A sweat breaking out over him and his palms outspread.) That'll be all right.
(Yellow poison streaks are on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the whowhat brawlaltogether.) That's all right.
(The daughters of Erin, in leper grey with a rigadoon of grasshalms.) Come and wipe your name off the slate. Drowning his grief. No, by God, says I.
BLOOM: I admired on you and you asked me if I may …. Has nobody …?
CORNY KELLEHER: I've a rendezvous in the corridor. Drowning his grief. His screams had reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and I told him to pull up and got off to see.
(He horserides cockhorse, leaping at his belt sailor fashion and with a violet bowknot.) Eh! That's all right. I know not how much later, whilst we were both in the background.
THE HORSE: (Smiles yellowly at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his hands cheerfully.) Card of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the same now we?
BLOOM: Hugeness! Sulphur.
(Puling, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the favourite, honey cap, smiles. Red rails fly spacewards. Enthralled, bleats.)
CORNY KELLEHER: (Seated, smiles, preoccupied.) Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the reflections of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.
BLOOM: It's all right.
(Bloom. Then in last switchback lumbering up and hands a box of matches. Shocked. Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones. Clapping her belly sinks back on the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the long undisturbed ground. Murmuring. The wolfdog sprawls on his breast in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the rack. Baraabum! He turns gravely to the table. Blushes furiously all over him and defile him. Deeply. The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching the bones. He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the breath of the city is presented to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Shrill.)
BLOOM: No, in the absentminded war under general Gough in the spring. Might be his house.
(Bloom stands, smiling.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless.
(It was the bony thing my friend and I had once violated, and unrolls the potato from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) You hear? Dash it all.
(A wealthy American makes a masonic sign.) I'm sick of it.
(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck 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 a scouringbrush in her weeds, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in the gallery. A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O'brien, sings shrill from a tree a large marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the presbyterian moderator, the presbyterian moderator, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, slashed with gold.) Crucifix not thick enough?
STEPHEN: (To Zoe.) Non serviam! Quick! Lynx eye.
(Lightly.) Here's another for you. Mostly we held to the present it has done so.
(The enigmas of the family. Awed, whispers.)
BLOOM: Learned when I saw a black shape obscure one of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. Relieving office here. Why?
(Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over his shoulder he bears a long liquid jet of snot.) Day the wheel of the lamps in the vilest quarter of the uncovered-grave.
(A cold seawind blows from his twocolumned machine.) No pruningknife. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I was just visiting an old rag of velveteen, and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.
(Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop.) I expected, though.
STEPHEN: (His thumbs are stuck in his hand.) Broke them yesterday.
(The next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we saw the bats descend in a hand lightly on his left shoulder. Bloom with his flaring cresset. My friend was dying when I spoke to him embodied in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, orange, yellow, draws red, orange, yellow, draws red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the reflections of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. Plaintively. Darkly.)
BLOOM: (His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh under which he opens.) Mamma! Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I knew that what had befallen St John must soon befall me. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though she had her advisers or admirers, I was just going home by Gardiner street when I served my time of life. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's stays. The last articles …. Giddy. Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I attacked the half frozen sod with a heart the size of a thing of beauty, almost to pray, or catalog even partly the worst of all shapes, and how we thrilled at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate!
(Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, his hand to her smiling and chants to the chandelier.) I hate stupid crowds.
(She keens with banshee woe She wails.) He'll lose that cash.
(He sighs and stretches himself, steps out of the damned. Cowed He winces. Dwarfs ride them, hot for a moment he reappears and hurries down the lane. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their tunics bloodbright in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his face.)
BLOOM: (These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.
RUDY: (A sweat breaking out over him He sniffs. A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and, gazing in the Black Maria. Her fingers in her hand. Bloom stops, sneezes He worries his butt. She frees herself, droops on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with large prayerbooks and long lighted candles in their saddles.)
#Ulysses (novel)#James Joyce#1922#automatically generated text#Patrick Mooney#Circe#H.P. Lovecraft#weird fiction#horror#American authors#20th century#modernist authors#The Hound
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Scoop! - Chapter 3
Some Explaining To Do
“So, you’ve got something on that Hiddleston mate?”
“Hello and good morning to you, too, William. I’ve slept well, how are you this fine morning?” Jo spoke into the smartphone she pressed to her ear while pouring herself a cup of coffee with the other hand. It was 7 in the morning and she hasn’t even had breakfast yet. Still, her boss was already on the phone.
“Yes, good morning. You went to meet him yesterday, didn’t you?” Jo could almost see the impatience on his face.
“I did”, she said, “There isn’t anything to report, though.”
“Why not?”
Jo rolled her eyes, took her bowl with yoghurt and bananas to the table, and then went to fetch her coffee before she sat down. “Because we talked just for a little bit. What was I supposed to do? Meet him and then ten minutes later ask him, if his last relationship was fake and if he murders puppies?” William actually laughed out loud at that. “He’s supposed to tell me something deep, isn’t he?”
“Yes, that’s the plan. Well, did he at least get along with you? Are you going to meet him again?” Jo only had these types of conversations with her friends. Never with a boss, though.
“He’s got my number. We’re going to stay in contact.”
“Well, good for you. Listen”, he then said, suddenly hasty, “I won’t be in the office today. But there are still two articles from you for the deadline today, right? So I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
Jo sighed. “Yes, there are and yes, you will. Good-bye, William.” She didn’t even wait for him to reply, before she hung up the phone. She was stressed and she didn’t even know how she could make it for the next two months until the deadline for her big scoop. She was already sleep-deprived as it was. With shows and plays to review, movies and TV shows to watch and art shows and galleries to visit. She was up before Sam and Nicholas, Sam’s boyfriend. And Sam and her even had to go to the same work place.
She jerked when it suddenly came to her mind that she never texted Tom back. The day before, it had just been too strange to suddenly be texting with Tom Hiddleston. THE Tom Hiddleston. Jo knew she had to, to do her job properly, but that didn’t change the fact that he actually was the first celebrity she met privately. Well, not entirely privately, but at least he thought so. And he wrote her first, that never happened to her with a well-known person.
All of the sudden, Jo felt butterflies in her stomach. She felt giddy like when she actually met some nice man she really wanted to date. She sighed. That feeling was probably due to the fact that the last relationship she had was with Markus in Hamburg which has been over for more than a year now. She did have one or two dates with a few men she met while out with co-workers at one pub or another, but that never became more than a kiss good-night. Yes, she knew she had to spend time with Tom to make this work and the prospect of meeting a guy for more than one date must have sent her feelings in this weird twist.
She picked up her phone from the table she put it down to eat her breakfast and drink her coffee, and opened Tom’s message from yesterday. A smile graced her face as she typed her reply.
Hey, Tom. I did knock, the living room was empty, but the door to the bedroom was suspiciously closed. I had a great time yesterday as well, and I hope you’ll have a good day today. – Jo
Josefine frowned. She never was good at texting which was pretty ironic considering she was a freaking journalist. But this would have to do. She didn’t want to overdo it. Of course, Jo would have to write an article with great news in it, but for now it would have to go slowly. She jumped a little when her phone buzzed. She definitely didn’t expect an answer this fast.
Hi, Jo (I suppose I’ll call you Jo from now on). Is it pronounced like ‘Joe’? I bet it is. Though, in your actual name it’s pronounced differently. But anyway, I was already out for my run and I’ll have meetings later. What are you up to? – Tom
She couldn’t help it, she laughed out loud. Really? That was what Tom wondered about? Jo shook her head while heading to the bathroom to get in the shower before her two roommates woke up and occupied the room.
Don’t worry about that, please. But yes, it is pronounced ‘Joe’. It’s 7:15 and you’re already back from your run? Now I officially feel lazy. I was kind of proud to be up at 7. I’ll be busy at work.
It’s always good to know, what to call you when we meet again ;) And I wouldn’t be up before the sun comes up, if there was a chance to go running later in the day. No rest for the wicked, huh?
Jo had to be careful to be quiet and not scream when Tom basically wrote he wanted to meet her again.
No rest for the wicked indeed, Mr Hiddleston. But maybe one can find some time someday ;)
It was the last message she sent before going to the shower and prepare for the busy day ahead of her.
***
“Tom?” He was smiling and staring at his phone under the table while having lunch with Luke. They’ve ordered their food and waited for their second round of drinks, and the actor thought it would be a good opportunity to check his phone. Again. “Tom?!”
��Huh?” He looked up, and sheepishly smiled at his publicist sitting across from him.
“That’s kind of rude, you know that, right? Who are you texting anyway?”
Tom at least had the decency to blush and put his phone in his pocket. “Sorry”, he then said, very aware that he didn’t answer the question.
“No, please no! Don’t do that to me”, Luke whined and actually looked like he suffered.
“What?” Tom smirked at his publicist. “I don’t do anything. Absolutely nothing. I’m innocent.”
“I know you, Tom. You’re so far from innocent with that look on your face. Who is she?”
Tom wiped the smile off his face as fast as he could. “She? There is no ‘she’.”
“Yet?”
“Ha! Well. Funny you would say that.” Across from him, Luke groaned. “I’m merely texting. We just sort of met yesterday.”
His publicist closed his eyes for a moment before looking at the actor. “Alright. Do I have to know anything about her? As your publicist? Any skeletons in the closet?”
Now it was Tom’s turn to sigh. He knew that since this summer, when Luke could control absolutely nothing that was published in the press, he was very careful. As his friend, Luke surely would be delighted for Tom to start dating again. As his publicist, Tom was sure Luke’s motto was to better be safe than sorry. Thankfully, at that moment the waitress came with their drinks, and put their waters on the table, all the while sporting a big smile. She was gone too soon, Tom realised after the slightly impatient cough from the other side of the table.
“We’ve only met yesterday. She ran into me in the coffee shop. Or rather, I ran into her. I offered to pay for her new coffee, we talked for over an hour, and then she gave me her number. That’s all.”
“So, you know nothing about her? Do I need to check her?”
“You most definitely don’t have to check her. I know things about her. Her name’s Josefine. She’s a-, well, she’s a journalist-“, he actually saw Luke cringe at that, “and she’s from Germany. We’re just texting, Luke. I won’t be getting married tomorrow.”
“So, no visiting the parents next week, either?”
Tom shot Luke a look, but knew he was right. Damn, those three months really weren’t easy on Luke’s side of the story. “No, actually. We won’t visit anyone. I do however have the feeling that we’ll meet again.”
“You have a good feeling about her then?” When Tom shrugged, but nodded, Luke sighed – again – but then nodded himself. “Okay, I’m done being your publicist for the next thirty minutes. Do you like her? What does she look like? And why the hell do you run into journalists in coffee shops?” His eyes literally sparkled and Tom smiled.
Then he started talking about that woman he ran into and who sparked his interest like no woman did for the last six months. Or even before that.
***
“Well, my dear Jo, what has you smiling like this the whole day?”
Josefine looked up from her lasagne just in time to see the smirks Sam and Nicholas exchanged, before they looked at her with similar raised eyebrows. It was creepy, they could almost look like the twins from The Shining, if they wanted to. If it wasn’t for the case that they looked entirely different from each other.
While Sam was 5’9’’, with a normal body to match and ginger hair and beard, his boyfriend Nicholas was at least 6’4’’ tall, well-built and had dark brown hair. Working in the financial district, he was clean-shaven and wore expensive suits. Sam on the other hand always hoped there weren’t any important people to interview, since he loved to wear his jeans shirts to work. It was her red-haired co-worker who asked the question this time, but Nick looked just as eager to know the answer.
“No one”, Jo mumbled and went back to her food, before she realised her mistake.
“No one?! Josefine, what are you not telling us?” Nick spoke up then.
Jo sighed and looked at her two friends. “I may be texting someone. I met him yesterday, I gave him my number, he wrote, and I answered. Nothing big.”
“It is something big! You were smiling all day! I saw you at work. You were so stressed out one moment, then you looked at your phone and you had an expression as if you’ve just seen the cutest puppies in the world! You’re smitten.” Sam acted, as this was the most exciting thing that ever happened to him.
“Well, he is funny. So there’s that. And I’m not smitten, he’s just really nice and easy to talk to. We just met yesterday, it’s not like we’re about to get married tomorrow.”
“But you’re going to meet again?” Now, he actually looked like an overexcited puppy, and Nicholas reached over the table to pat his boyfriend’s arm.
This time, Jo smiled as well. “I hope so.” Just because she really needed him for a story, of course.
“Okay, so what’s his name, what is he doing? Do we get to meet him? Yes?”
“God, Sam. Let the girl breath. Do we get to meet him, though?”
She rolled her eyes, a little sparkle in her green eyes and a smirk on her lips. “Let me meet him for a second time first? And his name is Tom. He’s –“, Jo started, but didn’t get to finish her sentence as her phone buzzed with an incoming call. From Tom. She was literally saved by the bell. William didn’t want many people in the office to know about the story she was working on, not until the weekly big editorial meeting at least, the week it was about to get published, and she hated to lie to Sam.
Right now however, Jo was busy trying not to blush. Especially with the teasing “oooooh” from both sides of the table. “Oh, hush”, she said and got up from her chair while tapping the screen to answer the call. “Hi”, she then said and went to move up the stairs to the loft and her “room”.
“Hey. I hope you’re not busy?” came the smooth British voice over the line.
“I’ve just finished eating”, she answered, plopping down on the bed, and freeing her long brown hair from the messy bun she twisted it in when she changed from her work clothes into a sweatshirt and sleeping shorts.
“No naked dinner this time, I hope?” Tom chuckled.
Jo laughed out loud. “No, no naked dinner, everyone was dressed accordingly. They asked about you, though”, she said, biting her lip. She hoped she didn’t say too much already. But damn, for this to work, she really needed to meet him and answers she needed, too.
“Oh?” He sounded cautious.
“Yes, well, not you specifically. But they asked why I was smiling at my phone. I didn’t tell them more than your first name. Don’t worry.”
“Okay. Well, my publicist, or better my friend, Luke, he asked about you as well. Seems like we were texting quite a bit today then?” Jo basically heard the smile in Tom’s voice.
“Seems like that.”
“So…”
“So?”
“Maybe we can sort of see each other again?”
Jo chuckled. Okay, this was kind of sweet. “Sort of?”
A sigh came from the other end of the line. “Jo”, he stated, almost whiny, “don’t make fun of me, I’m trying to ask you out. Not on a date of course, if you don’t want to. But you said you had to work so much, and I thought that maybe a dinner would be nice to get your mind off things?” Oh, if he knew, how much work a dinner, and talks with him would entail. But Jo’s heart stopped at the word “date”. She couldn’t let it come that far, could she? Forming a friendship was one thing. Actually going out with him was something entirely different.
“I’d like to have dinner with you, Tom. Maybe not call it a date...yet? And maybe nothing too fancy? There’s something Indian, Thai, or burgers close to my flat. If you want to.”
“If I want to? I’d love to. So, what are you doing Friday evening?” Tom actually sounded eager and Jo started to feel excited. Like she was genuinely looking forward to this…meeting.
“Nothing. It seems like I’ll go grab a bite, though.”
“Great. Text me the address. Or your address, if you want me to pick you up.”
“Will do. Thank you for calling, and for asking, of course”, she smiled.
Tom’s “Believe me, it’s my pleasure” managed to make her blush again. “Good night, Jo. Don’t overwork yourself. And sleep tight.”
“You as well, Tom.” They hung up and Jo felt herself grinning at the phone in her hand. This was so stupid. It was just work. Though, it was much easier than she thought at the beginning.
“Hey, missy! You have some explaining to do!”
Jo rolled her eyes, but got up from the bed anyway. “Coming!” She had some explaining to do, indeed.
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