Ulysses Part 124

Return and see.

_(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)_

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle!

BLOOM: _(In tattered moca.s.sins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond panes, cries out)_ I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's!

But that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he...

BELLO: _(Laughs mockingly)_ That's your daughter, you owl, with a Mullingar student.

_(Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her blue scarf in the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and calls, her young eyes wonderwide.)_

MILLY: My! It's Papli! But, O Papli, how old you've grown!

BELLO: Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our cla.s.sic reprints of old masters. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. The _Cuckoos' Rest!_ Why not?

How many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prost.i.tute?

Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander O.

BLOOM: They... I...

BELLO: _(Cuttingly)_ Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in the rain for art for art' sake. They will violate the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling bra.s.s fender from Hampton Leedom's.

BLOOM: Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return.

I will prove...

A VOICE: Swear!

_(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowieknife between his teeth.)_

BELLO: As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You are down and out and don't you forget it, old bean.

BLOOM: Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has n.o.body...? _(He bites his thumb)_

BELLO: Die and be d.a.m.ned to you if you have any sense of decency or grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to h.e.l.l and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have!

If you have none see you d.a.m.n well get it, steal it, rob it! We'll bury you in our shrubbery jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the b.l.o.o.d.y old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the b.u.g.g.e.rs' names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. _(He explodes in a loud phlegmy laugh)_ We'll manure you, Mr Flower! _(He pipes scoffingly)_ Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli!

BLOOM: _(Clasps his head)_ My willpower! Memory! I have sinned! I have suff...

_(He weeps tearlessly)_

BELLO: _(Sneers)_ Crybabby! Crocodile tears!

_(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to the earth. The pa.s.sing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the circ.u.mcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M.

Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M.

Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom.)_

THE CIRc.u.mCISED: _(In dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, no flowers) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad._

VOICES: _(Sighing)_ So he's gone. Ah yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There's the widow. That so? Ah, yes.

_(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her grotto and pa.s.sing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.)_

THE YEWS: _(Their leaves whispering)_ Sister. Our sister. Ssh!

THE NYMPH: _(Softly)_ Mortal! _(Kindly)_ Nay, dost not weepest!

BLOOM: _(Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with dignity)_ This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit.

THE NYMPH: Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale s.m.u.t of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman. Useful hints to the married.

BLOOM: _(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap)_ We have met before. On another star.

THE NYMPH: _(Sadly)_ Rubber goods. Neverrip brand as supplied to the aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.

BLOOM: You mean _Photo Bits?_

THE NYMPH: I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame.

BLOOM: _(Humbly kisses her long hair)_ Your cla.s.sic curves, beautiful immortal, I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray.

THE NYMPH: During dark nights I heard your praise.

BLOOM: _(Quickly)_ Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of bed or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent. _(He sighs)_ 'Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage.

THE NYMPH: _(Her fingers in her ears)_ And words. They are not in my dictionary.

BLOOM: You understood them?

THE YEWS: Ssh!

THE NYMPH: _(Covers her face with her hands)_ What have I not seen in that chamber? What must my eyes look down on?

BLOOM: _(Apologetically)_ I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago.

THE NYMPH: _(Bends her head)_ Worse, worse!

BLOOM: _(Reflects precautiously)_ That antiquated commode. It wasn't her weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle.

_(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)_

THE WATERFALL:

Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

THE YEWS: _(Mingling their boughs)_ Listen. Whisper. She is right, our sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer days.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: _(In the background, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat)_ Prosper! Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!