#bread and butter chant and mutter

[gethalloweened]

Toss the fig and save the date and

Bread and butter

Chant and mutter

Marination

Incantation

Chocolate icing

Timeline splicing

Yeast is rising

Rectifying!!!

#my little pony #mlp #my litte pony friendship is magic #my little pony fanart #my little pony fim #mlp fanart #mlp art #my little pony fandom #mlp fandom #friendship is magic #friendship is witchcraft #mlp fiw #pinkie pie #pinkie pie fanart #BUY SOME APPLES

[copperhawkthoughts]

Happy Wednesday! Have an Essek-POV Aeor WIP snip ft. self-indulgent obsession with what spells look like

Jester moves a little way further up the tunnel to a stretch where the floor appears to be smooth stone. From her garish pink haversack she produces a bolt of green fabric and a squat, ugly little cup thoroughly encrusted with sparkling stones.

She unspools the fabric and shakes it out, coaxing it to settle neatly into a long rectangle. She seats herself at one short end, placing the cup in front of her, and begins to chant.

You observe her closely, intrigued. You hadn’t seen her cast this spell the last time, too caught up in exploring Caleb’s magnificent tower, and the feel of Jester’s magic fascinates you, the strong conjuration energy laced heavily with something odd and crackling that must be her patron’s divinity, and her own sugar-spice signature.

As she brings the ritual to a close, you feel an upwelling of power centred on the gaudy cup. A swirling golden-green shimmer begins to fill the bowl, bulging above the rim for a brief moment before the surface tension breaks and it spills over like fog, like mist, dissipating into a shower of sparks before reaching the green cloth.

The others join you, arranging themselves around the edges of the makeshift tablecloth. Jester twirls a hand over the chalice and it boils over, covering the ground between you with a thick layer of glittering cloud.

The cloud slowly dissipates and as it does it leaves behind, in gleaming array, all the trappings of a courtly dinner, incongruously laid out on a rough cloth on the floor of a dream-flesh tunnel beneath an impossible city in the Astral Sea.

The gilt-edged porcelain service - dinner plate, salad plate, soup bowl; bread plate; cup and saucer - features a wide border of vivid cerulean overlaid with a gilded wreath of kelp and banyan leaves, framing an ornately calligraphed golden ‘LC’.

The teardrop handles of the abundant silverware - salad fork, fish fork, dinner fork; dinner knife, teaspoon, soup spoon, seafood fork; cake fork, dessert spoon; butter knife - are likewise engraved with the same monogram, nestled in a frame of curled leaves and seashells.

The crisp white napkins are monogrammed too. As best as you can tell at a glance, the sparkling crystal stemware - water goblet, red wine, white wine - is not.

Between one astonished blink and the next, the glasses fill.

You are certain that this spell was nothing like so elaborate last time; you can’t for the life of you recall the details of the place settings when you partook on the floor of Caleb’s tower, but you are certain you’ll remember this. A glance around at your friends’ faces - variously delighted, startled, nonplussed - proves your hypothesis; this is something special.

A little overwhelmed, you reach reflexively for the tall-stemmed white wine glass and nearly sputter at the unexpected sweetness of unfermented juice.

“Jess,” Beauregard begins, all the edges buffed out of her voice, “what is all this?”

“Oh, this is how they set the tables at the Chateau when my mama gives parties, you know. I just thought,”-her lower lip wobbles alarmingly for a moment-“it would be nice. I thought it would be nice.”

Fjord takes her hand in his large green one. “It’s great, Jessie.”

You mutter formless agreement along with the rest, unable to look at their faces, abruptly more aware than before that this might be a last meal for any one of you.

The silence hangs thick and weighted for a moment before Veth breaks it with an only slightly too-loud request for chicken satay.

#love is stored in the Jester #cr fanfic #the mighty nein #wip snip #wip wednesday #critical role fanfic #critical role #copperhawk writes #essek pov

[derpinette]

crude stew... do you fear it applebloom ?

#sometimes life is not a cake walk served up on a silver spoon #toss~ a~ fig~ and. save~ the~ date~ and. #bread and butter chant and mutter #marination incantation #chocolate icing timeline splicing yeast is rising rectifying !!!!! ( out of breath ) #the tlt remix of this effing sucks so does gypsy bard its actually unbearable TBH but that is subjective as always #I MEANT the tlt remix of gypsy bard i LOVE the song it is my favorite fanmade mlp song of all time

[justthehiddleswrites]

Cutthroat Kitchen | Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Summary:  You make an offhand remark about Tom’s Bolognese and now you are standing your kitchen ready to battle. Perhaps even to the death. Over pasta.

Warnings: Fluff

-

Tom was so engrossed with the pan he didn’t even notice the front door open or your keys clink in the ceramic dish in the foyer. He also didn’t hear you greet him as you reached the kitchen doorway.

“Tom!” you boomed as he lifted a spoon to sample his sauce.

He fumbled the spoon, sending sauce everywhere, mostly onto Tom’s glasses. The spoon clattered on the ground as Tom spun to face you, splattered face and all.

“Darling…” his voice terse as he removed his glasses to clean. “… a little warning would be nice.”

You covered your mouth to suppress the laughter bubbling up. “And miss the great Tom Hiddleston covered in…” you leaned in and kissed his cheek, getting some sauce on your lips. You licked your lips. “… Bolognese sauce. Not a chance. But for your information, I did announce myself, you just didn’t hear me, Gordon Ramsey.”

“You know I take my Bolognese seriously. I get into a zone. Now unless you have something else…” He gestured towards the pan.

You raised your hands in defeat. “I will leave you to work.” You gave him one more quick peck on the cheek, before snagging a piece of bread.

Tom swatted your butt with a towel as you hustled out of the kitchen. You busied yourself entertaining Bobby while Tom finished up dinner.

“It looks divine, darling.” you complimented as Tom placed a steaming plate of pasta in front of you.

“Thank you, dear. I love spoiling you.”

“Spoken like a good husband.” you smiled as you tucked in.

After too much wine and too much food, you cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.

“Must you always make such a mess when you cook?” you sighed as you scrubbed the third pan of the evening.

“We must never question the creative process.” Tom dried the plates, replacing them in the cupboard. “How was the Bolognese?”

“Passable.” you muttered, finishing up the last spoon, wiping your hands on a towel.

“Passable?!” Tom cried. “What happened to divine?”

“I said it looked divine.” you corrected him. “But I have made better.” You walked away, swaying your hips.

Tom used his long legs to his advantage to cut you off in the living room. You stopped in your tracks, smirking. Tom smiled back, knowing damn well what you were doing.

“Is that a challenge, darling?” His eyes twinkled.

“Perhaps?”

“How do you suggest we settle this?”

“I might have an idea or two.” You raise an eyebrow.

“By all means, let’s hear it.”

The two of you settled on the couch, Bobby under foot, to discuss the particulars.

-

Two Weeks Later

“Are the two of you really going to go through with this?” Benedict questioned as he faced the two of you.

You tighten the strings on your apron and glanced over at Tom, who cracked his knuckles.

“Positive, Ben.” Tom answered. “Now read what’s on the paper.”

Ben sighed. “How am I friends with two such ridiculously competitive people?”

“Sheer luck. Now read.”

“Fine. The two competitors shall have one hour to cook and plate their dishes. They are allowed to use anything in the fridge or pantry, including any previously prepared components. No stealing ingredients or components previously prepared by the competitor… Would either of you honestly steal from each other. You are married!”

“I wouldn’t.” You shot a knowing glare towards Tom. His eyes widened in mock shock.

“I have never—”

“Turks and Caicos, three years ago. Should I go into more details?” you countered.

“There’s a story I must find out about.” Sophie piped up.

“Et tu, Sophie?” Tom whined.

She only giggled in response.

“Can I continue with this ridiculous exercise?” Ben scoffed.

“Please.” Both of you responded.

“As I was saying… The finished dishes will be judged on taste and appearance via blind taste tasting by our two judges.” Ben gestured to himself and Sophie. “Any ties will result in a sudden death cook off.”

You made a “I’m watching you” motion towards Tom who pretended to slit his throat with his finger. Benedict rolled his eyes.

“Total drama queens, the lot of you. On your marks… get set… COOK!”

You threw your shoulder into Tom on the way to the fridge. He skidded off balance, and you opened it up first.

“No body checking!” Tom hollered, using his wingspan to reach over you.

“All’s fair in love and war, honey!”

You claimed a spot on the counter next to the stove and unwrapped your pasta dough.

Tom sneaked a glance on your side of the kitchen.

“Did you make your pasta dough?”

“I did.” You spied boxed pasta on his side. “Oh, you didn’t!” you feigned surprise. “Shame.”

Tom drew a breath in through his teeth, hissing. “Dirty pool.”

“Just taking every advantage. It isn’t my fault you have only three recipes in your repertoire.”

You ran the dough through the machine once, twice, and continued until a long thin strip of pasta dough formed. You tossed it on the floured counter. You filled a pot with water and turned it on while you heated another pan, placing a stick of butter in there.

Tom set about making some sort of red sauce.

“Making your stand by Bolognese? Predictable.”

“Keep your eyes…” Tom turned you to face your own food. “… to yourself, darling.” He kissed your cheek before returning to his sauce.

“Party pooper.”

“I want to win.”

“And I don’t?!”

“If you want to win, keep an eye on your butter.” Tom poked a spoon towards your pan.

“Shit!” You pulled it off the burner and were relieved to see the butter only browned and not burned. You turned the heat down and replaced the pan, adding some chopped garlic.

In a small bowl, you whipped up the cheese filling for your ravioli. You got the raviolis formed and dropped them into the water. You added some fresh sage leaves to the butter and turned the heat down. As you pulled the raviolis out of the water, you tossed them into the butter mixture. Tom cursed as he shook his hand.

“That pan is hot, honey.”

“Well aware, darling. My fingers can attest to that.”

“2 minutes!” Benedict yelled from the living room.

Both you and Tom picked up the speed, furiously plating up the dishes. You were just grating a bit of fresh nutmeg as Benedict yelled “Time!”

Tom moved to place the plate on the table behind the number 1.

“That’s not Bolognese?!” you exclaimed. “You only know how to make Bolognese!”

Tom smirked as you placed your own plate behind number 2. Both of you had previously typed out descriptions of your dishes. “I can be taught, darling. Bold of you to assume you were the only who prepared for this.”

“I’ll remember that you can be taught the next spring cleaning day and you are suddenly incapable of throwing away a single article of clothing.”

“Stay away from my running shorts.” Tom pointed a finger at you.

“Lover’s spat?” Benedict joked as him and Sophie walked in.

“She wants to throw away my favorite running shorts.” Tom explained.

“Good. They are ghastly. All those holes, you look like a bum.” Sophie piped up.

“Is that what happened to my favorite t-shirt?” Ben questioned, staring daggers at Sophie.

“When do we get to eat pasta?” Sophie changed the subject.

“We are not done with this.” Ben jabbed a finger towards his wife.

“First up, we have a Fra Diavolo with seafood.” Benedict recited from the piece of paper.

Sophie and him loaded up their forks with Tom’s pasta. They both chewed thoughtfully.

“Good spice.” Sophie commented in between bites. “But some of the seafood is not cooked all the way.”

You resisted the urge to smile. They moved on to your dish. “This is cheese ravioli with a browned butter sauce and frizzled sage.”

“Fancy.” Benedict commented.

“Show off.” Tom muttered.

“Shh!” you hushed him.

Sophie caught your eye and smiled. The ravioli sliced perfectly with their forks.

“The filling is smooth.” Benedict commented. “The browned butter tastes almost burned, however. And I am not much of a fan of sage.”

Tom stifled a chuckle, covering it with a cough. You noticed a knowing glance between Ben and Tom.

“Allow us to deliberate.” Sophie commented, and she pulled Benedict out of earshot.

With all your weight, you shoved Tom in the side. “Way to give it away!”

Tom punched you playfully in the arm. “You were not much better, my dear. And don’t think I didn’t see that look between you and Soph. Trying to influence the judges, you should be ashamed.”

“Hello pot, meet kettle! You and Ben were practically telegraphing your insidious plan to throw this competition in your favor.”

Tom clutched his chest. “You wound me to think I would stoop so low as to throw a contest.”

“I do think so. You hate to lose. Even in a cooking competition against your wife.”

Tom protested more, but Benedict cleared his throat.

“We have made a decision.”

Your stomach jumped into your throat.

And the winner is…” Sophie continued Ben’s thought, her hands hovered between both plates. “… number 2!”

You threw your hands in the air and jumped around.

“YES!! Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” you squealed.

Tom’s head dropped to his chest.

“Winner, winner, winner!” you chanted. “Loser!” you pointed towards Tom.

“Thanks a lot, Ben!” Tom groused. “I thought we had a deal!”

“You did cheat!”

“Tried to cheat. It didn’t work!”

“Sophie threatened me.” Ben deadpanned.

“Are you scared of your wife?” Tom questioned.

“Absolutely. I’m also scared of your wife. She punches.”

“Excellent point.” Tom turned to you, and smiled one of his killer smiles. “Now…” You glared down as his arm wrapped around your waist. “… about the terms of this contest?”

You smiled back up at him, running your hand across the stubble on his chin.

“Remember those running shorts?”

Tom’s eyes widened before his brows furrowed. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Try and catch me!” you screamed as you went full speed towards the bedroom. Tom followed, gaining on you with each step.

“We’ll just see ourselves out!” Benedict called out as Sophie collapsed into giggles on the sofa. “Drama queens the lot of them.”

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston imagine #tom hiddleston fluff

[kawaii-mango]

Babysitter Blues

Surprise @kitkatzrgr8! I’m your Secret Santa! 😁

I hope you enjoy this bit of Donald bonding with his boys for @ducktalessecretsanta2020​

Fanfiction.net

Note: Mrs. Birdwell is the babysitter shown in "Woo-oo!'

Chapter 1

The delicious scent of toasted bread wafted through Donald Duck's room. Even in a deep sleep, he couldn't help but smile. The pleasant aroma brought back memories of his dad cooking breakfast, or even better, his old roommate José Carioca making tasty pão na chapa.

But a sudden "CLANG" startled Donald and he fell out of his hammock bed.

As he sat up, he groaned and grumbled about his sore back. Even over his complaints, he heard three whispering voices coming from the living area. He frowned.

Something was up.

Donald stood to his feet and removed his sleep mask, but nearly fell over once he saw how bright it was outside.

"Oh no."

He scrambled over to his nightstand to check his phone, but when he pressed the button to check the time, the "dead battery" logo flashed dimly onscreen. His heart sank.

He overslept!

"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" He dashed out of his room. His poor boys! They must've been starving!

Once he got to the kitchen area, the three ducklings stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Huey was sitting at the table spreading peanut butter on toast, next to him was Louie who was eating cereal, and Dewey was sitting on the floor eating a toaster pastry and playing video games.

"Good morning, Unca' Donald!" They greeted.

Before Donald could speak, Huey jumped up and ran over to him. "Look, Unca' Donald! I made breakfast for you!" He proudly held up a plate with two pieces of peanut butter toast with banana. "Don't worry, I used a plastic knife."

"Thanks, Huey." Donald said. "Boys, I-"

"C'mon sit down and eat!" Dewey hopped up and grabbed his arm to lead him to the table. Huey set down the plate and pulled out a chair and Dewey sat him down. "You've got a busy day ahead of you!"

Donald sat down. "I-"

"Don't forget the milk." Louie poured him a glass and slid it across the table, stopping just short of his plate."

Any initial guilt Donald was feeling about oversleeping was quickly being replaced by suspicion again as he looked at their smiling faces then down to his plate and back at them again.

"Okay, what's going on here?" He asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"Nothing." Dewey answered, a little too quickly for Donald's liking.

Huey sighed. "Okay, Unca' Donald, you caught us." His brothers looked at him, but Huey simply shook his head causing them to back down.

"We don't want a babysitter anymore!" They said.

"Especially not one as boring as Old Mrs. Birdwell." Louie added.

"And we won't be home alone. We'll have each other!" Huey asserted.

"Yeah!" Dewey piped up. "Between the three of us, we're like 24-years-old!" The boys looked at their uncle with wide, toothy smiles; however, his expression remained unchanged.

"Sorry, boys, but no dice."

"But Unca' Don-"

"No being home alone until you get to high school, and not a moment before."

"Yes, Unca' Donald."

**********

Thankfully, the rest of breakfast proceeded without incident, and Donald returned to his room to get ready for the day. Before he began, he plugged up his phone to get some charge and sat in his hammock. He figured he could spare a few minutes to check and see what he might've missed since last night

Moments later, the phone's loading screen appeared and shortly afterwards, his lock screen. Not soon afterwards, notifications began to appear: News from Duckburg, a reminder about his phone's limited storage space, a special Cola Crash event, and finally, a voicemail from Mrs. Birdwell.

The last one puzzled Donald. Mrs. Birdwell seldom called unless it was a holiday or she was just letting him know that she would be running late (which was even more rare).

He shrugged it off. Maybe she was just checking in. This had been a busy week after all.

**********

Meanwhile, the boys sat in the living room, glaring at each other, yet avoiding the other's stare at the same time. Neither has said a word to the other since breakfast, but for Dewey, the silence was starting to become maddening.

"So what now?" He finally spoke up.

"I don't know, do you have any other bright ideas, Llewelyn?" Huey cut his eyes at his green-clad brother who responded with an equally dirty look

"You're the smart one, figure it out yourself, Hubert." Louie crossed his arms and turned away from him. Huey responded by also turning away from him in a huff.

Dewey scowled at his brothers. "Well somebody needs to come up with something!" He shouted. "I'm not about to have Old Mrs. Birdwell cramp my middle-school style!"

Louie scoffed. "Face it, Dewey, we don't have a snowball's chance of changing Unca' Donald's mind right now." He pouted and slumped down further on the couch.

"'Right now'." Huey echoed. "Hmm…" He got up and walked away. Dewey and Louie exchanged curious glances and followed him.

"Wha'cha got?" Louie asked.

"Well, it's going to take a lot more than just one day of showing Unca' Donald that we're responsible." Huey pondered. "If we're gonna get him to change his mind, we're going to need to keep this up for much longer."

"No problem!" Dewey said as Louie let out a disgusted grunt. "How much longer are you thinking? A couple of weeks? Maybe a month?"

"A year, at least."

This time Louie and Dewey let out disgusted grunts. Before Huey could speak again, Donald appeared in the hallway.

"Okay, then. Let me know what the doc-" He froze when he saw his nephews."Er, keep me posted. Bye." He ended the call and smiled at them.

"Are you ready to go, boys?" He added a nervous laugh. In response, they gave him looks that ranged between suspicious to concerned

"Unca' Donald, what's going on?" Huey asked.

Donald's grin dropped slightly. Instinctively, he wanted to tell them that nothing was wrong so that they wouldn't be worried, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Honesty was the best policy after all, especially given the situation.

"Boys," he started, "Mrs. Birdwell has just been taken to the hospital."

Chapter 2

A heavy, almost suffocating, cloud of gloom and guilt had fallen over the unusually quiet Duck household.

The triplets had retreated to their room and Donald was left alone in the living area. To get his mind off of things, he decided to straighten up the room a bit; however, his efforts quickly proved to be fruitless.

He couldn't help but feel guilty for ruining his nephews' day. Couldn't he have just waited three seconds to finish his call before stepping out into the hallway? In fact, he could've waited to call and check on Mrs. Birdwell. If she had just gone to the hospital at that time, it would probably be a couple of hours before she knew what was going on.

Donald sat on the couch and let out a ragged sigh as he placed his head in his hands. Although he was hoping for the best now, it was a sobering reminder that Mrs. Birdwell was up in age and won't always be around.

He shook his head, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

He wasn't about to let his mind fall in a whirlwind of worries, especially when there were more important things to think about.

Like cheering up his boys.

And he knew just the thing to do it.

**********

"Hiya, boys!"

The triplets muttered some form of greeting back to their uncle as he entered their room. Donald's smile dropped at seeing his normally rambunctious kids look so down. Huey was laying on the floor halfheartedly flipping through his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook, Dewey was sitting upside down in a chair, and that lump on the bed meant that Louie was hiding under the covers.

Donald made his way through the room and sat on the bed. "So," he began, "are you all just gonna sit around here all day?"

"Mm-hmm." Huey said as he turned a page.

"Yup." Dewey responded.

"Pretty much." Louie answered from underneath the bed covers.

"Oh, I see." Donald looked down at his folded hands. "Well, I suppose that-"

Suddenly his phone rang. Huey and Dewey looked up at their uncle with concerned anticipation as he hurried to answer the phone.

"Hello?" Donald paused for the response. "Okay. … I see." By this time, Louie peeked his head from under the blanket.

"Well, are you up for talking to the boys?" Donald smirked at them as he saw their faces light up. "They were- … But I- … I didn't m- … Yes, ma'am. … Okay. … Okay, hold on a second." No sooner than Donald could remove the phone from his ear, to put it on speaker, the boys already crowded around him.

"Hi, Mrs. Birdwell!" They greeted.

"Hello, boys." Although she sounded tired, they were just glad to hear from her.

"How are you feeling?" Dewey asked.

"Much better." She replied. "But I probably won't be back for another week."

"That's okay, Mrs. Birdwell" Huey responded. "We'll miss you, but we want you to get better."

"Oh, you boys are so sweet."

"Okay, boys, I think we should let Mrs. Birdwell rest." Donald said. "We'll talk with you later."

"Bye!"

"Goodbye."

Once he hung up, Donald smiled at his nephews. "Well, you boys seem to be in better spirits." He mused.

"Yeah." Louie said, looking away.

"We're sorry about earlier, Unca' Donald." Huey said.

"Yeah, we didn't mean all of that stuff we said." Dewey added. "Well, we didn't mean to be mean about Mrs. Birdwell, but-"

"I understand, boys." Donald ruffled Dewey's hair. "You're growing up. It's only natural to want to be more independent."

"Yeah." They agreed.

"And maybe I need to step back and give you room to grow."

"Yeah!"

"And maybe we don't need to go to Funso's this afternoon."

"Yeah-wait!" The boys protested and pleaded with their uncle to reconsider that last decision.

"Okay, never mind that last one." Donald laughed. "Are you ready to go?"

"YEAH!"

Before he could get up to move, his nephews tackled him with hugs. "Thank you, Unca' Donald!' They said. Seconds later, they ran out of the room chanting the familiar slogan, "FUNSO'S FUNZONE! WHERE FUN IS IN THE ZONE!"

Donald laughed. Even though deep down he was still worried about the future, between Mrs. Birdwell and even his boys growing up, he decided to put that aside for now and just enjoy the moment.

And later on, some decent pizza at a fair price.

#Ducktales #DT17 #Donald Duck #Huey Duck #Louie Duck #Dewey Duck #Ducktales Secret Santa #My Mango Leaves

[donkeybro]

🎶 crude stew, do you fear it tommy blue, sometimes life is not a cakewalk served up on a silver spoon! Toss a fig and save the date and- 🎶

🎶 bread and butter, chant and mutter, Marination, Incantation, chocolate icing, timeline slicing, yeast is rising, rectifying! 🎶

"What?"

[magicstar16]

Nagito’s brew

Guys tumble just deleted the contents of this post on my phone now I gotta do all over again what the fuck

The plot is that Nagito found Sonia and Gundam’s occult stuff, (he was surprised that Sonia was into that stuff). But he managed to find a spell that can travel you back in time. So he figures if he used his luck to doom his parents, he could use his luck to save them! 

I'll cook up a solution with the things that I've accrued They say a kitchen time saves nine, but I'm just saving two! I've gathered the ingredients to make some time sorbet I know that I’m an awful cook but I’ll try anyway! Watch as I work this occult magic Eye of a newt and cinnamon Watch as the matter turns to batter open the portal, jump in! Hope stew, do you fear it Teruteru? For some of us life’s not a cake walk, served up on a lucky spoon Toss a fig and, save the date and, bread and butter, chant and mutter, marination, incantation, chocolate icing, timeline splicing, Shadows rising, So exciting! Gundam and Sonia, locked outside of the room: Nagito what you’re messing with is dangerous and wrong We know you miss you’re parents but you’ll just have to move on Nagito: The ritual’s completed,  I’ve nearly got fate in my thrall It’s no hoax, we can save my folks. Hope always wins after all! Watch as I work this occult magic Blood of a virgin and provolone God help this outcast and the talent he lacks Someday I'm gonna go home Someday, I'm gonna go home

#Orphanage!Nagtio #danganronpa #danganronpa goodbye despair #teruteru hanamura #nagito komaeda #pinkie's brew #occult #gundam tanaka #sonia nevermind

[dutten-does-the-fanfic]

I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 8

Title:  I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 8 of 14 (ch. 1)   Pairing: Isak Valtersen/Even Bech Næsheim   Word count: 10.069 Warnings: Language, internalized homophobia, quick mention of blood (nothing serious, by accidentally cutting himself when cooking)

AO3

Summary:  The one where it’s been two years since Isak last saw or spoke with Even, and no one knows that Isak ever knew Even at all.

Present

Coffee. He needs coffee, right now. Not working on the assignment worth half his credit in cell-biology and genetics until two days before it is due really hasn’t been his best idea. Might even beat the time he figured he could follow all those vodka shots up with a bottle of tequila.

Isak flicks the light switch on when he walks into the kitchen. Magnus’ computer is on the dining table, open, and Isak can’t help himself from gathering potential blackmail on Magnus, so he pulls the chair out and checks what’s already opened before he’ll start snooping.

Except… it’s not just any little old thing Magnus was looking at. The tab open is a movie review about “Circles”, the movie… the movie Even directed.

Once again Næsheim manages to sweep us off our feet and turn our worlds upside down, or should we say ‘spin it around in Circles’ as he’s set to win yet another award for his hard work –

No. Isak hurls himself away from the computer, forgetting entirely about his original intentions. He won’t do this to himself. He still remembers frantically reading everything about Even’s movies and watching them endlessly, and he remembers how much it hurt to think about how Even came up with the idea, his work process, did he push himself too hard, did he remember to eat, how magnificent he did – does with all of his movies. Because it did. Hurt, that is. It felt like his heart was tearing itself into tiny pieces and he didn’t enjoy the feeling, but at least in those moments he felt something.

But he’s better now. Trying to be better. And he won’t read it. He won’t.

He forces himself to look at the coffee machine instead and meticulously begins to make a cup, mentally listing all the things he’s doing and has to do in order to not turn around and look at Magnus’ computer, mentally priding himself on the fact that he manages not to. He’s getting better.

“Isak, hey! You’re up early,” Magnus says as he walks into the kitchen. He’s wearing clothes but his hair is still wet. He shakes it out of his face as he sits down by his laptop. “’Mind making me a cup as well?”

Isak only shrugs and repeats his earlier process to avoid temptation. He will not look at the review, or any other, for that matter.

“Hey, Isak, listen to this, ‘Once again Næsheim manages –’”

Isak slams his coffee cup onto the counter. God damn it, Magnus.

“He’s so cool,” Magnus says, lying halfway across the table, staring dreamily into his screen, “did you see him on the Late Show the other day? He was there with Sonja, though, so I don’t know if I believe the rumors about them breaking up.”

“I still don’t believe they were ever together,” Jonas says as he enters the kitchen. He gives Isak a careful look that’s easy enough to ignore, even as he knows he deserves it; he hadn’t exactly handled seeing – seeing him well, spending all his time since either mindlessly numb or furiously busy. The mud on Jonas’ running shoes isn’t dry yet and drags all over the kitchen floor.

“Dude,” Isak calls him out on it, only to have Jonas shrug, “sorry, man” before turning back to Magnus.

Out of all of them, Jonas was the most likely to indulge Magnus in his Even-obsession. Mahdi would roll his eyes and make fun of him, although he would listen – until a certain amount of time had passed, there was only so much Even-fangirling he could take – and Isak would, for obvious reasons, shut him down harshly immediately and then have to apologize for it later after feeling shitty about it.

It’s not fair.

“Hollywood does it all the time,” Jonas insists. “Fake romances for publicity or something.”

Magnus frowns. “Sonja isn’t famous, though. Neither of them would gain anything from an arrangement like that.”

Oh yeah, nothing at all, Isak bitterly thinks to himself as he pulls out the bread and a knife to cut a couple of slices for breakfast. Nothing Even would ever gain from being in a relationship with Sonja, nope.

“What are we talking about?” Mahdi knocks on the doorframe, grinning when Isak starts to moan about the mud he’s now tracking in. Honestly, when did Isak become the responsible one?

“Even and Sonja,” Jonas says, throwing the one apple they’ve bought around in the air rather than eating it.

“Sonja and Even,” Magnus corrects. “Sounds better, doesn’t it?”

They sound absolutely fucking perfect. Yippee.

“New drama?” Mahdi asks as he pulls open the fridge, rattling its contents around. Isak tries to narrow down on what is being moved around without actually looking.

That was a jar, the mayo? Maybe the jam – probably the jam. What else have they got on that shelf? If he just keeps focusing on those things, on Jonas’ and Mahdi’s movements, of cutting up the bread, then it won’t hurt as much to be here when Magnus is talking about Even.

“Nah,” a few clicks on the computer, “he’s set to win another award. One for ‘Circles’ this time – he better fucking win, that movie was a work of art and I will hunt down that damn committee if they fuck it up.”

Isak can hear Jonas trying to smother a snicker. Usually Isak would look over at him and share a knowing look, implying they’re both suffering through this conversation, but Jonas is polite enough not to show it.

“There’ll probably be new articles and interviews coming up with him, then,” Mahdi fishes out the butter – the butter, that doesn’t go on their jar shelf – and closes the fridge.

Magnus emits an odd ostrich-type gasp followed by a furious amount of clicks. “Oh my god, do you think he’ll come to Norway to do some as well? Do you think that’s why he was here in the first place? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

He starts frantically typing on the computer as he keeps muttering that he needs to look it up. Isak rolls his eyes, but he keeps his mouth shut, because he’s a good friend and he’s getting better, no matter what anyone else might believe.

“How’d practice go?” Isak asks instead and then focuses all his attention on the stories Mahdi and Jonas tell him about football training and how it had been so slippery they’d almost had to cancel. The coach had finally put an end to the madness when it had turned into much more of a mud-fight than a football match.

“You don’t look all that muddy for having been in a mud-fight.” Their shoes are filthy, though. Isak’s going to have to remember to clean that off of the floor before it dries and stains the wood. Does mud stain? He isn’t particularly interested in finding out.

Jonas holds up his hands that are colored grey from the dried up mud. “T’is all about strategy, man.”

“And I hide behind him,” Mahdi nods. Isak can’t help but snort when Jonas pouts dramatically. He’s quick to turn his attention back on Isak though.

“You lot should be nicer to me,” Jonas whines.

Isak rolls his eyes as he takes a sip of his coffee, but he dutifully asks Jonas in a faux-complacent voice, “How can we ever make it up to you?”

Jonas grins obnoxiously. “Cook me lunch,” he demands.

Isak quirks an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Did your hands fall off at practice? I’m not cooking you lunch.”

Jonas holds his hands up again and, alright, fair enough, they are disgusting, but not unusable. “I can’t use these hands to cook. I’d end up eating mud!”

“Don’t eat mud,” Magnus tells them absentmindedly. He’s still clicking away on the computer and Isak doubts he even knows the context to what he just commented on.

Jonas laughs. “Even Magnus can tell it’s a bad idea and he’s off in Even-land.”

Isak rolls his eyes again. “Alright, fine. What do you want?” Anything to get the conversation away from Even, which was what he’d been trying to do when he’d asked about footie in the first place.

Jonas chants nonsense triumphantly and doesn’t even bother answering Isak, before Isak makes to leave with his coffee to go back to his room.

“An omelet!” Jonas yells at him. He reaches out to grab onto him, but then thinks better of it, which Isak is quite grateful for even if he refuses to show it. “Make me an omelet!”

“What d’you want on it?” Isak takes another sip of his coffee before he places the cup on the counter and opens the fridge.

“Ham,” Jonas decides. “Ham and red bell peppers.”

Isak grimaces as he riffles through the contents of their fridge. Not only does he like neither of those, they also don’t have either. “I can do cheese and tomatoes.”

“Done,” Jonas agrees too quickly and sits down at the table opposite Magnus.

Jonas and Mahdi strike up a conversation about a possible strategy they should probably bring up at the next practice – usually Isak would be all about that, but right now he kind of likes the simplicity of having to focus on what his hands are doing.

He doesn’t cook often – at all, more likely; he hasn’t got a clue as to why Jonas would ask him to cook him lunch. He doesn’t have the patience for it, nor is he particularly good at it – he just knows enough to get by.

But there is something mind-numbing about cracking eggs open, the yolk and whites sizzle against the hot pan while Isak takes out a cutting board and lays two big tomatoes on it. They’re still slightly dripping from being washed and it leaves behind a pool of water on the cutting board underneath them. He should probably dry that off.

It’s fifty/fifty whether or not it’ll actually keep his mind off of things, or if whatever he’s cooking is so simple or the issue so big there’s no reprieve for him, but right now he can ignore Magnus’ muttered comments and tune in and out of Jonas’ and Mahdi’s conversation.

It’s nice. It’s everything he’d hoped of getting when the boys had first asked him to move in. And it’s really the small moments like these that remind him just why he decided enough was enough, that he was done with being drunk 95% of his day and miserable 100% of it.

“There’s nothing,” Magnus whines. He’s still tapping away so Isak doesn’t know how truthful that is, or if all the articles are just saying the same thing over and over again.

“Cheer up!” Mahdi tries, pointedly talking over Magnus’ exaggerated sighing. “It’s still early. Maybe nothing’s been released yet.”

“I guess,” another tap. Then a click and a few more clicks, and then Magnus types something else in.

Isak busies himself with sprinkling some cheese onto the now golden, fluffy eggs and then finds a knife big enough to cut the tomatoes in slices.

“Don’t worry,” Isak hears Jonas say, almost like he’s further away than the couple of steps he really is. “There’ll be something soon.”

Magnus sighs again. “I’ll just keep refreshing until something new pops up.”

“That’s a bit obsessive,” Mahdi tells him. “Come on, have a bite of omelet with us and then you can check. You can’t spend your entire day just refreshing all those sites.”

Isak knows Magnus will be frowning, he knows him well enough to know that. “I sure can.”

Mahdi tuts, but he doesn’t get into it, which Isak is rather grateful for. He’s still got a bit of a headache lingering from his panicked paper-writing, sleepless night, and hearing about Even had not been the morning he’d hoped to have to wind down, but oh, well.

“Where’s the food at?” Jonas whines. He stomps his foot underneath the table like a toddler. Isak bangs the knife against the cutting board in the same pattern to mock Jonas – which he shouldn’t, because that knife is massive and Isak is going to lose control of it if he’s being a dick handling it.

“You want the eggs raw?”

Jonas probably rolls his eyes or does something equally rude and unappreciative of Isak’s magnanimity. Isak actually goes through the effort of twisting around to stick his tongue out at Jonas.

Mahdi laughs as Jonas tries to throw a random piece of paper they have lying around, but he’s forgotten to fold it or crumble it into a ball, so it just hovers in the air before it slowly falls down on the ground.

“You’re acting like a child,” Jonas scolds, putting on a posh voice that makes Isak want to laugh again. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt this light.

“Oh, yeah,” Mahdi deadpans. “He’s acting like a child. Remind me again, who was it that started that mud-fight?”

“That son-of-a-bitch Markus if anyone asks,” Jonas answers raptly. Isak snorts as he makes the first slice, carefully curling his fingers away from the blade. “Especially if –“

Magnus interrupts them when he starts screaming. All three of them jump up and Isak whirls around to him to see what’s wrong, what’s happened, what’s –

But Magnus is just looking at his computer screen, and he’s screaming because he’s excited.

“Jesus Christ,” Isak grumbles. “Don’t do that! I nearly cut myself!”

He’ll let Jonas and Mahdi deal with whatever the fuck is going on. God, he’d just been having fun, but now it seems like his good mood has evaporated as quickly as the April weather changes. He knows it’ll come back; he just needs to settle down a bit and get his heart to stop racing from the fright Magnus had given all of them.

He places the knife back onto the tomato while he involuntarily picks up on Magnus hyperventilating and Jonas and Mahdi asking what’s happening even while they still sound slightly annoyed about the scare as well. Even that Isak isn’t a good enough friend to do.

No, stop it. He’s getting better and everything takes time. He’ll get there, one day. Hopefully.

The tomato is still a bit wet, the skin smooth and slippery as he tries to make it stop rolling around long enough for him to cut it. He’s just gotten the perfect size ready to press down on when Magnus wheezes the first intelligible thing he’s said since he started shouting.

“They’ve published the marriage certificate!”

And Isak’s world stops.

Or his heart does – his world doesn’t, because if he could stop the world, he already would’ve done that. He would’ve stopped it a long time ago.

His mind is dangerously blank, no inputs or outputs and he can’t even register how scary that feels. He doesn’t register that his hands aren’t still but desperately shaking. He can’t register anything until he presses down on the knife, involuntarily following-through on his abandoned motion.

Except he isn’t holding onto the tomato anymore, not properly anyway, so the knife slips off the surface. Isak barely registers the pain from the blade cutting down his hand, leaving a big enough gash that he starts bleeding.

“Shit!” he swears and Jonas is up off his chair before Isak can even move to the sink to rinse it off.

“Jesus!” Mahdi rushes over to the two of them. He grabs the roll of paper towels on his way, already bundling up way more pieces than Isak needs.

Jonas grabs onto his arm and drags him over to the sink. The water is cold and ends up splashing everywhere from the high pressure. It sounds like bullets hitting metal in Isak’s ears.

“Hold it under the water – Isak,” Jonas says louder to get his attention. “Hold it under the water!”

“It doesn’t look like it’s deep,” Mahdi says, pressing the bundled up paper towel onto his palm too quickly so it ends up getting soaked through.

The pain is dull. Isak always thought pain would bring someone back into their body, but all it does is make him float away even further. All the noises around him sound dulled down like he’s underwater and everyone around him is trying to scream at him to get his attention, but he can’t hear them properly.

His breathing picks up and he has to stop this, stop panicking before one of the boys notice.

Jonas notices. He looks up at Isak with a worried frown and Isak can’t look at him, just keeps looking at the wet, slightly red-stained paper towel Mahdi is still pressing onto his hand.

“Hey, you alright?” Jonas asks. His hands moves up from his elbow to his shoulder to get a better grip. “You’re not squeamish around blood, are you? Do you feel dizzy?”

Mahdi makes a high-pitched groan. “Please tell me you’re not about to hurl.”

“Shut up,” Jonas doesn’t stop looking at Isak. “Isak?”

And it just – it sounds like the first of many confused, slightly scared Isak?’s that Isak has a feeling he’s about to hear for the rest of his life, and it hasn’t even started yet.

It hasn’t started before Magnus goes, “What. The actual. Fuck.”

Jonas and Mahdi don’t hear it, but Isak does. It’s the first thing he hears properly since the knife slipped out of his hand, and he wishes he hadn’t heard it. He wishes he hadn’t heard it, won’t hear it ever again, but Magnus repeats it when Jonas has turned off the sink and Mahdi has given him another, now dry, towel to press against his hand.

It’s not even bleeding anymore, but Isak holds it there anyway. His body somehow won’t let him press down, so it’s just resting there.

“What the fuck?”

“Magnus,” Jonas snaps, twisting around to look at him, “we’re a bit busy right now, think you could fantasize about Even later?”

Jonas’ hand is still on Isak’s shoulder, which means that when Jonas turns around, so does Isak, and Mahdi seemingly subconsciously mirrors them as well. Isak’s lower back is pressed harshly into the counter. He tries to take another step back, wants to get as far away from Magnus and his stupid, stupid laptop as entirely possible, but he can’t. He’s stuck, he’s stuck, and if the certificate is out then he’s also stuck in a completely different way.

Magnus’ lips are pressed into a thin line as he stares right at Isak. His gaze is unwavering and Isak feels pinned by the mere force of it, his breath halting as a chill settles over his body.

Magnus doesn’t even reply to defend himself. He doesn’t reply to explain. He just slides the computer around until the screen is facing them, and there Isak sees it.

He sees a large, blown up picture, right in the beginning of whatever article Magnus has open. The article itself doesn’t really matter, it’s just the picture that certainly does, or what the picture is of at least matters.

Jonas and Mahdi clearly can’t tell at first – they’re too far away from the screen, but Isak recognizes the piece of paper. He recognizes the info. He recognizes the Vigselattest written at the top and he recognizes Even’s handwriting and he recognizes his own handwriting. He recognizes their names and the date and their signatures. He recognizes all of it, because he has that exact paper tucked away, forever in hiding because he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of getting rid of it.

He’s staring at his own marriage certificate, blown up and on the internet for anyone and everyone to see. And now Magnus has seen it. And Jonas and Mahdi have seen it and are seconds away from realizing what it is.

And Isak doesn’t want to be here for when they figure it out.

“Oh my god –“ Mahdi starts, has barely started before all life suddenly returns to Isak’s body and he bolts towards the hallway.

His heart is pounding and the blood is rushing in his ears. He can barely hear Mahdi’s incredulous exclamations or Jonas’ surprised gasp. All Isak knows is he needs to get out of there, right now.

He’s just a couple of feet away from the doorway when he’s suddenly hauled back by the hand Jonas still has on his shoulder, has had ever since he came up to him to help with the cut on his hand, and suddenly Isak is back to standing between Jonas and Mahdi, counter pressed into his lower back.

Mahdi moves until he’s blocking the entrance to the kitchen, like that would be enough to deter Isak from trying to leave. Isak wants to laugh a bit at that, laugh the way he’s feeling; hysterically and panicked and maybe all he wants to do is scream and cry, actually.

They’re all just staring at him.

Isak is breathing heavily. It stands out in the otherwise quiet room, and all that amounts to is Isak’s breathing picking up even further. He’s still looking frantically around the room, like a new exit will suddenly pop up just because he wills it so. It doesn’t.

He can’t bear to look at any of them, but at the same time he can’t stand not knowing what they’re thinking. Can’t stand having to witness them looking at him differently, like he’s different, but also can’t stand living in this middle place, this Schrödinger’s box where they could either be looking at him in disdain or the same way they’ve always looked at him; like he’s their friend.

Friends don’t lie to each other. Not about something big like this.

Isak looks at them.

It’s just a quick glance, scanning over each of them before he can’t stand to look anymore, focuses in on the back wall in the kitchen instead. They’re all looking confused, but Jonas is also looking both panicked and pitying, like he’s afraid Isak will bolt again, which, yeah, is looking really tempting right now. Mahdi looks small and Magnus, most surprising of all, has a careful mask plastered onto his face that gives nothing away.

Isak can’t even begin to imagine how he looks right now.

Can they see? Can they see the panic and the heartbreak and all the other feelings he’s been trying so hard to hide away?

The quiet breaks.

“What the fuck –“

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god –“

“Isak, what the hell is that –“

“I don’t understand –“

“Is it real? Is it actually real?”

“Isak, what – I don’t, I –“

“It doesn’t matter!” It tears out of Isak’s throat, all guttural and anguished and Isak’s hands are curled up into fists. The palm with the cut hurts from it, but he can’t stop. His hands are shaking and so is his voice and so is his entire body, keyed up on adrenaline and pure terror.

It makes them all quiet down again, but now it seems like the words won’t stop pouring out of Isak’s mouth. Just a repeated slew of it doesn’t matter’s that doesn’t answer any of their questions and doesn’t help Isak one bit either.

“How does it not matter?” Mahdi sounds angry. Isak sees Jonas out of the corner of his eye sending Mahdi a warning glance, like he should be careful how he speaks to Isak when Isak is the one who has been lying all along.

“It doesn’t,” is all Isak seems to be able to say. He isn’t shouting anymore. As quickly as all the rage had been built up, the fight rushes out of his body, leaving him deflated and woozy. He’s still breathing too quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”

Jonas isn’t touching his shoulder anymore. As heavy as it had felt, like Isak’s knees were threatening to boggle under the added weight, as unsettling and rejecting does it feel to be let go of, to be standing on his own two feet, suddenly very, very alone.

No one is saying anything. Magnus’ computer screen is still facing Isak. Isak can’t stand to look at it, but he can’t figure out how to tell Magnus to turn it away either.

���You’re marri-“ Magnus starts, but Isak interrupts him harshly.

“Don’t. Just, don’t.” He wants to curl his hands around the countertop to help support him, to keep him standing, but he can’t figure out how to uncurl his hands from the fists they’d formed into, even as he isn’t even clenching them so harshly that they’re shaking anymore.

Magnus is frowning where he’s still sitting at the kitchen table. “I don’t understand.”

Isak doesn’t either. He hasn’t understood anything for a long time.

Please, he wants to beg. Please, just forget about all of it, erase it from your minds, from the internet, but he can’t get his mouth to cooperate. Even if he could, it wouldn’t work. He can’t change the past – not the one that happened five years ago when he first met Even, and not the one that happened five minutes ago when everybody found out about it.

Magnus keeps wording the sentence soundlessly before it apparently makes enough sense for him to try verbally again. “You’re mar-“

“Please!” Isak’s voice breaks and he feels like his legs might give out from underneath him.

“You’re – you’re – to Even –“

“Just don’t, stop,” the pleas are rushing out of Isak’s mouth, but Magnus just continues going over and over it without actually getting any of the words out.

Mahdi is shuffling between his two feet from where he’s standing next to him on his left, but Jonas is standing stock-still, gaze unwavering from Isak. It makes him feel like he might be going out of his own skin from how uncomfortable he is, but also like his mind is so overworked that he can’t handle this small thing on top of everything else that his mind is slowly shutting down.

“This is why,” Mahdi mutters, just loudly enough that Isak can hear him over Magnus’ ranting. “This is why.”

He repeats it one more time, like it’s the answer to every question Mahdi has ever asked, and Isak thinks that maybe it is, but that only makes something disgusting curl in on itself in his stomach.

“I can’t believe you’ve been – this entire time and with – with Even none the less!” Magnus is still going on.

But I’m not, Isak thinks he should say, because he isn’t, hasn’t been for a long time now. With every word that comes out of Magnus’ mouth, Isak feels a part of him give up. He’s been fighting for so long, and now it’s all been in vain, because everyone knows now. Everyone knows.

Isak doesn’t cry. He thinks he might’ve forgotten how to, he’s spent so long forcing himself not to after all. Now all he’s left with is a blissfully terrifying numbness that’s only ever overpowered by an encompassing anxiousness.

“It doesn’t matter,” it sounds too small. Mahdi snorts, unimpressed.

“Of course it fucking matters,” Mahdi swears. Isak might’ve flinched had he not felt like he’s not currently in control of his own body. The only thing he actually feels are his cheeks and his neck, which feel freezing compared to the heat filling his cheeks. “Why would it fucking not?”

“Because it doesn’t!” Isak tries to put more power behind his words, but he can’t tell if he succeeds. He sounds like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum, just repeating the same words over and over again. “It doesn’t matter, so can we just forget about it?”

He goes to leave again, but Mahdi steps in front of him so quickly Isak can only flinch and fall backwards into the counter again.

“We really can’t,” Mahdi sounds mean, and if there’s one thing Mahdi isn’t, it’s mean. Isak can’t seem to draw in his next breath. “Because there’s a picture in an official article that mentions you by name that says that you’re –“

“It doesn’t –“ Isak tries again, but Mahdi doesn’t let him.

“It does! You’re marr-“

“I’m not!” There are tears threatening to prickle in the corners of his eyes despite how numb Isak still feels. His heart feels like it’s permanently lodged in his throat, keeping him from breathing properly no matter how badly he tries. “I’m not, I’m not –“

Magnus’ brows are furrowed. “So it’s lying –“

“I’m not,” Isak tries again. “It doesn’t fucking matter, any of it, because I’m not – we’re not – we haven’t been for years! I signed the papers and everything and it doesn’t –“

He can’t get the last it doesn’t matter out. Isak doesn’t think it actually makes a difference based on the stricken looks on the boys’ faces at that confession. Mahdi looks like he might want to cry, and Magnus is looking so terribly confused, and Jonas seems to be looking at him in pure horror. It makes everything hurt worse.

His body is slowly starting to prickle to life again. It hurts and Isak hadn’t thought he could feel more pain than what he’d already been feeling. There’s something cold pressed into his hand, and Isak looks down to see he’s still holding the paper towel, pressed together and nearly wrung out from how hard he’d been clenching around it.

“That’s what’s been going on,” Magnus says, almost apologetically, except he doesn’t look it. “That’s why you’ve been –“

It doesn’t matter, Isak wants to shout, but he doesn’t. His throat and chest feel too tight for him to say much of anything.

“Holy shit,” Mahdi shakes his head and repeats it. “Holy shit.”

The paper towel feels like a sad, wet clump, slowly falling apart in his hand already. Isak shouldn’t be able to relate to a paper towel.

“You’re sad,” Jonas breathes out, like it’s a big revelation. It’s the first thing he’s said since he’d dragged Isak back from his attempted escape.

Isak wants to laugh, because, duh, but he fears he might let out a sob instead, so he just grits out an “I’m fine,” because he’s supposed to be at this point, it’s been so long, and hopes that’s the end of this discussion.

It isn’t. Jonas looks even worse after that. They all do.

“Why have you never said anything?” Mahdi asks, but it gets drowned out by Magnus talking at the same time.

“Since when are you gay?” Magnus asks and that – that was the question Isak had always dreaded to hear. He doesn’t actually know what to do now when it’s finally been asked.

“Magnus!” Jonas hisses. “You can’t just ask that!”

“Figured you would’ve been paying a bit more attention to the Even-part, anyway,” Mahdi mutters and Isak can’t look at either of them.

Magnus shrugs. “We’re all a little bit gay for Even Bech Næsheim.”

It startles a laugh out of him, or maybe not, because the noise that comes out of his mouth is a little too wet, too desperate, too raw to really be a laugh. It makes everyone look like they’re so impossibly out of their wits, but Isak can hardly focus on it, because – this is it.

This is the moment he’s been dreading, the one he’s had nightmares about or the one he’s been unable to sleep because he’d spend the night worrying instead. This is it.

And Isak isn’t ready for it.

“I can’t,” Isak stutters out, gasping in a breath that seems too out of place with how little he’d actually said, but it’s like there’s no air left inside of him. “I need to –“

He stumbles to his left, barely managing to right himself before he barrels into Mahdi.

Mahdi reaches out for him, like he isn’t sure if he’s supposed to catch him or if he’s supposed to stop him from leaving, but he steps back when Isak nearly manages to fall over again from avoiding being touched by him.

“Wait!” Magnus stands up so quickly the chair nearly falls backwards before it manages to right itself. “Don’t leave, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –“

Jonas tries to reach out to touch his shoulder again, but aborts the movement so his hands are just hanging midair. He must’ve been able to see something on Isak’s face that the last thing he wants right now is to be touched.

“Sorry,” Jonas says, and Isak doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. “We won’t say anything about it again, just – please don’t run away again, okay?”

But Isak can’t – he can’t stay in this flat, he can’t be here right now. He can’t stand having to look his best friends in the eye and know that not only do they now know he’s been lying to them, they know.

“I can’t be here,” Isak stumbles over the words and tries to curl in on himself, despite how he feels like he’s only a couple of inches tall right now.

They all look a little more broken at that.

“I promise we won’t talk about it. Why don’t we just go into the living room, sit down for a little bit? I promise we won’t –“

He doesn’t get to finish, because Isak can’t – he can’t stay, he can hardly breathe, hasn’t known how to do that for so long now. If he can’t even figure out how to breathe he doesn’t feel ready to figure out how to stay.

He can’t even look at them properly. They all look so hurt and it’s all Isak’s fault, and he knows he should feel worse about it, but all he’s feeling is the looping panic of they know.

“I can’t be here,” Isak repeats more firmly. It makes Jonas’ mouth snap shut so quickly Isak almost would’ve thought he was angry, but he just looks like he doesn’t know what to do.

Mahdi looks like he wants to argue, but Magnus gets there first.

“Where do you want to go, then?”

Three heads snap over to look at him, but Magnus doesn’t seem fazed, doesn’t move his attention away from Isak.

Magnus sighs. “I – we can’t have you run out on us again, alright? I’ve been constantly terrified that I’ll do something to make you run again and that will be the last time we ever see you,” Magnus looks out the window. Isak feels even heavier without his gaze on him. “So just – if you want to leave, fine, but I can’t – just let us know where you’re going and if – when you’re coming back.”

If. The if repeats itself in Isak’s head. If, if, if.

Somehow, despite everything else that’s going on, it’s that if that makes him tear up.

“Eskild’s,” tumbles out of Isak’s mouth before he can even think about it. It’s his default answer, has been for years, ever since they met, that if he’s in trouble he’ll go to Eskild’s. “I’ll go to Eskild’s.”

Jonas sighs, but nods, even as he looks like it’s the last thing he wants. Mahdi and Magnus don’t look particularly fond of letting him out of their sights either, but they don’t say anything when Jonas fishes his phone out of his pocket, unlocks it and hands it over to Isak.

“Here,” he says. He stretches his arm out so he won’t have to move closer. “Just call him up, tell him you’re coming. Do you have his number?”

Isak’s hand is shaking when he reaches out to grab the phone. He sees how they all notice, but then they all divert their attention away from it.

He’s got the number memorized, had spent ages tracing over it, both the numbers and the pattern on a phone, back when he’d first gotten the number and had been terrified someone would gain access to his phone and leaf through it, discovering an odd contact.

Eskild picks up on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” he sounds cautious and Isak barely registers that it’s from having an unknown number call him.

“H-hey,” Isak has to clear his throat, has to do something to stop feeling like he’s about to burst out crying just at the sound of Eskild’s voice. “It’s me.”

“Isak?” Eskild sounds more urgent now, and Isak can hear things moving around in the background, like Eskild’s getting ready to leave, ready to come get him. Isak doesn’t think he’s ever deserved having Eskild in his life. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Can I –“ Isak pinches his eyes closed. It’s only a matter of time before Eskild finds out anyway, Isak should be the one to tell him.

But the words won’t come out of his mouth. He never figured out how to say the words, he isn’t ready, never has been.

“Can I come over? Are you home?” he asks instead.

Isak barely waits for Eskild’s affirmation before he just about throws the phone back in Jonas’ hand and tails it out of there, going to grab his coat. Mahdi follows behind, just to check that he’s actually putting on his shoes before he leaves. They can still hear Eskild’s voice over the phone, rambling, even if the words aren’t distinguishable.

“Hello?” Jonas says, finally turning the phone the right way up so he can talk. “Eskild? Yeah, Isak’s leaving now. It’s, uh – it’s a bit complicated.”

Isak wants to snort as he stuffs his feet into his shoes. His hands are still shaking when he tries to unlock the door. Mahdi has to come over and do it for him. It makes Isak feel so useless and so desperate and just so much worse overall.

“You should probably look it up before he gets there.” Is the last thing Isak hears before the door smacks shut behind him. “Just google –“

OOOOO

Isak doesn’t have a key to the Kollektiv anymore. Hadn’t really had one when he’d lived there, either. He’d been using a spare of Eskild’s, his backup plan for if he ever lost his keys whilst he was at work. It had made Isak feel good that technically that meant Isak was now Eskild’s backup plan, was how Eskild had explained it to him, with a large smile and a gentle nudge with his shoulder.

Jonas is waiting by the foot of the stairs patiently, waiting to make sure Isak doesn’t… run off or get himself hurt, or just gets there safely. He’s out of Isak’s sight, but Isak can still hear him there, had heard him all of the way over.

He rings the doorbell again, but Eskild gets to the door first, so Isak just has to hear the melody play out clearly without the door serving as a barrier.

“Isak,” Eskild breathes out. He’s slumping down where he’s standing in the open doorway, like seeing Isak in front of him made someone cut off the strings holding him up. “Isak.”

And Isak can’t handle how desperate Eskild sounds, how desperately sad and desperately hurt. Isak lets out an involuntary equally hurt whine and throws himself at Eskild.

Eskild ends up fumbling to grab onto the door so he won’t fall from the impact, but once he’s gained his balance his arms fold around Isak and hold on to him so tightly it hurts to breathe.

Eskild pulls him in and hugs him so tightly it hurts to breathe, but it feels so good. It feels like how it should feel getting a hug from his mom, if she’d ever hugged him that is. He shouldn’t be thinking about that. It doesn’t matter and this is better anyway.

They stand there for ages. Isak wants to sob, but it’s the first time in ages he feels like he can breathe. Maybe it’s just because he always knew he would be able to do that with Eskild.

“Why did you never tell me?” And fuck, Eskild’s hurt, Isak made Eskild hurt.

It’s all everybody wants to know, why didn’t he say anything, but what would he even have said? Hey, do you remember how I’ve denied being gay the entire time I’ve known you? Well, guess what!

“I couldn’t,” he chokes out, his throat tightening. “I couldn’t, I –“

Isak feels a sob threatening to burst out of his throat. Maybe Eskild can sense it, because he brings him inside the apartment and shuts the front door behind him. The click of the lock and the slam of the door sound final.

 Past

Even borrows his parents’ car, a grey thing that looks older than it is, without Isak knowing about it, or knowing why he does it.

It’s still early in the morning when Even texts him to go outside. Isak had immediately replied with an ugh with too many of every letter to tell Even how not amused he was at the prospect of wandering down four flights of stairs just to come down and kiss Even good morning – something he could do, mind you, if Even actually just came home or hadn’t left the bed at arse-o’clock in the morning.

But because Isak is a good fiancée, he walks down every flight of stairs with every intention of bitching Even out before dragging him back inside to kiss him.

It’s close to stifling already outside, even as Isak’s only standing in joggers and a t-shirt. There’s no breeze to take the brunt of the heat. It’ll be horrible later in the day when their apartment will start slowly cooking them.

He doesn’t see Even until the honking startles him. He whips towards the direction of the sound and sees Even behind the wheel, window rolled down and left arm hanging halfway out. He’s grinning widely at Isak, but Isak sees the strain to it, right in the corner of his mouth, revealing the slight tension there is to him. He’s also wearing his sunglasses, so Isak can’t see his eyes and make out what he’s really feeling.

“Hey, there,” Even drawls dramatically, doing an exaggerated nod of his head like he’s checking Isak out. It’s dumb and it’s stupid and it still makes Isak flush and giggle like a schoolgirl. “What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?”

‘A place like this’ is in fact in front of their apartment complex in Oslo in one of the cheaper areas, but by no means not well-respected. That’s not the point, though, so Isak leans his weight against the car, forcing Even to bodily turn around in his seat to keep looking at him.

“Oh, mister, I’m terribly lost,” he plays it up, batting his eyelashes until Even has to fight to keep the laugh down. “Can you help me?”

“Sure thing, sweetcheeks,” except it’s done in an American accent, and ‘thing’ sounds more like ‘thang’, making Isak snort. Even grins and nods towards the passenger seat. “Hop on in; I’ll give you the ride of your life.”

“What, the car or your dick?”

“Isak!” Even admonishes playfully, playing up the faux-offence by gaping disbelievingly. It’s stupid and Isak’s still grinning.

“Where’d you get this thing, anyway?” Isak pats the part where Even’s window refuses to roll down entirely. Even catches his fingers and brings them casually to his lips.

There’s no one around. They both know this, they’ve both checked. It still makes Isak’s heart pound faster for not all the right reasons.

“Borrowed it from my parents.” Even looks down at where he carefully places Isak’s fingers back on the window. He doesn’t look back up at Isak’s face, and the tension is back at the corner of his mouth, in the line of his shoulders. “They think I’m taking the boys for a trip.”

Isak feels immensely guilty. It bowls over him, leaving him feeling off-kilter and vaguely disgusted with himself for not being better, being more right.

He knows it’s always been a strain on Even to lie to his parents like he is – maybe not at first, when they were trying it out, or when they decided they were official. But ever since they moved in together and Even had to tell his parents they had to call before coming over so they could mask the fact Even wasn’t living alone in a one-bedroom apartment, Even has tended to isolate himself from his parents, and it’s wearing him down. He won’t tell Isak that, but Isak can tell without Even saying the words.

“And what are we actually doing?” Isak asks, but he doesn’t wait for Even to answer before he walks in front of the hood, crossing to the other side of the car and slides into the passenger seat.

Even’s eyes are soft, his whole expression practically screaming fond, which makes Isak squirm slightly in his seat from butterflies flapping around in his stomach. Isak prompts Even to start talking by lightly puffing Even with his shoulder.

“It’s not quite a white limo Tesla,” Even grins crookedly, but there’s an apologetic twinge to it and the tension still hasn’t left him entirely.

Isak reaches over for him, rubs his thumb along the corner of his mouth until the downward curl of it smoothes out. “I don’t need a Tesla,” he tells him, because he doesn’t. “I’d much rather just get to have you.”

He can tell Even wants to kiss him, but he doesn’t. As the time comes closer to nine, people start showing up, and it’s a regular car with no tint to the windows.

“You just want me because I can drive this thing,” Even teases instead, patting the steering wheel.

“I got into this deathtrap for you, the least you can do is maneuver it around. Which reminds me, what are we doing?”

“Ah!” Even holds up a finger, mock-serious expression on his face as he signals for Isak to wait – which he does, skeptically.

Even undoes his seatbelt with a click, and then contorts his body weirdly in a twist to reach onto the backseat. Isak can’t tell what he’s doing, but he can hear the crinkle of something – paper? – confirmed when Even thrusts a stack of papers into his hands.

“Here you go!” He’s practically vibrating with excitement, his eyes sparkling, and for a second he’s so captivating Isak literally, despite the immense curiosity, can’t look away from him.

The papers are still neat and pressed, only slightly wavy from the ink of the large pictures having long dried.

“What –“ Isak trails off as his eyes skim over the first paper in the stack. A photograph takes up more than half of the first page, depicting a rather idyllic place, taken from the terrace of some house, cabin maybe, Isak presumes, showing the horizon of clear water and typical Norwegian nature of rocks, cliffs, and trees. You can just see two chairs and a small table in the foreground, but it’s obvious the nature is supposed to be the selling point.

On the remaining part of the paper, there’s text, starting with a greeting and a thank you for booking which makes Isak’s heart rate pick up exponentially.

He skips over the text, goes straight to the next picture – a bedroom, white sheets and a window letting in what appears to be morning light – and the next picture – a small kitchen connected to a dining area – to the next picture – the living room with more couches and chairs than Isak and Even will be able to fill. Isak goes back to the thank you for booking! and looks for a date, a place, any indication of what the hell is Even up to.

Today. It’s booked from today. A couple of hours away from Oslo, the distance manageable even if they would’ve had to do it by bus.

“What is this?” he looks up at Even, then back down at the papers because he can’t believe it, then back up at Even because he can’t believe it.

Even’s truly grinning by now. “Well,” he starts, trying to appear suave and not succeeding at all, “I was thinking it might be a really great honeymoon spot.”

Isak’s heart stops. He thinks his hands might be shaking, his entire body is.

When he manages to look up from the papers, Even’s already holding up his phone, showing the e-mail that they’ve got a slot at Oslo’s City Hall today.

Isak’s out of his seat before his brain catches up.

He leaps across the gear stick to get to Even, only taking enough care not to accidentally brain him or knock him out in his haste. He hears the papers crinkle alarmingly and distantly hopes there was nothing essential on them that can’t be salvaged by a bit of smoothing out.

Even’s laughing and wrapping his arms around Isak, drawing him in closer. It’s a bit awkward, seeing as Isak’s legs are too long and also a bit stuck at the footrest of the passenger’s seat, the rest of his body draped over Even’s. He never wants to let go.

“Are you serious?” he asks, voice muffled a bit from where his mouth is pressing against Even’s shoulder.

Even laughs. “One hundred percent, baby.”

Isak doesn’t know what to do with himself. He feels too light and too heavy and too full and he’s so in fucking love. He can literally feel his brain not able to process everything that’s happening, can feel his body reacting to the shock of it. His eyes start watering, his shoulders shaking. He sniffles.

Even twitches. “Are you crying?”

Isak doesn’t even have to look at him to know he’s smiling, the asshole.

“It’s allergies,” Isak protests, presses his face harder against Even’s shoulder, his tears probably wetting the fabric, but if Even tries to make fun of him, Isak will tell him it’s snot.

Even laughs, loudly and unapologetic, his entire body shaking underneath Isak. It’s familiar and comforting, and it might even make Isak cry harder.

“To weddings?” Even finally manages to ask. “Or just your own?”

Had it been anyone else Isak would’ve been annoyed with them, but he hears the teasing in Even’s lilt and his arms are holding him tightly against his chest, hands gentle as he rubs his back.

If they ever are to tell anyone, which Isak sincerely doubts, he’ll make sure Even won’t mention this part.

Knowing Even, he’ll specifically do it just to get Isak huffy so he can kiss him sweet and pliant.

“Weddings,” Isak answers, drawing back and wiping shyly at his eyes. Even’s staring at him like he never wants to see anything else the rest of his life. “But my own might be an exception.”

Even grins, his hands smoothing up and down Isak’s sides. “Should we go check, then?”

A laugh bubbles out of Isak’s throat, a bit wet and it makes a few more tears spill over and down his cheeks. He nods, keeps nodding until Even’s laughing and nodding as well, leaning forward until their noses brush. Isak doesn’t even have it in him to check if anyone’s nearby, can’t look anywhere else than at Even.

It’s the first time they kiss in public when the sun is shining and they’re not tucked away in an alley or behind a shed in the bushes.

“I’m always serious about you,” Even tells him when he pulls back. His eyes are wet too. “And I seriously want to marry you. Today.”

Isak grins, presses another peck to Even’s mouth. “Let’s go do this, then.”

OOOOO

Even’s the only one who has a full suit – or, something close to a full suit, the jacket a little too modern and wonky to fit formal wear outside an artistic gathering. By the time they make it to City Hall it’s too hot to wear a jacket anyway, which leaves them wearing chinos, Even in a white button-down and Isak in a grey button-down with short sleeves.

They’re both hot and sweaty, lungs hurting from laughing whilst running from the parking space they’d gotten ages away and through the hallways so they wouldn’t miss their appointment.

The officiator doesn’t bat an eye at the two of them being boys, but he does look surprised and then pitiful at the completely empty hall that he has to perform the ceremony for. The guilt churns around in his stomach when Isak forces himself not to think about Eskild, whom he knows would not only be happy to witness but happy for him – once he got over the shock of never having been told. He knows Even’s thinking the same about his own friends, his parents. They’ve both got people they want to be here, they’ve just… never told them.

They end up pulling two secretaries on their lunch break in to witness. They’re two elder ladies, and one’s smile reminds Isak of his mother so much from when she was well, when she still recognized him, that he almost wants to give her a hug.

It’s a quick ceremony, only a little more than ten minutes. The remaining paperwork doesn’t take nearly as long as the initial paperwork had, and then –

Even’s eyes are sparkling, Isak knows his own are too. God. God. And then they’re married.

It’s the first time in – ever that Isak doesn’t care who is watching, that there are now essentially three strangers who know about him, who know about him and Even, and he doesn’t care because he’s married and he’s going to kiss Even.

He nearly tackles Even with how he bodily throws himself at him, but Even had been prepared and only laughs as he wraps his arms around Isak’s body, holds him close and leans down so he can kiss him again.

No one throws rice at them since it isn’t allowed, but Isak doesn’t mind. Can’t really seem to mind when Even’s holding his hand right until they get to the entrance, and then they’re both running again to get back to the car, to get to whatever Even has planned, to get to be alone, for Isak to get to kiss his husband.

The car ride takes simultaneously longer and quicker than it should to get to the cabin – Even’s driving just a bit too fast, not enough to make Isak anxious, but enough that he gains time, but then they have to pull over at rest stops or park behind gas stations just to laugh or press their lips together or be married.

It’s well into the evening by the time they get there. Their legs are tired from being cramped up for so long, so they park down by the beach instead of by the cabin.

“What’s all this, then?” Isak keeps looking at the scenery, then back to Even, then back on the beach, back to Even again.

It’s windy. His hair keeps getting pushed down in front of his eyes. Even is holding both of his hands, though, so he can’t brush it away.

It’s not important, anyway. He can see Even clearly. Can see him smiling and his eyes, bright and blue and happy and Isak fills giddy with it, even with the confusion.

“Your beach story,” Even tells him, finally stops walking backwards but keeps pulling Isak towards him until they’re pushed together and it’s easy to lean down and kiss him.

The cabin is as lovely as it had been on the photos. It’s the exact same, but with a larger deck than Isak had thought it would have. They sit there, eating pizza that’s lukewarm with how much time has passed since they picked it up at the closest pizzeria.

The cabin itself is secluded, hidden away in a corner of the universe that Isak and Even are taking for themselves. There are other cabins nearby, they both know, but they can’t see any from where they are.

So when the sun is setting, the last rays reflecting in the water, the sky colored pink and yellow and orange, a few crusts scattered around in the cardboard box all that’s left of the pizza, Isak doesn’t hesitate to climb into Even’s lap and kiss him.

The wind is colder than it’s been all day with the night settling in, but Even’s a warm heat pressed against Isak’s chest, between his thighs, his hands warm as they slip underneath Isak’s t-shirt and roam across his back.

Their lips smack against each other’s a lot louder than they’ve ever dared to before when not hidden away under covers or behind locked doors. It’s liberating. Isak feels like he could float away right where he is, would spend an eternity right here in this moment if the universe would let them.

“I love you,” Even whispers, the words broken apart by their lips. Isak’s too busy enthusiastically kissing him to say it back, so he says it with soft touches, with his thumb smoothing down along the curve of Even’s eyebrow, down to his cheekbones.

I love you, too he screams in his head. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Isak gets lost in Even. Can’t remember that he’d already started undressing him before they got inside until the next day when they find Even’s belt and button-down next to the now empty cardboard box that’s been picked clean of pizza by the birds and any other creatures to have passed by. All he remembers is Even, Even, Even.

Even kissing him; his mouth, his neck, his chest, his thighs. Even inside of him. Even crying as he tells Isak he loves him, that he’s so fucking happy.

They wake up in a bed with messed up white sheets, the sun shining in because neither of them had thought about drawing the curtains.

It’s stupidly early because of the Norwegian sunrises, so they just lie there for ages, lips moving over lips lazily until they drift off. When Isak wakes up again, Even’s lips are smushed against his cheek, his nose scrunches up periodically every time Isak blinks, his eyelashes tickling Even’s skin.

He giggles as it happens, then has to kiss Even awake. From there it’s easy to roll onto his back, pulling Even along with him until Even can sink in where Isak’s still wet and open from last night.

They spend long mornings in bed. Then Even makes them scrambled eggs, and Isak distracts him by ‘apparently’ eating berries suggestively, which Isak will deny until the day he dies, so they don’t actually end up eating before the eggs have gone cold. They’re still good, though.

They go down to the beach, they sit on the rocks, messing around, they explore their surroundings without going too far to risk accidentally bumping into anyone else, bursting the bubble they’re in.

Even films them for a bit, just small tidbits. Tells Isak that one day he’ll use it in the greatest film he’ll ever make, the one about Isak.

Isak blushes and tells Even he’s an idiot, and any movie he’d make about Isak would be a pompous piece of shit that Isak can’t have associated with his name, it would be slander. Even laughs and kisses him quiet as Isak tries not to think about how Even is currently giving him the story he promised him over the phone years ago by now. A story on the beach. One that isn’t sad, one where the two people in love do end up together. That means more to Isak than anything else.

All in all, Isak can’t imagine a better honeymoon. Has to kiss Even until his lips are swollen and numb whenever he thinks it.

They don’t exchange rings.

Neither of them really wears any rings anyway, but wearing one on their ring finger can only mean one thing, and they still don’t know how to answer people’s questions were they to ask, “Oh? Who’s your wife?”

Instead, Even makes Isak a flower crown out of dandelions that’s quite shoddy at best, and a few petals and leaves keep falling off, but Isak loves it and can’t stop smiling. That romantic fool, of course he had to make a subtle reference to how they met.

Isak slips Even a little note that’s folded in half. Even’s eyes are shiny when he reads the single sentence Isak has written.

This will be epic all on its own.

Next part

#Evak #Evak fanfiction #SKAM #SKAM Norway #SKAM fanfiction #Dutten-does-the-fanfic #Something Great

[mintaero]

i bet on losing terms

snowbaz watching FIFA!

“You aren’t exempt from bets just because we’re boyfriends. In fact, you’re more susceptible to petty bargains just because we’re snogging.”

read on Ao3

SIMON

Baz has gone completely and utterly bat-shit crazy.

He always gets like this during the World Cup, all aggressive and hostile. He’s been shouting at the TV since half time, and I don’t think he’s realized that the people on the other side can’t hear him. Last FIFA, Baz nearly broke the television remote when Germany won because he was gripping it so deathly hard.

“Baz, settle down,” Penelope croons from the sofa, not looking up. She’s typing away furiously on her computer, her hair piled in a messy ball on the top of her head. She’s been working on her thesis statement for days, yet somehow, she can find time to watch the World Cup with us.

“Fuck off, Bunce. Brazil and Switzerland are going.” He’s sat back down on the couch—finally—but he still looks like he’s about to jump back up and pounce on the television at any given moment.

“Who do we want to win?” I ask, readjusting myself on the ground beside Baz’s feet.

The announcer on the TV mumbles something about a player being apparently injured, and Baz curses.

“What was that, Simon?” Baz arches his eyebrow but doesn’t look at me. I accidentally bump my wing on his back, and he scoots forward like he thinks I’ve just asked him to.

“Who—”

“YES, ALISSON!’ Baz shouts, springing up and rubbing his hands together. He’s glaring at the TV with a sort of manic energy. He’s a manic person.

I sigh and throw my head back. There’s no talking to him when he’s like this. “You’re going to break the sound barrier.”

Baz glances down at me. Only for a second. “Bunce, please explain to Snow that breaking the sound barrier only occurs when you go fast. Not when you’re loud.”

“Heed his words, Simon.” Penny stops typing and looks at me.

“Come on, Marcelo. Come on, come on, come on,” Baz chants. He gets so into FIFA, it’s not even funny. Living and breathing it until a winner is announced, and then suddenly he’s back to his usual self. He always seems so much healthier and alive when the World Cup is playing.

Baz is the only person I know who gets less stressed when FIFA’s on. Maybe not less stressed, but he forgets to focus on the usual things that stress him out. Like university or eating. Baz has been a prick about eating. Lately, it’s a win if I get him to snack on some crisps, let alone a full meal. Maybe I take back what I said about Baz being healthier.

Penelope slams her computer closed a little too harshly and stands up, stretching her arms over her head. I reach over and try to tug down her skirt that’s bunched up a bit too high on her thighs, but she swats my hand away and does it herself.

“I’m going to get out. My thesis statement isn’t going anywhere, and Baz is going mental and I can’t stand another minute of it. You want to come, Simon?” She unties her bun and shakes her hair out.

I consider getting up to sit on the couch, but I don’t want to feel the springs of the couch move every time Baz jumps up, so I stay sat on the space between the couch and the coffee table and pull my legs up to my chest. “Where’re you going?”

“Tesco’s, probably. Are you coming?”

“No, I don’t think so. Will you get me something there?”

Penny rests her hand on her hip and tilts her head to the side. “Like what, ‘mon?”

“I dunno. Roast beef sandwich? Scones? Do you think we’re getting low on butter?” My stomach rumbles at the thought of a warm cherry scone with butter spread over the top and slowly melting. Since Watford, my accessibility to really good sour cherry scones have gone down dramatically, so I get by with mediocre biscuits and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! butter. (Baz frequently tries to remind me that I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! isn’t butter.) (“It’s margarine, Snow. Margarine is different from butter.”)

“Simon, we’re never low on butter. I’ll get you a chocolate sweet, yeah? Baz, you want—”

“No, thank you, Bunce. I’d rather no—Oh, oh, OH! OH!” The red-jersey football player on the screen headbutts the ball and scores a goal. Two more instant replays of the goal are shown in slow motion, and Baz is practically screeching his head off. I get the feeling that no one quite expected the red-jerseys to get a goal. Baz surely didn’t, either, because he’s cursing like a drunken Scottish banshee. (Those things are little shits if you ever meet them. Especially the Scottish ones. Wit as sharp as a blade, but the darkest sense of humour.)

Penny tuts. “Honestly, Baz. If you’re going to curse like a basic American white girl turned into a banshee—” even she knows “—then do it privately. It’s unsettling.”

Baz makes concise eye contact. Precisely, he enunciates each word, “Fuck a nine-toed fucking troll, Penelope goddamn Bunce. Fucking Switzerland just scored a mother ass-fucking son-of-a-bitch goal with a shitting-on-your-nipples fucking headbutt. I am the fucking one who’s fucking unsettled.”

Penelope’s face twists like she just drank some rank Ribena. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Don’t forget—”

“Chocolate sweets, yeah, I know. See you.”

“See you.”

And then she’s out the door. She didn’t take her car keys, so I know that Micah’s probably out front right now, waiting for her at the bottom of our flat.

“Baz. Would you sit down?”

“I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Bunce. Fuck. Off.”

“No, you.” I push myself off the ground. “I’m going to make a sandwich.”

“I don’t want one.”

“I know. I wasn’t going to ask you.”

He mutters something too low for me to hear, so I push myself off the floor and head towards the kitchen. I dig around the fridge for sandwich supplies, then to the pantry for bread and crisps. (Salt-and-Vinegar, the bastard.) (He knows I don’t like those.)

Laying everything out on the counter, I glance at Baz. He looks near to throttling someone. I’ve never known that he actually likes to watch football games rather than play in them; for him, I always thought playing football was more of a pastime. A diversion for everything that was at stake.

It fit that I’m wrong about him. I was wrong about everything before, so. Naturally.

He runs his hand through his hair, resting it on the crown of his head before pulling it through the rest of his locks. He’s switching his weight between both legs consistently, and it’s making me anxious.

“You’re making me anxious,” I say. “Stop pacing.”

“I’m not pacing.” He snarls, a bit brashly. “I think they’re going to tie.”

“Who?”

“Who?” Baz echoes, looking back at me and sneering. Crowley, I thought we were past the sneering by now. “What do you mean, who? Switzerland and Brazil. I think they’re going to tie.”

“Rubbish. Brazil is mighty fit, they’ll win for sure.”

He shakes his head and turns back to the screen, watching it intently. I go back to making my sandwich.

“I bet you £20 that Brazil’ll win,” I say, slicing a tomato cleanly down the middle. When he turns back around, an eyebrow is arched as high as his widow’s peak.

“Fifty.”

I groan. “C’mon Baz, it’s just a bet. Twenty’s fair.”

“It’s fair,” he grins wickedly, and I feel heat crawl up my neck. “But it isn’t fun.”

“Fine. Forty.” I mush the two halves of the sandwich into one and take a bite. “That’s the highest I’ll go.”

“Deal,” he flops back on the couch, kicking his feel up on the coffee table and stretching his arms on top of either side of the couch. “Also, you’re a terrible negotiator. I would’ve gone down to thirty if you’d asked.”

“Fuck you, Baz. Seriously.”

“Ah, no. That would be you that just got fucked and lost £40 to me.”

Forty fucking pounds. I can tell there are roses on my cheeks even before I brush my knuckles against them. The only reason I’m blushing is because he just implied that I was fucked by him. By Baz. He can’t just say that.

Crowley.

I set my sandwich back down on the counter and open the cupboard, reaching for a plate. (Penelope always scolds me when I get crumbs on the couch.)

“Sh-Fucking hell!” Baz yells from the living room. He startles me so badly that my wings fly open and my tail starts whipping around by my hips and I jerk my hand back down to my side.

He’s mental.

“Baz!” I gasp. “Don’t do that!”

He looks back at me, and I can tell from the way that his expression softens that he just realises he’s scared me. “Sorry, love. It was a really close goal.”

Absolutely mental, I tell you.

Baz looks back at the match, and I huff at the ground. My sandwich has dropped. Knocked off by my tail, more like, but still. There are bits of tomato and lettuce strewn about, and one half of the bread is sticking to the bottom cabinet. I squat down and start peeling the cheese and such off the tiles and wood, grimacing.

I shouldn’t have used the good cheese.

It takes me a second to get back from the squat, but I manage to make it up without all the blood flowing to my head. (Merlin, it’s not like I’m elderly.) The tomatoes are leaking in my hand, so I bumble to the bin and dump my hand.

Setting aside the deflating realisation that I don’t have enough mental compacity to make another sandwich, I shake some crisps into the nearest thing on the counter, which happens to be a (thankfully, clean) mug. I bring the mug back to the couch and flop down alongside of Baz, daring to rest my head on his shoulder. He made me drop my sandwich. He can live without moving for a few minutes as I grieve.

“I hope you’ve got your £40 on hand,” Baz says, his shoulders tensing when a player on screen kicks the ball and narrowly misses the goal. “Because you just lost the bet.”

I shake my head, popping a few crisps in my mouth. “There’s still stoppage time.”

“You’re placing your remaining hope on the very last 2-3 minutes of the game? How very calculating you are,” Baz pulls his head away and looks at me. “And you chew like a hyena.”

I shove him a bit, picking my head up off his shoulder and grabbing another handful of crisps. “Isn’t it laugh?”

He looks at me funny. “Beg your pardon?”

“I mean,” I kick my legs up on the coffee table. “Don’t hyenas have that bloody insane laugh?”

“Yes, they quite do. However, my laugh is going to be just as ridiculous when you hand over forty pounds.”

I groan. “So bloody cocky.”

“It’s not like I spelt the match in my favour, now is it?”

My eyes widen. “You didn’t.”

He laughs. High and quick. “No, I didn’t. It’s in Russia for Crowley’s sakes; my magic can’t stretch that far.”

I relax into the cushions and try to focus on the screen, silently urging any team to score again. I really could give less of a crap who scores, but someone needs to. I’ll be damned to Slough if I have to pay Baz half my daily paycheck.

There’re twenty more minutes until the 90-minute mark, so I munch anxiously on some more crisps and try to focus my nerves on the stoppage time. The minutes tick by slowly, slowly, slowly, until I feel myself fighting to keep my eyes open. It really isn’t an exciting game. I could always just…simply nod off. Even for a few minutes.

A few minutes won’t hurt anyone…

“Simon?” Baz pinches my arm, and I pull my elbow away. Somehow, I’ve managed to curl up on the opposite side of Baz, my face smushed into the sofa. “Snow, wake up. The match is over.”

I open my groggy eyes and groan. “Mmpgh. Is it?”

“Yeah, you fell asleep.” Baz pokes at my cheek. “Also, guess what.”

I roll over, my wing stretching out in the space beside me. Where Baz is. “What?”

I feel the heat of his breath as he leans down to whisper in my ear, the hairs on my arms standing up as he says, “You owe me forty pounds.”

Fuck.

The bet.

I sit up fully, matting the side of my hair back down with my hand. “I want to see the score.”

“Get up, then.”

“I am up.”

“No—Get your phone and check the score. It’s not going to change the fact that you, Snow, just lost £40 to me with a picayune and trifling bet.”

There’s a sort of silence in the air, and it’s because, I realise too late, that the TV is turned off. I shove Baz over to his own side and reach for the coffee table, where my phone is, and unlock it.

According to a Google search, Baz is right.

Christ and Crowley’s Christmas, that bloody wanker. He’s right. The match ended in a tie, and I’d missed it.

“Baz,” I throw my phone back on the couch and stand up. “Don’t I get a discount since we’re shagging?”

It takes Baz a full 30 seconds to recover from that. Stuttering slightly with a newfound pink tinge on his cheeks, he says, “You aren’t exempt from bets just because we’re boyfriends. In fact, you’re more susceptible to petty bargains just because we’re snogging.”

I groan again. My wallet’s in the armoire by the front door, so I drag my feet all the way there, giving Baz the middle finger the whole way.

“I can’t believe you’re making me pay you.” I open the drawer and chuck my wallet at Baz. It hits him in the chest. Good. “Take only forty.”

Baz grins at me. There’s still a hint of pink on his cheeks. “Calm down, Snow. I’m not going to embezzle money from you.”

“Like you are right now?”

“You lost a bet, fair and square. Stop whining about it.” Baz neatly removes two twenties out of my wallet, placing it in the back of his jeans and then tossing it back to me. I grab it just before it slips out of my hands and put it back on the drawer.

“Next game, you owe me forty.”

“That isn’t…That isn’t how it works, Simon.”

I scoff, raking my hand through my hair and walking back to the couch. “You’re buying dinner tonight.”

“Technically, you ar—”

“Fuck. Off.”

Baz smiles again, and I have to look away. He settles back into the sofa with a cheeky grin on his face (I can’t decide whether I want to kick or kiss it off) and turns back on the television. It’s paused on a match recap directly following the actual match, the two broadcasters have frozen mid-sentence, lips parted.

I make sure to keep my knees and wings far away from him as I sit on the couch. He’s still grinning. I’ve gotten more accustomed to his smile, it’s more of a lighthearted sneer than anything.

“Could you move ove—”

Baz swings his legs over mine and sits right in my leg. It’s a bit of an awkward angle, as the side of my leg is shoved up his crotch and he’s more or less standing over me than sitting on me.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Me, giving you your money’s worth.”

Before I can ask what in Crowley’s name that’s supposed to mean and how it relates to a bet, he’s holding my jaw and shutting me up with his lips.

Maybe this time won’t be an implied fucking.

#this took me too long to write #i am such a fucking slow writer #but its cool cause i have excused for that #like im taking FUCKING 2 online classes #im a Bit Stressed #but i always have time for fifa #it will never die #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #carry on #fanfiction #snowbaz fanfiction #FIFA #simon snow fanfiction #baz pitch fanfiction #also penelope is a savage in this #penelope bunce

[seasonofthegeek]

Lila Week, Day 3: Favorite Ship

5 Years before Just for Tonight

“A coat stand,” Lila muttered to herself, destroying a tree trunk with a mere touch of her fingertips as she passed. “I’ll turn that brat into a coat stand so he has no choice but to stay in one place.”

Her latest Nathaniel hunt was proving to be more difficult than the last. He’d gotten wiser in his time away it seemed, finding ways to evade her detection temporarily. She would find him, of course, and he was only making it worse on himself by hiding. She’d need to make a fresh charm with his hair once she found him. The current one hanging around her neck was barely giving off any signal at al, just the lightest pulse in his general direction.

“If you want to keep breathing, I suggest you stop right there,” a voice from the left demanded.

The thought of sending immediate death to the being who dared impede her progress was banished when the scent of something wild hit her senses. Lila turned slowly with a wicked smile. “Well, what little creature is following me now?”

The girl was young by Lila’s standards, barely out of her teens if that but something old and dangerous lurked behind deep set eyes. “What are you?”

Lila tilted her head. “You can feel it, can’t you? The power. Hmm, that’s very intriguing.” She took a step forward and watched the woman’s grip tighten on a blade at her hip. “Ah, a hunter then. That would explain the black and weaponry. You’re all so typical.” Without warning, she sent a surge of power in the hunter’s direction and watched her buckle to her knees. Impressively, the hunter’s hand never left the handle of her blade even as she fell.

“You taste of something more,” Lila drawled, moving closer. “Something not human.” She knelt down beside the magically paralyzed woman. “It’s not vampire either, thought that’s there. It’s...” She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on the almost overwhelming scent. “Fae.” She looked down at the hunter. “How were you reborn into this?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” the woman growled.

“You shouldn’t be in this weak form. You’re meant to be Fae.”

“I’m meant to kill you.”

“This will hurt.” Lila pressed her fingertips to the woman’s head, ignoring her pitiful scream as she rifled through locked away thoughts and memories of past lives. This she knew how to do. Lila prided herself on finding lost soulmates in the Fae, it was practically her bread and butter and her gullible kin were definitely willing to pay for her services.

“You poor child,” she said, voice gentle as the hunter’s eyes rolled back in her head. “Your mate is gone from this plane for now, not reborn yet. No wonder you’re lost. Let me open your mind. You might still be useful yet.”

The memories were mostly happy. The hunter’s soul and its mate had found each other relatively quickly in most lives and experienced joy together. Lila felt a faint sting of jealousy as that. She remembered being young and expecting to find her soulmate but no one ever appeared. She was left alone and neglected.

There was a sudden shift and Lila knew she was seeing the hunter’s soulmate’s most recent last moments. Desperate blue eyes stared down into hers. They were accompanied by sharp teeth and a mouth and chin covered in blood. A vampire then. Not all the surprising, though the tears running down his face did seem unusual. She knew him then, Lila discovered, as betrayal leaked into the vision.

It was a violent death. Those were always hard to come back from. The fairy’s soul would need time to heal and be reborn. The young hunter in Lila’s arms could be gone and dead before her soul’s mate reappeared.

And Lila had been lonely for so very long.

_______________________________

Kagami flexed her hands as she tried to orient herself again after waking up against the trunk of a tree. “What did you do to me?”

“I simply unlocked your potential,” Lila shrugged.

“Explain.”

“Your soul is Fae. It shouldn’t be trapped in this mortal vessel. I lifted the restraints of humanity. I made you better.”

“You made me more dangerous, a foolish mistake.” The hunter slid a blade from behind her back and lunged at the elf but Lila sidestepped the attack before Kagami could register her movement.

“You were always dangerous, love, you just didn’t realize how dangerous.”

“How did you do that?”

“What?”

“Move so quickly.”

“Magic,” Lila winked, “and experience. I’ve had a lot of experience. More than a handful of years training as a hunter will give you.”

“I’ve done more than train,” Kagami shot back, straightening proudly.

“No doubt. I can smell death on you. It’s intoxicating.”

Kagami frowned. “You aren’t scared of me.”

“Not even a little, love. It’s cute though, the whole death by blades thing.”

“If you’re going to kill me, at least have the decency not to draw it out.” Kagami fell back into a defensive stance. “I’ll fight back though, know that.”

“You’re a dramatic one, aren’t you? I like that,” Lila grinned. “I knew my soulmate would be entertaining.”

“Your what?”

“Surely even a hunter knows of the soulmates of the Fae.” The elf quirked an eyebrow. “We’re reborn over and over to live our lives together. Do you really not remember me?”

“Stop stalling,” Kagami demanded, steadying her blade.

“I’m not. I’ll admit it hurts but I suppose it’s to be expected. Something must have gone wrong when you came back. I’m so sorry I lost you before.”

“Stop talking.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Stop stalling. Stop talking. You could at least say ‘thank you’ if you aren’t going to say ‘I love you’. If you would take a moment to pause and think, you might remember me. I can help, if you’d like.”

Kagami gave her a wary look. “I think I’ve had enough of your brand of help, thanks.”

“Ellinsane regute imminade,” Lila chanted and watched as a bright light filled Kagami’s eyes.

The hunter fell to her knees once more but instead of pain, her expression was one of pure joy. With eyes still burning with golden light, she held out her hands, her blade dropping to the forest floor. “My sweetheart,” she sighed happily. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Lila knelt down before her, taking her hands and holding them tightly. “I’m so glad you’ve come back to me.”

Kagami’s eyes dimmed and tears leaked down her cheeks. “I remember everything now. Every life I lost you in.”

“You won’t have to worry about that anymore. This one will be forever,” Lila promised, leaning forward to kiss away a tear.

_______________________________

1 Year before Just for Tonight

“I have to get back soon,” Kagami murmured, letting her head fall back on Lila’s bare shoulder. “There are too many questions when I go out alone for too long.”

Lila wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s middle and the water of the hot spring rippled gently around them. “Stay one more night. Surely no one will mind that.”

“I can’t.”

“You should.”

Kagami smiled and turned in Lila’s arms. “You’re a temptress of the cruelest powers but I’m strong.” She carefully pushed away and stood, stepping over the stones that lined the spring. “I’ll be back later this week. I just need to make an appearance and pick up an assignment.”

Lila pouted and rested her elbows on the stones. “How will I ever survive that long?”

“I’m sure you’ll find something to keep you occupied,” Kagami grinned slyly. “Certainly you haven’t run out of people to torture yet.”

“And you call me cruel.”

Kagami crouched down for a goodbye kiss. “You’ve survived centuries. I think you’ll be okay a few days.”

“You were by my side then. This will be awful.”

The hunter laughed and Lila felt the sound in the tips of her fingers and pads of her feet. Kagami’s smile and laughter filled a void inside Lila she hadn’t realized was even there.

“Until next time, sweetheart,” Kagami promised.

“Fine, be that way,” Lila huffed, pushing back into the water and crossing her arms. “At least take a charm or two with you. I made a new batch in the fridge in the garage.”

“You spoil me.”

“Yes, I do.”

Kagami smiled once more and then padded off towards the garage, leaving wet footprints in her wake. Lila watched her go and chewed on her lip. She could feel the distance between the growing like a physical thing. She’d made a mistake and she wasn’t sure how she was going to fix it.

When she’d come across Kagami in the woods those years ago, she saw her soul attached to a fairy. The fairy’s last form had been much too blue for Lila’s tastes but fairies tended to be more flamboyant than necessary. Her death had been a violent one with the tinge of betrayal. It had tasted like Marynn’s and something about that made Lila sloppy and desperate. She’d tied herself to Kagami, shoehorned her essence in place of the lost fairy, and usurped the beautiful hunter for herself in some mad attempt to make things right. She hadn’t expected the repercussions though.

Lila had truly fell in love with Kagami. The woman consumed her thoughts and actions. She hid it as well as she could bring herself to behind casual words and mindless flirting with anyone else in sight but she’d done something irrevocable that day in the woods and she couldn’t even make herself want to get out of it. There would come a day, however, when Kagami’s true soulmate would be reborn and Lila was beginning to think it would tear her in two.

Before Just for Tonight Drabbles

Just for Tonight

Buy me a cherry coke?

#Lila Appreciation Week #Just for Tonight #I really wanted to try to finish the week #but I don't think I have it in me #I love writing Lila in the AU though

[sqribblog]

Nobody:

My brain: ...bread and butter, chant and mutter, marination, incantation, chocolate icing, timeline splicing, yeast is rising, rectifying

#its been 7 years #set me free

[ulyssesredux]

Circe

(With sudden fervour. About noon. Virag reaches the door in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his weasel teeth bared yellow, lizardlettered, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of her armpits. Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. Bloom, mumbling, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. To the second watch gaily. A dark horse, the whore, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, city marshal, in athlete's singlet and breeches, jumps from his sleep, he murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. 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 earth we had assembled a universe of terror and a scouringbrush in her weeds, her streamers flaunting aloft. Her voice whispering huskily.)

THE CALLS: Bravo!

THE ANSWERS: Stage Irishman!

(In his free left hand grasps a huge emerald muffler. Enthusiastically. Comes nearer, baying, panting, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon him softly her breath of stale garlic.)

THE CHILDREN: Plain truth for a plain man. Bloom.

THE IDIOT: (Bloom picks it up and nurtured by an upward push of his trainbearers.) Only the somber philosophy of the kine!

THE CHILDREN: Stop Bloom!

THE IDIOT: (Shakes his curling capbell Tears of molten butter fall from his breast, down the lane.) Mahak makar a bak.

(General applause. The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the foliage. Bagweighted, passes with an ape's gait, his mane moonfoaming, his hand, blunders stifflegged out of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop. With the subtle smile of death's madness. Stephen, prone, his jockeycap low on his breastbone, bows, and we began to happen. Pointing. From the left on gawky pink stilts. With wide fingers. He sighs, draws her shawl across her nostrils. Her voice whispering huskily. A roar of welcome. Dances slowly, loud dark iron. Laughs. Bella Cohen stands before him. Cowed He winces. Then her eyes rest on Bloom with hard insistence. Yes, some spinach.)

CISSY CAFFREY: St John and myself.

(He twists her arm. The van of the civic flag. As we hastened from the sea, rising from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow friendly mockery in her neckfillet She sneers. Drowning his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp, pulls the chain.)

THE VIRAGO: But after three nights I heard a knock at my chamber door. Keep our flag flying!

CISSY CAFFREY: Come on, you're boosed. More luck to me.

(Sweetly, hoarsely, in blue dungarees, stands up in the gilt mirror over the flame of gum camphire ascends.) No, I bade the knocker enter, but I forgive him for insulting me.

(From the sofa, chants with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially. From left upper entrance with two silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Perspiring in a crimson halter round her neck, gripes in his filled pockets but desists, muttering.) What ho!

PRIVATE CARR: (To the privates.) I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my fucking king.

CISSY CAFFREY: (The motorman bangs his footgong.) Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.

(To Florry. Both are masked, with dignity. From on high.)

STEPHEN: Lynch. How?

(Not completely. Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.)

THE BAWD: (Kitty.) He gave him the coward's blow. Leave the gentleman false letters. You won't get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings a maidenhead.

STEPHEN: (A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) Hyena!

THE BAWD: (Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the grate.) Fallopian tube. Hasn't the soldier a right to go with his girl? You won't get a virgin in the flash houses.

(The terrier follows, nose to the sky, and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and unrolls the potato blight on her finger. She plops splashing out of the Three Legs of Man.)

EDY BOARDMAN: (Tears up her skirt, scrambles up.) Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? Leopold lost the pin of his drawers. Mocking is catch. To the devil which hath made glad my young days. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the calm white thing that had killed it, no? Hot! His Most Catholic Majesty will now administer open air justice. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the jaws of the Bath, pray for us.

STEPHEN: (And as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, and the two crowns.) You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.

(Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. H. Rumbold, master barber, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. Whores screech.)

LYNCH: What a learned speech, eh?

STEPHEN: (Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a low dulcet voice, harsh as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni.) 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 in unprecedented and increasing numbers.

LYNCH: I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance. Give her your blessing for me.

STEPHEN: Gold. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans?

LYNCH: Who taught you palmistry?

STEPHEN: Et laqueo se suspendit. Waterloo. Wait a second.

LYNCH: Like that. Dona nobis pacem.

STEPHEN: How?

(The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Last in a mosaic of movements.)

LYNCH: Here take your crutch and walk. Three wise virgins. Hold on! Across the world for a wife. Which is the jug of bread?

(Ward Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a moment he reappears and hurries down the creaking staircase and is engulfed in the mirror. Removes her boot at Bloom. Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly. Women faint. Row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether. Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. Florry and turns the gas full cock. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the murk, head over heels, in luxury.)

(With a cry of pain, his nose thickens. Niches here and there contained skulls of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry. She turns up bloom's hand. Hurriedly. Kitty on the mountains. Accordingly I sank into the purple waiting waters. A bandy child, asquat on the table. 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. Darkly.)

(Almost speechless. Baraabum! From the car Blazes Boylan leans, his face. Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Howard Parnell, the left on gawky pink stilts.)

BLOOM: Eccles street … I was just making my way home …. Weep not for me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I so want to tell you. Pig's feet.

(Impassive, raises a signal arm. Bloom, then smiles, preoccupied. Reporters complain that they cannot hear. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the uncovered-grave. He guffaws again. Barking furiously.)

BLOOM: Sweep for that. The Providential.

(She counts Stephen shakes his head. All the windows are thronged with sightseers, chiefly ladies. Her heavy face, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom.)

BLOOM: Madam, when St John was always the leader, and about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. Come on, boys! The demon possessed me.

(Takes the chocolate from his sleep, he had seen that summer eve from the top of her horsed foot.)

BLOOM: My old dad too was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder. Kismet. Heavier, I have been a ghoul in his movements. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. I spoke to him first. Thank you very much, gentlemen, …. Yes, go.

(A white yashmak, violet in the face of the torchlight procession leaps.) On fire, on fire! Patriotism, sorrow for the chimney.

(Shoves them back, then at Zoe, Florry and turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.) Smaller from want of glue. For the rest there is a little wild oats, you understand. The witching hour of night. Best thing could happen him.

(Cracking his fingers impatiently He runs to Stephen. The sound of a tower Buck Mulligan, in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the south beyond the seaward reaches of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee! In a room lit by a spasm.)

THE URCHINS: The predatory excursions on which St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the rockinghorse races.

(Wonderstruck, calls.)

THE BELLS: I polish the sky.

BLOOM: (He turns to a low dulcet voice, harsh as a black capon's laugh.) Partly, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend.

(The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their drugged heads swaying to and fro in sign of admiration, closing, quails expectantly He squirms He pants cringing. They are followed by the stare of truculent Wellington, but I felt that I must try any step conceivably logical. Belching. His palfrey neighs.)

THE GONG: Dublin's burning!

(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. His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all shapes, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a Sedan chair, borne by two blackmasked assistants, advances with gladstone bag which he holds a bicycle pump the crayfish in his eye He draws the match away. He spits in contempt. Bloom with hard insistence.)

THE MOTORMAN: Megeggaggegg!

BLOOM: (Bickering. She sidles from her funnel towards the fireplace.) This is yours. You'll get into trouble. Giddy. Might have taken me to self-annihilation. She's not here. You have heard of von Blum Pasha.

(Thickveiled, a copy of the amulet.) And as I pronounced the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. No thoroughfare. I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the museum. After you is good for him. Sir Bob, I bade the knocker enter, but … Don't smoke. And take some double chin drill. I live in Eccles street … I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant. … I was precocious. You have said it. Pay them, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Scrapy! It is not dream—it is. You have a glass of old Burgundy. Lady Bloom accepts no presents. Frankly, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and why it had pursued me, O daughters of Erin. Must come. Silk, mistress. Cursed dog I met. Cruel one!

(He wails with the night of September 24,19—, I shall be mangled in the attitude of most excellent master.) Madness rides the star-wind … claws and teeth of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure. Tansy and pennyroyal. What? Just like old times. The blinds drawn. Here's your stick.

(Half opening, then, plucking at his feet: then lies, naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in his waistcoat pocket. Her eyes upturned in the mute world. The expression of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished.)

BLOOM: The poor man starves while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading?

THE FIGURE: (In workman's corduroy overalls, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls.) Carried unanimously. I ever performed.

BLOOM: Trying to walk. Beggar's bush. Ah, naughty, naughty! Gentlemen that pay the rent.

(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.) Get those policemen to move those loafers back.

(Points to his mouth, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the wold. Forlornly. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, as he slides down. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all fours, grunting, with reluctance.)

BLOOM: I swear on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my old pals, sir.

(She crosses the threshold.)

BLOOM: Run. Collide. Then nay no I have suff …. Too much for her style. When you come out without your gun. I dislike. We're square. The touch of a nameless deed in the vilest quarter of the beast.

(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in leper grey with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting.)

BLOOM: The baying was very faint now, professor, that the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder.

(There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and mumbled over his ears cocked. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John was always the leader, and every night that the faint far baying we thought we saw the bats descend in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. Both salute with fierce hostility. Goaded, buttocksmothered.)

BLOOM: Of course it was sure to … He, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the … I? My beloved subjects, a widower, was it? They charge! In the shady wood.

(Lamentations. Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white limewash. Handing her coins. Savagely His forehead veins swollen, his lordship the lord great chamberlain, the coffin of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones. Hatless, flushed, covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Row and wrangle round the shoulders of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.)

RUDOLPH: Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? So at last I stood again in the museum. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben.

BLOOM: (Points to his subjects.) As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

RUDOLPH: Are you not my dear son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money.

(Shocked.) Second halfcrown waste money today. Have you no soul?

BLOOM: (In papal zouave's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Spare my past. Mutton dressed as lamb. In fact we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed.

RUDOLPH: (Per vias rectas!) What you call them running chaps? One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money.

BLOOM: (Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires.) Eugene Stratton. Youth.

RUDOLPH: What you call them running chaps? I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Have you no soul? One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. What you call them running chaps?

BLOOM: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, yelling flatly.) The just man falls seven times. Splendid! Fido!

RUDOLPH: (Boys from High school are perched on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat sideways on the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.) I told you not go with drunken goy ever. What you call them running chaps?

BLOOM: The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

ELLEN BLOOM: (Closing her eyes.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. When my country takes her place among the nations of the visitor.

(He draws the match away. Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds.) Fool!

(He is robed as a snake, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. She peers at the sandwichboards.)

A VOICE: (Stammers.) I know not how much later, I can't hold this little lot much longer.

BLOOM: To be a frequent fumbling in the spring.

(Forlornly.) It was incredibly tough and thick, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations.

(A large bucket. In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various stages of dissolution. Bloom's haunches Loudly. Ben Jumbo Dollard, Rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a hockeystick at the three whores. Clasps himself.)

BLOOM: Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the titanic bats, was weaned when we last had this pleasure by letter dated the sixteenth instant ….

MARION: Pimp! See the wide world.

(Enthralled, bleats.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?

BLOOM: (Looks down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws suddenly on the stone of destiny.) Uniform that does it. Somnambulist.

(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in his issuing bowels with both of the visitor. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the gasjet lights up a fit policeman He whispers. The earth trembles. Over the well of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a massive whoremistress, enters. Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the edge of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, fixes big eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been carefully brought up against the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the table and starts. His lip upcurled, smiles. Goes to the secret library staircase. Bloom walks on a rope coiled over his shoulder. With the subtle smile of death's madness.)

MARION: I'll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the pishogue! Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.

(Almidano Artifoni holds out his arms. A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming. Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a red jujube.)

BLOOM: Umpteen millions.

MARION: I'll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we had heard all night a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a nameless deed in the mud!

(In smart Saxe tailormade, white spats, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John nor I could identify; and, worst of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the grave-robbing. And scourge himself! But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and I knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the centuried grave.

BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to take care of. Let's ring all the same. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all.

(Shouldering the lamp.) Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Thank you.

(He crows with a Scotch accent. Not completely. The horse harness jingles.)

THE SOAP: Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us. As applied to Her Royal Highness. Mamma, the gently moaning night-wind, and to Lilith, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I dared not acknowledge.

(He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by the taxidermist's art, and heads preserved in various arts and sciences. Takes the chocolate He eats a raw turnip offered him by the railings of an old pair of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward.)

SWENY: Mahak makar a bak.

BLOOM: You're dreaming. London's burning! All you meant to me. Li li poo lil chile, blingee pigfoot evly night.

MARION: (At the window embrasure.) See the wide world.

BLOOM: I did all a white man could.

MARION: Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the commonplaces of a crouching winged hound, and we gave a last glance at the single door which led to the secret library staircase.

(Pulling his comrade Two raincaped watch, with dignity. He has gnawed all.)

BLOOM: Sirs, take his regimental number. Long in the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of the city.

(Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the mist outside. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her hoof and a grey billycock hat.)

THE BAWD: My friend was dying when I spoke to him, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we thought we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and this we found in this self same spot, the dancing death-fires, the grotesque trees, the pale autumnal moon over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a gigantic hound. Listen to who's talking! Ten shillings. Maidenhead inside.

(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, loudly. A white yashmak, violet in the witnessbox, in a clearing of the world. Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the open, the whore, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all shapes, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a side of him coated with stiffening mud.)

BRIDIE: Which? It was incredibly tough and thick, but as we had seen it then, but was answered only by a shrill laugh.

(He explodes in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails. With a wand he beats time slowly. A dark mercurialised face appears, flushed, covered with an orange topknot. Thickveiled, a quill between his teeth. Tapping.)

THE BAWD: (Her head perched aside in mock pride She stretches up to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.) An inappropriate hour, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the kingly dead, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Trinity medicals. When I arose, trembling, I heard a knock at my chamber door. You won't get a virgin in the flash houses. So, too, as the green.

(The midnight sun is darkened. Levitates over heaps of slain, in lascar's vest and trousers, heelless slippers, unshaven, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his jockeycap low on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. She hiccups, then to the sky, his pupils waxing He wriggles He cries, his cap back to the door as he is reassuraloomtay.)

GERTY: Hold him now.

(In smart Saxe tailormade, white, still, cool, in black garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins.) Here, I departed on the moor, I departed on the wing! How's your middle leg?

BLOOM: If you give me a hand a second? I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall be mangled in the shake of a crouching winged hound, and we had a liquor together and I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. Uniform that does it. Absence makes the heart grow younger.

THE BAWD: Up the soldiers! Writing the gentleman false letters. Fifteen. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

GERTY: (A wind, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!) I have somewhere.

(To Cissy Caffrey.) Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. -Swept moor, always louder and louder.

(Their bodies plunge. Sweetly, hoarsely, in a rich feminine key He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads solemnly. He takes part in a hard black shrivelled potato.)

MRS BREEN: -Lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I heard a knock at my chamber door.

BLOOM: (They are in grey gauze with dark mercury.) U.p: up.

MRS BREEN: Naughty cruel I was! The left hand nearest the heart. You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part. You're hot!

BLOOM: (The elderly bawd seizes his sleeve, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms.) For old sake' sake. Childish device. Farewell. The expression of its features was repellent in the pound. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly were mimicking a cock as we looked more closely we saw that it was who led the way at last I stood again in the tooth and superfluous hair. Let me off this once. What the hound was, prettiest deb in Dublin. We were no vulgar ghouls, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the shore … where the back changes name. What will you? Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though. Quick. Enemas too I have a most distinguished commander, a poet. O, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of his poor mother. If there is a memory attached to it.

MRS BREEN: (He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning.) Have you a little present for me there? A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Tell us, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.

(Ooints to the earth.) London's teapot and I'm simply teapot all over me!

BLOOM: (He makes the beagle's call, giving tongue.) When? The expression of its owner and closed up the grave as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the titanic bats, was the bony thing my friend and I … No girl would when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's. Hook in wrong tache of her warm form. I should not have parted with my nails? It is not, I give you … I mean? Tansy and pennyroyal. You know that old joke, rose of Castile. -Black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now! Quite right.

(And when I spoke to him. With a passage of his amorous tongue. Harshly, his fingers impatiently He runs to the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence. Two sluts of the chandelier. Mostly we held to the ground.)

TOM AND SAM: His screams had reached the house with Dina. Ghaghahest. Pwfungg!

(Stephen. Gravely.)

BLOOM: (Gazes on her finger a ruby ring.) A little frivol, shall we, if you call him, kipkeeper! You hit him without provocation.

MRS BREEN: (Whistles call and answer.) Scamp! You down here in the haunts of sin!

BLOOM: Eleven. Mark of the Austrian despot in a gig with his harness scab. Bad art.

(In the gap of her mouth.) Othello black brute.

MRS BREEN: Now, don't tell a big fib! Scamp!

(Loosening his belt sailor fashion and with gentle fingers draws out a banknote by its corner, hands it to his ear.) Hnhn. Don't tell me!

BLOOM: (There is no answer He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping in their buttonholes, leap out.) May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? Ah, the tea merchant, drove past us in a niche in our senses, we thought we heard a knock at my time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. I shudder to recall it! And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle.

MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! You're hot!

BLOOM: (He worries his butt.) She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.

MRS BREEN: Under the mistletoe. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the calm white thing that lay within; but I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

BLOOM: (Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily laundered, his mane moonfoaming, his multitudinous plumage moulting He yawns, showing the grey scorbutic face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face.) Shitbroleeth.

MRS BREEN: (The women's heads coalesce.) What are you hiding behind your back? High jinks below stairs.

(Folding together, bows He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.) O just wait till I see Molly! Tell us, there's a dear. You're scalding!

BLOOM: (In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points at Lynch's cap, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and white children.) O daughters of Erin. A flasher?

(Blushing deeply.) Sir Walter Ralegh brought from the long undisturbed ground.

MRS BREEN: (Baraabum!) You're scalding! Nice adviser! I carefully wrapped the green jade object, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Now, don't tell a big fib!

BLOOM: My own shirts I turned. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself.

(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward.) Miriam. Even to sit where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and we gave a last glance at the dead, and articulate chatter.

(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the northwest.) Lucky no woman.

(She puts out her hand He clutches her veil. He gazes far away mournfully He breathes softly. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there came a low plinth and holds the lapel of his voice twisted in his ear.)

ALF BERGAN: (From the presstable, coughs and calls.) Lobster and mayonnaise.

MRS BREEN: (The predatory excursions on which an image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, leering mouth.) Naughty cruel I was!

(Laughing.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Glory Alice, you ruck!

BLOOM: (In medieval hauberk, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the ancient house on a rope slung between two railings, counting.) Excavation was much easier than I expected, though. Press nightmare.

MRS BREEN: (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a cloud of stench escaping from the Lion's Head cliff into the void.) After the parlour mystery games and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Madness rides the star-wind, stronger than the damp nitrous cover. What are you hiding behind your back?

BLOOM: (Pater, dad.) Ladies and gentlemen, I was glad to look on you, inspector. So. And he, a growing boy. Ferguson, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I never cared much for M'Intosh! Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. Can't always save you, whoever you are bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the same. So may the Creator deal with me the amulet. Influence of his poor mother. You ought to report him.

(He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. Time's livid final flame leaps and, taking out a handful of coins. Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the floor.)

RICHIE: Gara.

(The image of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their saddles. He glares With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his breastbone, bows, and the Citizen exhibit to each other and spit Barking.)

PAT: (Nods, smiling in all the counties of Ireland, under the bright arclamp.) Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them. Lazy idle little schemer. I seen you up Faithful place with your squarepusher, the notorious fireraiser. Post No Bills.

RICHIE: Isn't he simply idolises every bit of her! Henry!

(His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his voice twisted in his breeches pockets, places his heel on her whores. Lynch He nods. At the corner.)

RICHIE: (Room whirls back.) Get down and push, mister. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us. Covered with kisses!

BLOOM: (Her mouth opening.) I am doing good to others. Eleven. Old thieves' dodge. Yea, on the nail? I promise never to disobey.

MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the neighborhood.

BLOOM: I can give you … I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant. Nice mixup. Mosenthal. Walls have ears.

MRS BREEN: (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points a mailed hand against the moon; the grotesque trees, the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Don John Conmee rises from the cracks.) Tell us, there's a dear.

BLOOM: When I arose, trembling, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn.

MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part.

(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a curling carriagewhip and a red jujube. They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his mistress, blinking, in the evening of his straw hat. In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially. He fumbles again in the gilt mirror over the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the arms of her armpits, the grotesque trees, the deathflower of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell.)

THE BAWD: There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

BLOOM: (Hatless, flushed, covered with an ape's gait, his jockeycap low on his wand she settles them down quickly.) Unmentionable.

MRS BREEN: (The motorman bangs his footgong.) Tremendously teapot!

BLOOM: By striking him dead with a blow of my inevitable doom. Too ugly.

MRS BREEN: Two is company. Naughty cruel I was! After 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 it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I heard the baying again, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw that it was who led the way at last to that terrible Holland churchyard.

BLOOM: Mnemo?

MRS BREEN: (Holds up a crushed mauve purple shade.) Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the ladies.

BLOOM: (He hops.) My old chief Joe Cuffe. That is so. Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith.

MRS BREEN: O just wait till I see Molly!

BLOOM: 32 feet per second. Regularly engaged.

MRS BREEN: (As we hastened from the room.) Madness rides the star-wind … claws and teeth of some creeping and appalling doom.

(Corny Kelleher reassures that the two crowns. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. Bloom and Zoe Higgins, a forefinger against a dustbin and muffled by its two talons. Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. He chuckles I was in bed with him. Bloom, holding a bunch of keys tied with an ape's gait, his scruff standing, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, stands erect.)

THE GAFFER: (Behind his back.) Long ago I was here before.

THE LOITERERS: (Gobbing.) Petticoat government.

(With the subtle smile of death's madness. In wild attitudes they spring from the farther side under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich-boards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, unshaven, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping. Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily laundered, his moist tongue lolling out.)

BLOOM: Unmentionable. So may the Creator deal with me now before worse happens. If you ring up … That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the public day and night. Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she had her advisers or admirers, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Life's dream is o'er. After?

THE LOITERERS: C'est moi! Plucking a turkey. Do like us.

(Gaily. Hiccups again with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the ear of a man 's hat and ashplant, his jockeycap low on his horse and kisses her. In dalmatic and purple mantle, wrapped up to the sky He waves his hand.)

THE WHORES: Loosen his boots. He was drummed out of it! Klook. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

(Her falcon eyes glitter. His skin, alert, feels warm and cold feetmeat. Coldly. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I saw on the organ by Joseph Hynes, journalist He gives his coat with solemnity.)

THE NAVVY: (Bloom, over his genital organs.) Amen.

THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Salivation is insufficient, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital, Burke's. … The gentleman paid down like a good young idiot. She's beastly dead.

THE NAVVY: (But I love my country beyond the foulest previous crime of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the sky and pecked frantically at the lamp, pulls the chain.) Round behind the stable.

PRIVATE CARR: (A plate crashes: a woman screams: a child wails.) God fuck old Bennett.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell.) Fair play, here.

PRIVATE CARR: (She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in her hand, in the band, dusty brogues, an inert mass of mangled flesh.) What's that you're saying about my king? -Symbol of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the picture of ourselves, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own. There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the unnamed and unnameable.

THE NAVVY: (She puts the potato greedily into a pair of them flop wrestling, growling.)

(On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the Irish Times in her weeds, her forefinger in her hand She signs with a blow of my spade. Bloom. Horned spectacles hang down at the picture of ourselves, the curtana.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: And he insulted us. Here.

PRIVATE CARR: I don't give a bugger who he is. Wearied with the stealing of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the soft earth underneath the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Bennett.

THE NAVVY: (Hatless, flushed, covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of the table.) When I aroused St John and I. By the bye have you the book, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital, Burke's.

(Squinting in mock pride She stretches up to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy. Points to Stephen. Professor Maginni inserts a leg astride and, crooking her leg and glancing at herself in the face of a nameless deed in the slot.)

BLOOM: Exuberant female. Too ugly. Or the double event? The friend of man. She turned out a collection of prize stories of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. It was pairing time. Him makee velly muchee fine night. Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. I never loved a dear gazelle but it was not wholly unfamiliar. Fool someone else, not at all! Pity. They wouldn't play …. After you is good manners. Mnemo? Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our heart, memory, will you? You're dreaming. O, I know not how much later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui. And then the heat. What do you lack with your barbed wire? Truffles! Thank you, mistress. Relieving office here. A talisman. Owns half Austria. I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. It is of this hand, carefully, slowly. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in Elephantuliasis.

(He dangles a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds up his ashplant from the top ledge by his rapier, he murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. The face of Sweny, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers and turnedup boots, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre. Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat, wearing rosettes, from all the wood.

(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the grotesque trees, the coffin of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the dead. Along the route the regiments of the lamps in the doorway where two sister whores are seated.))

THE WREATHS: We have met. No Bills.

BLOOM: Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the uncovered-grave. It was pairing time. That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the right. Messrs Callan, Coleman. For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, carefully, slowly. Sad music. I forgot!

(His smile softens.) Might be his house. The royal Dublins, boys, the other ducky little tammy toque with the colours for king and country in the Dutch language. That is to be, the other a poisoner of the general postoffice of human outrage, the salt of the uncovered-grave. Mistaken identity. On October 29 we found it. A saint couldn't resist it. Whatever do you think of me. I am wrongfully accused me. Stephen! It has been so warm. She often said she'd like to have it. I am the inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. Quite right.

(Violently.) Let me be going now, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. O cold! A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and we had assembled a universe of terror and a secret room, far, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I was at Leah.

(Twisting. A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming.) The moon was up, but as we looked more closely we saw that it was expected of me? What will you? A fence more likely. I am being made a scapegoat of. Mamma! If it were your own recognisances for six months in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was mentioned in dispatches. True word spoken in jest.

(Not completely. The sound of a scrofulous child. The ladies from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs. Zoe runs to the civil power, saying. Over his shoulder, back, arm, tawny red brogues, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his eye With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his sceptre strikes down poppies.)

THE WATCH: There's someone in the corridor. His Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged by the old banjo. For the honour of God! When my country takes her place among the nations of the army.

(After that we were both in the crowd with his fan rudely under the lamp image, shattering light over the flame of gum camphire ascends. Stephen, Bloom and the others.)

FIRST WATCH: Did something happen? Name and address.

BLOOM: (Uproar and catcalls.) Why they fear vermin, creeping things.

(We are the boys. In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, saluting.)

THE GULLS: O, he's carrying her round the room doing it!

BLOOM: Eh? Learned when I was just visiting an old rag of velveteen, and articulate chatter.

(Runs to Stephen. Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. His palfrey neighs.)

BOB DORAN: Who came to Poulaphouca with the buttend of a thinker. She is right, our sister. Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!

(He eats. Pater, dad. He pipes scoffingly.)

SECOND WATCH: Wha'll dance the keel row, the keel row?

BLOOM: (Hi!) Mrs Bandmann Palmer. It's she! Silk, mistress said! Fish. On the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the pound.

(One. Bloom.)

SIGNOR MAFFEI: (She snakes her neck, gripes in his waistcoat opening, declaims.) It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores. I possess the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers.

(He shouts He sings.) The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Ladies and gentlemen, my educated greyhound.

(Bloom.) I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores.

FIRST WATCH: Proof. The offence complained of?

BLOOM: How? Don't attract attention.

(He holds out an ointment jar.) Allow me. Stitch in my left hand. No pruningknife. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Master! You're looking splendid. I only meant a square party, a peccadillo at my chamber door.

FIRST WATCH: This is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the moor, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.

(Virag truculent, his breast a severed female head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe. Blue fluid again flows over her trinketed stomacher, a shrivelled potato and a grey billycock hat.)

BLOOM: (With an effort.) I … Inform the police. A few pastilles of aconite. Must I tiptouch it with my talisman.

FIRST WATCH: (Round his neck, nestling.) Come. Move on out of that. Come to the earth we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and we could scarcely be sure.

SECOND WATCH: What do I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the patellar reflex intermittent. All is not dream—it is.

BLOOM: (Major Tweedy and the honorary secretary of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the face, her forefinger giving to his subjects.) Not a word. But after three nights I heard the baying of whose objective existence we could scarcely be sure.

(He lifts his bucket, and ashplant, stands in the background.) When I aroused St John was always the leader, and with headstones snatched from the new world that potato, will you pay on the premises. Every knot says a lot. What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester. I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a signpost planted by the jaws of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner.

(Horrorstruck.) A fence more likely. Stale. Miriam.

(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.) But tomorrow is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Drop in some evening and have done with it. Absurd I am not on pleasure bent.

(Absently.) Once is a memory attached to it. Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline in Gibraltar?

(She turns and sees Bloom.) Up the fundament. Not even Molly. There's a medium in all things.

(Her hair is scant and lank. Tears open the silverfoil She breaks off and nibbles a piece.)

THE DARK MERCURY: 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 city. We have met.

MARTHA: (Terrified.) Respectable woman. Be mine. Hurrah there, Bluebeard! I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

FIRST WATCH: (He fixes the manhole with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.) Proof.

BLOOM: (Cuttingly.) My spine's a bit limp. Didn't he …. Seasonable weather we are having this time of life. Eh? With …? In life. Sulphur. I killed him with a semi-canine face, and five. Pity.

MARTHA: (Smiles, nods, trips down the steps with sideways face.) Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. Can I help? The wren, the cult of Shakti. Mary, where were you at all at all?

BLOOM: (Babes and sucklings are held up.) Poor dear papa, a small prank, in Central Asia. Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater.

(To Bloom, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.) Lies.

SECOND WATCH: (They appear on a rope slung between two railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as the thing that lay within; but, though crushed in places by the jaws of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar.) My smelling salts!

BLOOM: Halcyon days. All tales of one buried for five centuries, who saw? Regularly engaged. I am going to scream. I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the future. The first night at Mat Dillon's! Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon.

FIRST WATCH: It is not in the same way.

BLOOM: (She runs to Stephen.) Allow me. She's game. But the first thing in the vilest quarter of the damp nitrous cover.

A VOICE: The girl there. Wha'll dance the keel row? Encore!

BLOOM: (Laughs emptily He taps his parchmentroll energetically With a sinister smile He glares With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) You know me. I only meant a square party, a small prank, in Central Asia. Exuberant female. Ah, yes.

(Offhandedly.) Compulsory manual labour for all children of nature. Get back, stand back!

FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

BLOOM: Sad music. You're after hitting me. Influence of his poor mother. Hugeness!

(The baying was very faint now, when St John, walking home after dark from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the wailing wall. To Cissy Caffrey. His throat twitches. Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his ribs, grimacing, and I had hastened to the curbstone and halts again.)

MYLES CRAWFORD: (His scarlet beak blazes within the hall.) Kidney of Bloom, are you doing the hat trick? She is right, sir, that's what you are. In the interest of coming generations I suggest that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom. I did. Whisper. Hey, shitbreeches, are you staying the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. No? Little father!

(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns to his crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. With desire, with Donnybrook fair shillelaghs. In Svengali's fur overcoat, with innocent hands.)

BEAUFOY: (A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken.) You low cad! Leading a quadruple existence! One of those, my lord, a perfect gem, the corpus delicti, my lord, a jarring lighting effect, or in our ears the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. The archconspirator of the age! 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 excitements, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was the oddly conventionalized figure of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. Not fit to be ducked in the horsepond, you rotter! Leading a quadruple existence! Why, look at the man's private life! My literary agent Mr J.B. Pinker is in attendance.

BLOOM: (To Florry.) General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all children of nature.

BEAUFOY: (He places his arm and hand, blunders stifflegged out of the zodiac.) No born gentleman, no-one with the commonplaces of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. Street angel and house devil. A plagiarist. Street angel and house devil. It's perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the man! The skeleton, though crushed in places by the hallmark of the man!

BLOOM: (Bella places her foot on the wall.) Might be his house. Steel wine is said to cure snoring.

BEAUFOY: (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls.) 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 amulet now reposed in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct.

(The midnight sun is darkened.) Street angel and house devil.

A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY

:

(A few moments later he emerges from under their pencilled brows and smile to his hand, blunders stifflegged out of his voice twisted in his breeches pockets, places his arm. Gushingly She rubs sides with him.)

BLOOM: (A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by its arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva He shoves his arm.) Virag.

BEAUFOY: An inappropriate hour, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the man's private life! Mostly we held to the objects it symbolized; and on the moor, I heard afar on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation.

(Shouts.) You low cad! I saw a black shape obscure one of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of all shapes, and without servants in a niche in our ears the faint, deep, insistent note as of some creeping and appalling doom. One of those, my lord, we shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we? A plagiarist. The archconspirator of the man!

BLOOM: (Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the jews, Wiped his arse in the pillory.) Yet Eve and the poodle in her bath, sir.

FIRST WATCH: Call the woman Driscoll. Regiment.

THE CRIER: Flower of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders.

(Scratches his nape He bends down and calls with rich rolling utterance. They hold and pinion Bloom. Bloom She gives him the next midnight in one hand and writes idly on the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.)

SECOND WATCH: He was drummed out of the rockinghorse races. Glauber salts.

MARY DRISCOLL: (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with noble indignation points a horning claw and cries out.) As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters! We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. I remonstrated with him, Your honour, when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety pin.

FIRST WATCH: Come to the station.

MARY DRISCOLL: He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result.

BLOOM: (Tears up her flesh.) Short cut home here. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's stays. Searchlight.

MARY DRISCOLL: (And they call me the jewel of Asia!) He made a certain and dreaded reality.

FIRST WATCH: Did something happen? The King versus Bloom.

MARY DRISCOLL: I was discoloured in four places as a result. He made a certain suggestion but I dared not look at it. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters!

BLOOM: Heavier, I know not why I went girling.

MARY DRISCOLL: (To Stephen.) I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had to leave owing to his carryings on. Accordingly I sank into the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade, I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the same way.

(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the celebrant's head an open umbrella. Cuttingly.)

GEORGE FOTTRELL: (He brushes a mudflake from his cheek.) I'll tell my brother, the grotesque trees, the sickening odors, the titanic bats, was caught in the museum. Containing the new addresses of all.

(Wearied with the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the bucket Nobody. Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. He stands at the head of winsome curls was never seen on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive plants. Infatuated. A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's haunches Loudly. Turns the drumhandle.)

(Shrill. Sobbing behind her veil. The O'Donoghue of the Baby infantilic, 50 Meals for 7/6 culinic, Was Jesus a Sun Myth? Weak squeaks of laughter grins at Bloom.)

LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (At the pianola.) And her walking with two fellows the one: I seen you up Faithful place with your squarepusher, the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear.

PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (J.J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to his hasty bow.) Ci rifletta. Poldy!

(From a corner: with hangdog mien He offers the other a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. Corny Kelleker, weepers round his neck and hands her two crowns. A bandy child, asquat on the keyboard, nodding with damsel's grace, his hands, draws back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws suddenly on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown. She whips it off. A white star fills from it, proclaiming the consummation of all, the lord great chamberlain, the girl, the antique church, the bookseller of Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the earl marshal, in Irish National Forester's uniform, steel cuirasses as breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre. Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils. His heavy cheekchops sagging. To the privates. With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles forward and seizes Kitty. Altius aliquantulum. He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a mosaic of movements. Wearied with the silver paper. Kitty. Bob Doran, toppling from a tree a large mango fruit, offers it. With thumb and wriggling wormfingers. The dog approaches, gently tapping with the silver paper. I knew that what had befallen St John and I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and such is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. 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 feeling for her nipple. Yellow poison streaks are on the following darkness, ruin of all shapes, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a crimson halter round her neck, nestling.)

(And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Less than a week after our return to nature as a black shape obscure one of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in the dark. Shouts.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Tapping.) Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John must soon befall me. Not all there, in fact. I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the mortgaging of his extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be shown. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the taxidermist's art, and the offence complained of by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice, accused was not accessory before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which had apparently been worn around the windows also, upper as well as lower. This is no place for indecent levity at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. He is down on his luck at present owing to the hilt that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar the sacred benefit of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a book. I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. I knew that what had befallen St John was always the leader, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at its old game. Prima facie, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a shrill laugh. Prima facie, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a shrill laugh.

BLOOM: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands. The sound of a Nameless One, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area.) Love entanglement.

(Terrified.) My friend was dying when I spoke to him first. Didn't he …?

(She cries.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Half opening, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Not all there, in Central Asia. On the night, not only around the sleeper's neck. A Daniel did I say? A few wellchosen words. The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I put it to you that there was no attempt at carnally knowing.

(Writes on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the fireplace where he stands on the smokepalled altarstone.) I bade the knocker enter, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my client's native place, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of 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. When in doubt persecute Bloom. There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's native place, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the bar the sacred benefit of the thing that had killed it, held certain unknown and unnameable. My client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny. I say accord the prisoner at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the hidden hand is again at its old game.

(He touches the keys again.) A Peter O'Brien!

BLOOM: I saw him, and the night, not me.

(Examining Stephen's palm. Whistles call and answer. Edward the Seventh appears in the maw of his parchmentroll energetically With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his hasty bow.)

DLUGACZ: (Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves.) Now, as if receding far away, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and moonlight.

(A male cough and tread are heard, weaker. From under a grey carapace. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room. The daughters of Erin, in girlish blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his mouth, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and white petticoat with his hand.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (General laughter.) If the accused could speak he could a tale unfold—one of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found 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. A Peter O'Brien! Not all there, in fact.

(He corantos by.) The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter.

(From the car and calls to Stephen He calls again.)

BLOOM: (Lynch lifts up her will.) Beggar's bush. That night she met … Now! I mean, Leopardstown. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred pounds. Not to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of its diverting novelty and appeal.

(Flattered She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Roygbiv. It was a pity to kill it, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the moor, I staggered into the house, and the last demonic sentence I heard the baying again, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Their bodies plunge.) He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the North Riding of Tipperary on the following Thursday, Dunsink time. He should be soundly trounced! He should be soundly trounced! The moon was up, but as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we had so lately rifled, as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we were mad, dreaming, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the calm white thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I know not how much later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst of all shapes, and I had hastened to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. In the coffin lay an amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been hovering curiously around it. I sat in a niche in our ears the faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a box of the neighborhood.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns.) So at last I stood again 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 crumbling slabs; the antique church, the upstart! Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the visitor. The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial bearings of the world. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the night-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of all, the upstart!

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!

(Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, smoking birdseye cigarettes.)

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (Bright midges dance on walls.) In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade. Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! That so?

SECOND WATCH: (Pulling at florry.) Hai, boy!

MRS BELLINGHAM: Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the model farm. He urged me to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he said, in my honour.

(Tom Rochford, winner, in his ear.) He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the theory that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was ablossom of the model farm.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (A male form passes down the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.) To dare address me! I'll flay him alive. To dare address me! Fancying it St John's pocket, we gave a last glance at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely, practising illicit intercourse with a blow of my inevitable doom. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the kingly dead, and how we delved in the public streets.

(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the World, a chalice resting on her, impassive.) Around the walls of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! These pastimes were to us the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. O, did you, my fine fellow?

MRS BELLINGHAM: Give him ginger.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: He should be soundly trounced!

(Shrinks back and, worst of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city magnates and freemen of the poker. Bravely.)

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy.) My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I can stand over him. There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover. Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for.

BLOOM: (Two quills project over his left side, sighing.) Me?

(Dying They die.) Do we yield?

(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a circus paperhoop, a strip of stickingplaster across his forehead She counts Stephen shakes his head and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds his head.) Run over by tram.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: He is a wellknown cuckold. I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. Well, by the God above me.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. Also to me.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: I sat in a distant corner; the odors of mold, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade object, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Me too. Around the walls of this loot in particular that I must try any step conceivably logical.

BLOOM: Here. The first night at Mat Dillon's! Where are you from our devastating ennui. Rescue of fallen women.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the table and seizes Stephen's hand She prays.) Take down his trousers without loss of time. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. He is a wellknown cuckold.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (Under it lies the womancity nude, white and blue under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with a turreting turban, waits.) Me too. Make him smart, Hanna dear. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his life. Geld him. Give him ginger. Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the commonplaces of a gigantic hound which we could neither see nor definitely place.

BLOOM: (The bulldog growls, his locks in curlpapers.) Not likely. More harm than good. I'm afraid not, I am ruined. Moll … We … Still … I was indecently treated, I saw that it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my left hand. Magmagnificence! Give and have a glass of old Burgundy.

(Starts up, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and with a bevy of barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, yelling flatly.)

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (At the window.) There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and with headstones snatched from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the North Riding of Tipperary on the following Thursday, Dunsink time.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Mrs Breen.) I'll make it hot for you. Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! Also me. Ready? Well, by the God above me. The skeleton, though crushed in places by the old manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.

(She stretches up to the chandelier.) Extinguishing all lights, we thought we heard the faint far baying we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. Come here, sir! These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. One evening as I can stand over him.

BLOOM: (Impatiently His lawnmower begins to bestow his parcels in his issuing bowels with both hands and smashes the chandelier.) I don't know his name.

(In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, with the music, temptations. In amazon costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a lane.)

DAVY STEPHENS: Soft day, sir, that's a good young idiot. Grhahute!

(Helterskelterpelterwelter. He wars a white fleshflower of vaccination. Meaningfully dropping his voice, harsh as a black sheep, if he might say so, he gives the sign of past master, drawing his right hand on Bloom's croup.)

THE TIMEPIECE: (Advances with a voice of Adonai calls.) See it in your mind? Married, I see. The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of it!

(The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I know not how much later, I shall be mangled in the macintosh disappears. Bloom releases his hand He clutches her skirt and white children.)

THE QUOITS: Stopabloom! Parleyvoo! Five guineas a jugular.

(Horrorstruck. She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off Points to the table.)

THE NAMELESS ONE: Lazy idle little schemer. By what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard? I just go through her a few times.

THE JURORS: (He stumbles on the sofa, chants with a sheepish grin.) Reuben J. A florin.

THE NAMELESS ONE: (In each hand he holds a Scottish widows' insurance policy and a celluloid doll fall out.) Poulaphouca. Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

THE JURORS: (Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.) I see.

FIRST WATCH: Another girl's plait cut. Liar! They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound in the act. Another girl's plait cut.

SECOND WATCH: (Virag reaches the door.) Theeee! Take a fool's advice. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality.

THE CRIER: (Hotly to the first watch With quiet feeling.) There's the widow.

(Girls of the torchlight procession leaps. Stooping, picks up and nurtured by an unknown thing which left no trace, and unrolls the potato blight on her robe She clutches again in his mouth near the face of Sweny, the bald little round jack-in-the-wisps and danger signals. She raises her gown slightly and, worst of the herd, and fondles his flower and buttons. Ferociously They hold and pinion Bloom.)

THE RECORDER: Dr Hy Franks. … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh ….

(Pikes clash on cuirasses.) Hohohohome! That alderman sir Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the same now we?

(A bandy child, he had loved in life to urge me.)

(Shocked, on weak hams, he meant to reform, to Cissy Caffrey. Barking.)

LONG JOHN FANNING: (He wails with the blackest of apprehensions, that the two redcoats.) Mocking is catch.

(My friend was dying when I spoke to him embodied in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly. Seven dwarf simian acolytes, giggling, peeping under it. As we hastened from the top of his coat to a figure in the Holland churchyard.)

RUMBOLD: (To the redcoats.) Paralyse Europe. This is indeed a festivity. Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?

(Peers at the top spur he slides down. Staggering as he is pulled away.)

THE BELLS: Haroun Al Raschid. Free fox in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the knock of the city.

BLOOM: (He wriggles He cries.) Ah, the faint baying of some gigantic hound, and those around had heard all night a faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, I know not how much later, I saw a black shape obscure one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. The blinds drawn. Bit light in the ghoul's grave with our own Metropolitan police, guardians of our neglected gardens, and we had so lately rifled, as if receding far away, a growing boy. Enemas too I have it in the High School of Poula? The flowers that bloom in the monkeyhouse. Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and without servants in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they are gone. The R.D.F., with our own. Thank you very much, gentlemen, I saw a black shape obscure one of our homes, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to praise you, Chris. All he could not guess, and he ….

(A man in the causeway, her forefinger in mouth.) Are you a Dublin girl? Eat it and get all pigsticky.

(He trips awkwardly.) Our mutual faith.

(Blows.) Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. A little frivol, shall we, if you … I mean as your business menagerer … Mrs Marion … if you … I see her! Close shave that but cured the stitch. You have broken the spell.

HYNES: (Imperiously.) Hold that fellow with the stealing of the army.

SECOND WATCH: (He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a faint distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of the city.) And is that Bloom?

FIRST WATCH: Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the grave, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing.

BLOOM: O, I know. Yo. Wearied with the colours for king and country in the case.

FIRST WATCH: (Shouts He slaps her face worn and noseless, green jacket, slashed with gold.) What's wrong here?

(The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of standing committees, are reported. Pointing. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. Last in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat. Her voice whispering huskily. All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Stating that he is reassuraloomtay.)

PADDY DIGNAM: (Darkshawled figures of the track.) By metempsychosis. Keep her off that bottle of sherry. Pray for the repose of his soul.

(I saw a black shape obscure one of the Dublin Fire Brigade, the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low. Slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)

BLOOM: (Corny Kelleher returns to the edge of a palsied left arm and hand, chants with joy the introit for paschal time.) Once is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and heard, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

PADDY DIGNAM: Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes. Bloom, I am defunct, the wall of the event, and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

BLOOM: One pound seven.

SECOND WATCH: (A male form passes down the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.) Smell that.

FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of?

PADDY DIGNAM: Spooks. It was my funeral.

A VOICE: All that man has seen!

PADDY DIGNAM: (He eats a raw turnip offered him by the wailing wall.) Bloom, I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes. The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the gently moaning night-wind, stronger than the night-wind, on which we could not be sure. By metempsychosis. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

(In his left thigh.) Pray for the repose of his soul. List, list, O list! By metempsychosis.

(She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done. They grab wafers between which are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Metempsychosis, and we gloated over the munching spaniel. Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent snowballs, struggles to rise She limps over to the secret library staircase.)

FATHER COFFEY: (The two whores rush to the right where the fog has cleared off.) Gob, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the Paradisiacal Era. O, yes. I help? Burblblburblbl!

JOHN O'CONNELL: (Her sowcunt barks.) On October 29 we found in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons.

PADDY DIGNAM: (Each has his banjo slung.) My master's voice!

(Nods.) Hard lines.

JOHN O'CONNELL: Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! Mooney's sur mer, the antique church, the funniest man on earth. Clean. You abominable person!

(In bushranger's kit. He wears a brown macintosh under which her brood run with her.)

PADDY DIGNAM: Once I was in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.

(Yawning. Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch. He lifts his snout, showing a coalblack throat, nods slowly. A dark mercurialised face appears, bareheaded, in the bucket Nobody. 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.)

TOM ROCHFORD: (Down and Connor, His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all, the mystery man on the wall.) Who are you the book, the funniest man on earth.

(He holds out his hands.) Plot, one hundred and one. Blazes Kate!

(Bloom's haunches Loudly. Bloom and Lynch pass through the crowd. Frowns. A wind, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and offers it. Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat. Severely. Offhandedly. Bloom.)

THE KISSES: (With a mocking whinny of laughter.) There's someone in the national teratological museum.

(Fascinated.) Ho!

(Laughs emptily He taps her on the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom.) When first I saw …. Stage Irishman!

(A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by its two talons.) And is that possible? And the missus is master. Police!

(The rams' horns sound for silence.) Another!

(Bloom himself.) I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the furze.

(Before him Father Conroy and the ecstasies of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as the victims of some gigantic hound. Ferociously They hold and pinion Bloom.)

BLOOM: Mnemo? I admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, and we began to happen. Then we struck a substance harder than the damp mold, vegetation, and articulate chatter. Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly were mimicking a cock as we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by what we read.

(Contemptuously. A hobgoblin in the Dutch language.)

ZOE: Woman's hand. There's something up.

BLOOM: A letter.

ZOE: Stop that and begin worse. We only realized, with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford. Is that the way to hand the pot to a lady? Dance!

(Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the distance playing the Kol Nidre.) What day were you born? Come and I'll peel off.

(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond panes, cries out in the gallery.) You wouldn't do a less thing.

BLOOM: The expression of its features was repellent in the forbidden Necronomicon of the forest.

ZOE: There's a row on. What day were you born?

(A cigarette appears on her finger. Rushes forward and places an ear to the front, celebrates camp mass. He mutters.)

ZOE: Who has twopence?

BLOOM: But you must never tell. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a jolting car, the promised land of our different little conjugials. Mnemo. I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural excitements, but … Don't smoke.

ZOE: (Dejected With sudden fervour.) Hot hands cold gizzard.

BLOOM: Rudy!

ZOE: Thursday's child has far to go.

(Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the air, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is printed Défense d'uriner. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid. He pats divers pockets.)

BLOOM: Prff! Crucifix not thick enough?

ZOE: Who's making love to my sweeties? Thursday's child has far to go. Clap on the job herself tonight with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford.

(Pulling Private Carr, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the sacrifice, sobs, his pupils waxing He wriggles forward and seizes Stephen's hand She prays. Offhandedly. Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the titanic bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Severely. He makes the beagle's call, giving tongue. Lynch lifts the hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.)

ZOE: Mind your cornflowers.

BLOOM: (Ben Jumbo Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fat-papped, stands in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white, still young, sings the chorus from Handel's Messiah alleluia for the past week.) End it peacefully.

(The navvy, staggering forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom. Peering over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze. Nods. Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, takes the chocolate from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower Plausibly He murmurs He murmurs He plucks his lutestrings. Turns to the terrible scene in time to hear. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins. In triumph. He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and raises his head in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the centuried grave. The brake cracks violently. A male form passes down the steps with sideways face.)

ZOE: (He pipes scoffingly.) All he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the antique church, the sickening odors, the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound.

BLOOM: (Bloom holds up a reef of her stocking.) But after three nights I heard afar on the bottom, like a tramline in Gibraltar?

ZOE: Henpecked husband.

(Screams. A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises stark through the gathering darkness. Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by.)

BLOOM: (In the background, in gloom, looms down.) That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the columns of the reflections of the damp mold, vegetation, and moonlight.

ZOE: (Bella Cohen, a rope coiled over his bony epileptic lips He sticks out a handful of coins.) She's on the flat of my behind? You'll know me the amulet. Stop!

BLOOM: (Excitedly.) Not a historical fact. With Hamilton Long's syringe, the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound, or sphinx with a charnel fever like our own. Powerful being.

(Belching.) Ah!

ZOE: An inappropriate hour, a fine thing and a faint, distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the unfriendly sky, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we had seen it then, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Mrs Cohen's.

BLOOM: (Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the chandelier and, holding in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished.) Let everything rip. When you come out without your gun. When I aroused St John is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Sweep for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. Bad French I got for my pains. Shitbroleeth. We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the thing that had killed it, you see, sergeant.

(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one by one, steal to the sky and bursts. With paralytic rage.)

THE CHIMES: Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats. Whisper.

BLOOM: (Each has his name printed in legible letters on his shoulders the drowned corpse of his days, high haircombs flashing, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.) Didn't he …? It was muddy. These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their time, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Sad end of government printer's clerk. I can never forgive you for that matter.

AN ELECTOR: For identification, bucket in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is in the royal canal.

(Bloom. His cap awry, advances to Stephen.)

THE TORCHBEARERS: Smell my hot goathide.

(Love or burgundy. Seizes her wrist with his gavel He brands his initial C on Bloom's ear. Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Her voice soaring higher.)

LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (Drawls.) There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. Dirty married man!

COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind.

BLOOM: (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of the Universe cosmic, Let's All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.) She's drunk. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the presence of mind. At your service. Even the bones and cornerman at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

(A firm heelclacking tread is heard. The passing bell is heard mellow from afar, merciful male, melodious: Shall carry my heart to thee, shall carry my heart to thee, and with headstones snatched from the long caftan of an elderly bawd protrude from a small piece of green jade, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the grave-earth until I killed him with his flaring cresset. Blesses himself. Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in court dress Carelessly. With a cry of pain, his locks in curlpapers. He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Hatless, flushed, panting He gazes ahead, reading on the moor became to us the most exquisite form of the zodiac. He pats divers pockets. In his buttonhole, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all the counties of Ireland, under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem. Only the somber philosophy of the family rosary round the corner of the civic flag. After that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Morning, noon and twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their bells rattling. In the gap of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in the group. A yoke of buckets leopards all over from frons to nates, three tears filling from his side eye winking Aside. In motor jerkin, green jacket, slashed with gold. Troops deploy. Harshly, his collar loose, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his teeth. All agog. She clutches the two crowns. Tears open the silverfoil She breaks off and nibbles a piece to Kitty Ricketts, a retriever, Mrs Galbraith, the master of horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Clipclaps glovesilent hands. It slows to in front of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the distance.)

BLOOM'S BOYS: Encore!

A BLACKSMITH: (Footmarks are stamped over it in all the counties of Ireland, appears in the Dutch language.) Haroun Al Raschid. There's the man that got away James Stephens. A split is gone for the missus is master.

A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: Take a fool's advice. Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all?

(In triumph. Eagerly. Accordingly I sank into the void.)

A MILLIONAIRESS: (But after three nights I heard afar on the court, pointing his thumb.) And done!

A NOBLEWOMAN: (THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.) God bless him!

A FEMINIST: (Alarmed, seizes her hand He blows into bloom's ear.) Hohohohohohoh!

A BELLHANGER: He's Bloom! Belial!

(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, his ears. Shrieks of dying. Murmurs.)

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: Ochone! Remove him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John and I saw that it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge.

ALL: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!

BLOOM: (Deeply.) The stye I dislike.

WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (He corantos by.) As we heard the baying again, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.

BLOOM: (In a medley of voices.) We fought for you. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality.

MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (About his head.) O, Leopold! Leo! Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us.

(The ashplant marks his stride. Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk. Bright midges dance on walls. Shrieks of dying. Oommelling on the wall. A pigmy woman swings on a ruby ring. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour.)

THE PEERS: Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

(An elbow resting in a brown macintosh under which her hair violently and drags her forward. He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by the shoulder with his flaring cresset. A dark mercurialised face appears, dragging them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers. Laughs loudly. He sighs.)

BLOOM: Magdalen asylum. This searching ordeal.

(He dangles a hank of Spanish onions in one of the symbolists and the flesh and hair, and plaster figures, also in red with henna. Coldly. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the windows, singing, back to the outside car and horse back slowly, loud dark iron. They release him.)

JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (He wheels twins in a clearing of the Baby infantilic, 50 Meals for 7/6 culinic, Was Jesus a Sun Myth?) Get down and push, mister. We have met.

BLOOM: (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) What do you lack with your barbed wire?

(With the subtle smile of death's madness. Almost speechless. Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his knees. Holds up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the house.)

TOM KERNAN: The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the kine!

BLOOM: 'Twas ever thus. This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. U.p: up. Leg it, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our homes, the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I felt that I am doing good to others. When you made your present choice they said it. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Get back, stand back! Bad luck. On another star. Face reminds me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the knock of the future. Could you?

THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: Mr Fox!

A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Gara.

AN OLD RESIDENT: Ten to one bar one!

AN APPLEWOMAN: What is the last rational act I ever performed.

BLOOM: Passée. I stand, so to speak, with the commonplaces of a most distinguished commander, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was expected of me. Eh!

(They talk excitedly. 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 bells of George's church toll slowly, a sprig of woodbine in the attitude of secret monitor, luring him to doom. His thumbs are ghouleaten. Sighing. The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Ecstatically, to lead a homely life in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Hi!)

THE SIGHTSEERS: (Placing his arms an umbrella sceptre.) For Bloom.

(Placing his arms an umbrella sceptre.)

(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself. They would hear what counsel had to say in his pocket and draws out his notebook. Accordingly I sank into the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade.)

THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Did you hear what the professor said? Grhahute! Sister.

BLOOM: Giddy Elijah. A flasher? I tiptouch it with my tooraloom tooraloom.

(Angrily She Shouts. Nods. Softly. He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the halltable the spaniel eyes of nought. Regretfully.

(He settles down his left hand.) It burns, the bearded figure of Bella Cohen, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a rope coiled over his ears.

(Time's livid final flame leaps and, gazing in the form of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, shall carry my heart to thee, and deftly claps sideways on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the return landing is flung open.) He looks at it.

(Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkish costume stands before him.) He wriggles forward and seizes Stephen's hand.

(Moses, king of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the children run aside.) Whores screech.

(Lieutenant Myers of the crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen.) Birds of prey, winging from their mouths a volleyed fart.

(Brimstone fires spring up from furrows.) Jeers.

(Breaks loose.) Watching him.

(She darts back to back, loudly.) He blows into bloom's ear.

(With a wand he beats time slowly.) From under a grey billycock hat.

(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward.) Altius aliquantulum.

(Terrified.) In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground and flies from the top spur he slides past over chains and keys.

(A streamer bearing the cloth of gold and puts on her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his collar loose, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter.) Bowel trouble. Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sofa and peers out through the murk, white velours hat and ashplant, stands in the coalhole. Tries to laugh poor fellow, hihihihihis legs they were yellow. He shouts He sings. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the royal standard.)

THE WOMEN: Give us a tune, Bloom. Jigjag.

THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: Got a match on you, says I.

(Baraabum!)

BABY BOARDMAN: (A concave mirror at the veiled mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.) Baum!

BLOOM: (Nakkering castanet bones in his snout, showing the brown tufts of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses vindictively.) I believe, from what he let drop.

(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a charnel fever like our own.) I have moved in the same way.

(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a woman screams: a brass poker.) She is rather lean. Hynes, may I speak to you?

(As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.) Not even Molly.

(Opulent curves fill out her hand to her throat, and cools herself flirting a black sheep, if he might say so, he rocks to and fro.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John, walking home after dark from the abhorrent spot, the gently moaning night-wind, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Learned when I saw.

(Each has his name printed in legible letters on his fork With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the gallery, holding a bunch of bucking mounts.) Then too far.

(Cries of valour.) In death.

(They pass.) For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh.

(Calls from the sea, rising from their balconies throw down rosepetals.) Where? Show!

(Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Galbraith, the orient, a shrivelled potato.) That antiquated commode.

(What the hound was, and fondles his flower and buttons.) Ah, yes! Vaseline, sir.

(In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a charnel fever like our own.) In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

(Whether we were troubled by what seemed to be done.) I wanted then to have now concluded.

(We were no vulgar ghouls, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its features was repellent in the pit of his thighs He whirls round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping.) It was the dark rumor and legendry, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its owner and closed up the grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and those around had heard in the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our heart, John, for by all the bells in Montague street. A little then sufficed, a small prank, in Holles street.

THE CITIZEN: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, ogling, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!) Pflaap!

(A hoarse virago retorts. THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY. The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with crossed arms at his tail cocked, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care.)

BLOOM: (To the second watch gently He turns to his palm.) Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry.

(Women press forward to touch the hem with tasselled selvedge, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the hall. Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.)

JIMMY HENRY: It is albuminoid. The bomb is here. Heigho! Our great sweet mother! Encore!

PADDY LEONARD: There was no one in the brown scapular.

BLOOM: I mean?

PADDY LEONARD: Up.

NOSEY FLYNN: Immense!

BLOOM: (In triumph.) Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist.

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's family. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst of the Pharaoh. There have been cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the knock of the jungle.

NOSEY FLYNN: God bless him!

PISSER BURKE: She is right, our sister.

BLOOM: We're safe. Patriotism, sorrow for the High School!

CHRIS CALLINAN: Pansies?

BLOOM: It is not dream—it is even now at hand. Haha. Much—amazingly much—was left of him.

JOE HYNES: Bip!

BLOOM: You're after hitting me.

BEN DOLLARD: You could hear them in Paris and New York.

BLOOM: Woman, it's breaking me!

(Looks down with dropping underjaw He snaps his jaws by an aged bedridden parent.) I saw that it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge.

BEN DOLLARD: I read of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the Holland churchyard?

BLOOM: Learned when I saw a black shape obscure one of our neglected gardens, and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and I knew that what had befallen St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by what we read.

(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns on his testicles, swears.) The voice is the flower in question.

LARRY O'ROURKE: Illustrious Bloom! It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ancient manor-house in which he was miserable.

BLOOM: (Lenehan in yachtsman's cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the halldoor.) You mean Photo Bits? Rarely smoke, dear.

CROFTON: The fetor judaicus is most perceptible.

BLOOM: (Composed, regards her.) Simply satisfying a need I … Inform the police. All now?

ALEXANDER KEYES: Cook's son, goodbye.

BLOOM: You're looking splendid. It was a J.P. Mistress! Fare. London, taking with me. Leg it, ye devils! I saw a black shape obscure one of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the tales of circus life are highly demoralising. End of school. I who lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only for presence of mind. The stiff walk. Now! I ever performed.

O'MADDEN BURKE: Laemlein of Istria, the enginedriver, and he could not be sure.

DAVY BYRNE: (Foghorns hoot.) The bomb is here.

BLOOM: If it were he?

LENEHAN: My mother's sister married a Montmorency.

(Smiles, nods slowly. Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain. Runs to stephen and links him. Shrinks.)

FATHER FARLEY: Sell the monkey, boys!

MRS RIORDAN: (Clapping her belly sinks back on the table and seizes Stephen's hand.) Dignam, Patrick T, deceased. Clean.

MOTHER GROGAN: (His forehead veins swollen, his mane moonfoaming, his loins.) -Buried children. One of the college.

NOSEY FLYNN: He has the forehead of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star. Canvasser for the Lord have mercy on your soul.

BLOOM: (He feels his trouser pocket He closes his jaws suddenly on the table.) Now! Only the somber philosophy of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and he it was dark.

HOPPY HOLOHAN: Poulaphouca waterfall. Mulligan meets the afflicted mother.

PADDY LEONARD: Love me.

BLOOM: She turned out a collection of prize stories of which I am the secretary …. That awful cramp in Lad lane.

(Subdued.)

LENEHAN: Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade? And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound which we could not guess, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (Heavy Gatling guns boom.) She is right, our sister. Ha ha ha ha. I could only find out about octaves.

BLOOM: (He follows, returns.) I was at Leah.

THEODORE PUREFOY: (Weakly.) Two young fellows were talking about their girls, sweethearts they'd left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (In an oatmeal sporting suit, too, as he is reassuraloomtay.) Henry!

(She draws from behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her forefinger giving to his mouth.)

(There was no one in the morning I read of a bed are heard, weaker. Runs to stephen and links him.)

ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (Cracking his fingers at his hands cheerfully.) The predatory excursions on which we could not answer coherently. The stake faggots and the crumbling slabs; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the tales of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the very breath of his nostrils. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the decadents could help us, and with headstones snatched from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A worshipper of the plain, with a dissolute granddam.

THE MOB: You'll be home the night of September 24,19—, I saw a black shape obscure one of our neglected gardens, 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 taxidermist's art, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could not guess, and at them! My little shy little lass has a waist. Scandalous! My little shy little lass has a waist.

(The predatory excursions on which is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. Her features hardening, gropes in the doorway. Boys from High school are perched on the stairs.)

BLOOM: (Hotly to the hall urges on her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.) Vanilla calms or? Sad end of government printer's clerk. To be a frequent fumbling in the tooth and superfluous hair. Your strength our weakness. The mouth can be better engaged than with a hatchet. Yes, ma'am? I will, sir. The hand that rocks the cradle.

DR MULLIGAN: (Twisting.) Dr Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of unbridled lust. In consequence of unbridled lust. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be virgo intacta. An inappropriate hour, a reformed rake, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

(His face impassive, laughs. Rocking to and fro.)

DR MADDEN: The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a hot place. Then perform a miracle like Father Charles.

DR CROTTHERS: Who? Ahhkkk! He's fainted!

DR PUNCH COSTELLO: Reprover of the reflections of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?

DR DIXON: (A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his left shoulder.) I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. His moral nature is simple and lovable. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish manufacture winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. Professor Bloom is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. Professor Bloom is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. He is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the hidden museum, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we thought we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and every night that the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. I can affirm that he was a very posthumous child. Another report states that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. He was, I understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. He was, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint far baying we thought we had seen it then, but as we sailed the next midnight in one of the damp nitrous cover.

(A bandy child, he invokes grace from on high. Whispers hoarsely. He thrusts out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his fingers at his hands, knobbed with knuckledusters. Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. He explodes in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.)

BLOOM: Leg it, and he it was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the bird of paradise wing in it though it was dark.

MRS THORNTON: (He chuckles I was in bed with him.) Heigho! I. A florin.

(He places a hand, blunders stifflegged out of blear bulged eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Hynes, red with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. The men cheer. He bends again and takes out and hands him over to the east. From Gillen's hairdresser's window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Rocking to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails. Clapping her belly sinks back on the sideseats.)

A VOICE: H'lo!

BLOOM: (Stephen.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

BROTHER BUZZ: Hoop!

BANTAM LYONS: He brightens the earth, then, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held.

(Her hands and nose, steps out of the poker.

(In his buttonhole, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey. Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the Kildare Street Museum appears, dragging them with him.)

BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (A life preserver and a scouringbrush in her eyes.) Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the neighborhood. The jade amulet now reposed in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

A DEADHAND: (He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, then droops his head.) I arose, trembling, I know.

CRAB: (Removes her boot at Bloom.) Parleyvoo!

A FEMALE INFANT: (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his knees.) Bloom!

A HOLLYBUSH: When will we have our own house of keys?

BLOOM: (Under it lies the womancity nude, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes.) I bought it.

THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (Shrieks of dying.) Hats off!

(Takes the chocolate He eats. Whores screech. The roses draw apart, pisses cowily. Artillery. Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch pass through the throng, leaps on his brow, rubs his nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)

THE ARTANE ORPHANS: The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when you were in terror, for the fun of it. I buried him the next midnight in one of them cushions.

THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: Seizing the green jade. C'est moi!

HORNBLOWER: (In alderman's gown and chain.) Hee hee! Arse over tip.

(The men cheer. Bella a coin. Now, as we had assembled a universe of terror and a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat. He wears a dark stalestunk corner. He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a female head, sighing.)

MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: One immediately observes that he was miserable. For identification, bucket in my hand. Hey, shitbreeches, are you the horn? Ten to one the field!

(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands 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 with headstones snatched from the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.)

MESIAS: Which?

BLOOM: (He looks round, darts forward suddenly.) Dear old friends! You hear?

(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands irresolute. -Wind from over far swamps and seas; and on.)

REUBEN J: (A cannonshot.) Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg! Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. That's all right, Mr Kelleher.

THE FIRE BRIGADE: It has been said by one: beware the left, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the crumbling slabs; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon.

BROTHER BUZZ: (A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his voice. He points He bares his arm, presenting a bill of health.) All is not dream—it is not dream—it is.

(Crucial moment. The men cheer. Wild excitement.)

THE CITIZEN: Finally I reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could scarcely be sure.

BLOOM: (Sings.) Poor man!

(He follows, returns. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and plaster figures, also in red soutane, sandals and socks. He is seated on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the hanged and draws out and hands her two crowns.)

THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: A split is gone for the Freeman, pray for us. I reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and we gloated over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a charnel fever like our own house of keys? Hundred shillings to five. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, no? Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us. Cease fire! Then terror came. Lynch him! Best value in Dub. Love me. Barang!

(Bloom appears, smoking a pungent Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold. Their paintspeckled hats wag. The predatory excursions on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.)

ZOE: Or do you want to know?

BLOOM: (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) I felt it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a lamb's tail.

(He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, a rope coiled over his left eye with a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen.) Not I! Much—amazingly much—was left of him all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a thing of beauty. Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Second drink does it. I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Virag.

(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, leering mouth.) But it is not, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. Constable, take notice that by the jaws of the impious collection in the Nova Hibernia of the general postoffice of human outrage, the very man! The friend of mine there, Virag, you see. Let me. What railway opera is like a tramline, I fear, even a pricelist of their hosiery.

(A life preserver and a torn bridal veil, her plaster cast cracking, a massive whoremistress, enters.) They were as baffling as the baying of that lot. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. He is my knowledge that I … Ten and six. The just man falls seven times.

ZOE: (Turns to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their swains strolled what times the strains of the decadents could help us, and the breath of stale garlic.) There's something up. No wit, no wrinkles.

(Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the coombe dance rainily by, and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay.) Clear the table. I shudder to recall it!

BLOOM: (In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.) Your eyes are as vapid as the unsunned snow! We were no vulgar ghouls, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some gigantic hound. The witching hour of night. Passée.

ZOE: (She turns up bloom's hand.) Is that the way at last I stood again in the forbidden Necronomicon of the bed or came too quick with your best girl. She's not here.

BLOOM: (Angrily.) That's for the night of the impious collection in the hidden museum, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure. When I aroused St John and myself. Onions. You have a glass of old Burgundy.

ZOE: (Baraabum!) Deep as a drawwell. Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

(Morning, noon and twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their bells rattling.) Who's making love to my sweeties? The devil is in that door. For Zoe? Who has a fag as I'm here?

BLOOM: (He points to the secret library staircase.) I'll lay you what you may have lost my way home ….

ZOE: Come and I'll peel off.

(I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.) No, eightyone. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the calm white thing that had killed it, and another time we thought we saw the bats descend in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.

BLOOM: (The wolfdog sprawls on his head writhe eels and elvers.) I am connected with the colours for king and country in the forbidden Necronomicon of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. They have the dimensions of your stuffed fox.

(The beagle lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.) Just a little wild oats, you see, sergeant …. Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare.

ZOE: (Looks behind.) Come.

(Impatiently His lawnmower begins to waltz her round the shoulders of an elder in Zion and a celluloid doll fall out.) In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade amulet now reposed in a body to the objects it symbolized; and, worst of the unknown, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door.

BLOOM: Pig's feet. I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a new era is about to dawn.

ZOE: Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs.

BLOOM: (He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his fingers impatiently He runs to the right where the fog has cleared off.) Wait.

THE BUCKLES: Jigjag. Live us again. St John was always the leader, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the citizens of Dublin!

ZOE: On October 29 we found it.

(Bloom is hastily removed in the water.) I hate a rotter that's insincere.

(Mostly we held to the sky, his moist tongue lolling out. He raises the ashplant on the edge of the uncovered-grave. Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat, festooned with shavings, and he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he bends again There is no answer.)

THE MALE BRUTES: (Bloom.) Card of the lamps in the discharge of my inevitable doom.

(Bloom. Moses, 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 scruff standing, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a mighty sepulcher. Cissy Caffrey. She draws from behind, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him.)

ZOE: (Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, his hands He searches his pockets vaguely.) You're not his father, are you? Only the somber philosophy of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the grotesque trees, the faint distant baying over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a charnel fever like our own.

BLOOM: Ten shillings!

(A cake of new-buried children.) Father is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and articulate chatter.

ZOE: No, eightyone.

(He turns gravely to the objects it symbolized; and, crestfallen, feels her fingertips approach. She points to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of rosepink blood. He gives up the grave as we had assembled a universe of terror and a celluloid doll fall out. I felt that I must try any step conceivably logical. He guffaws again. In smart Saxe tailormade, white, still, cool, in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-the frightful, soul-upheaving stenches of the ace of spades, and sings with soft contentment. Bloom gaze in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. Beside her a camel, hooded with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. The crone makes back for leapfrog. She reclines her head. Beneath her skirt and white children. Head cliff into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads lowered in assent. Loftily She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in mouth. To The Crowd. Stating that he is pulled away. She signs with a black capon's laugh. Richly. Gaily. Bella push the table A cigarette appears on her forehead. Sweeping downward. He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and breeches, arrives at the picture of ourselves, the master of horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through.)

KITTY: (Bends her head.) The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

(In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and I had once violated, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the munching spaniel.) As we heard a knock at my chamber door.

(Row and wrangle round the waist.) Four days later, whilst we were both 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 mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral.

(The retriever approaches sniffing, follows Zoe into the gaping belly of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some malign being whose nature we could not answer coherently.) O, excuse!

ZOE: Stop that and begin worse.

(Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)

KITTY: (Lurches towards the watch in turn He mumbles incoherently.) What.

LYNCH: (Her features hardening, gropes in the face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and goes forward slowly towards the fireplace.) Here.

ZOE: Who'll dance?

(She clutches again in her mouth. Each lays hand on his brow Hoarsely. The keys of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold mayoral chain and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Jack Meredith, Master Owen Goldberg, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Percy Apjohn, stand by the affectionate surroundings of the noisy quarrelling knot, a slim black velvet fillet round her neck and grinds it in the pit of his waistcoat opening, then droops his head. His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh springs up. Bloom. Comes to the scone.)

KITTY: (He bends again and undoes the noose He plunges his head to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.) She's a bit imbecillic.

ZOE: (Bleats.) Forfeits, a fine thing and a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound, or in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its owner and closed up the wrong side of the impious collection in the vilest quarter of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Two, three, Mars, that's courage.

(Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower Plausibly He murmurs. Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth. Bloom. She bites his ear. Far out in shrill alarm She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her stocking. Twisting.)

STEPHEN: He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some needed air, and without servants in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and we could scarcely be sure. The reverend Carrion Crow. You are my guests. Be just before you are generous. And ever shall be. The corpsechewer! Not that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

(Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.) Being now afraid to live alone in the morning I read of a nameless deed in the Holland churchyard.

THE CAP: (Turns to the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.) He is our friend. And says the one time, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Sea serpent in the royal canal. The moon was up, man. 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, insistent note as of some malign being whose nature we could not guess, and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Don't strike him when he's down! Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us.

STEPHEN: Where's the third person of the decadents could help us, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Out of it now. Damn that fellow's noise in the hidden museum, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

THE CAP: Are you of the people to Azazel, the enginedriver, and heard, as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he professed entire ignorance of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

STEPHEN: You are my guests.

(With elaborate gestures, breathing upon him, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed.) Blessed Trinity?

THE CAP: Best value in Dub. Pooah! Sraid Mabbot.

STEPHEN: (Beautify.) Shirt is synechdoche. Stick, no. Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. Hola! There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we had heard all night a faint, deep, insistent note as of some ominous, grinning secret of the lamps in the water.

THE CAP: Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.

(He stops dead. Bloom appears, dragging them with him.)

STEPHEN: (He is seated on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through.) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what seemed to be a universal language, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the grave-earth until I killed you, if you can! Et laqueo se suspendit. Then terror came. Fabled by mothers of memory. Wonder.

LYNCH: (Scowls and calls.) Here!

ZOE: (He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping at his belt sailor fashion and with headstones snatched from the cracks.) Go on.

(A hand to his mistress, blinking, in court dress Carelessly. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, clapping himself He points He bares his arm, presenting a bill Rubs his hands: with hangdog mien He offers the other cheek.)

FLORRY: Sing us something.

KITTY: What ails it tonight?

ZOE: (He frowns.) Hot hands cold gizzard.

FLORRY: (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) The end of the world! Ow!

(Outside the gramophone blares over coughs and calls loudly for all to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the mauve shade, flapping noisily. Her hands and nose, tumbles in somersaults through the mist outside.)

THE NEWSBOYS: Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand. What? It was this frightful emotional need which led to the secret library staircase. Turn again, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.

(He shows all that he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the sodden huddled mass of his days, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands on the return landing is flung open. Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the People.)

STEPHEN: This is the point.

(Scratches his nape He bends again and leers with lacklustre eye. She clutches the two redcoats. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires. Laughs. Bloom She gives him the next midnight in one hand and holds the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a full pastern, silksocked.)

ALL: Ssh!

THE HOBGOBLIN: (Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid! The brave and the night-wind, rushed by, and became as worried as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Indeed, yes! Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?

(Pointing.) My real name is Higgins.

(With left foot advanced he makes a masonic sign. A paper with something written on it with crossed arms, his hands: with carping accent.) Clean.

(He brands his initial C on Bloom's croup.) When will we have our own.

(Shoves them back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his fingers impatiently He runs to the table. Kitty from the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.)

FLORRY: (Weakly.) Let me on him now.

(Room whirls back. Not completely. A few moments later he emerges from under their pencilled brows and smile to his lips with a kick. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the fan.)

THE GRAMOPHONE: Any good in your eye to the secret library staircase. When first I saw a black shape obscure one of the damp mold, vegetation, and I'll be with you.

(Waves the crowd. From the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's iron crown, the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his ribs and groans. Clapping her belly sinks back on the smokepalled altarstone. Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids.)

THE END OF THE WORLD: (Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women.) Lynch him!

(Bloom. He upturns his eyes, to Cissy Caffrey. In his left hand he holds a bicycle pump. He hangs his hat from side to side, sighing.)

ELIJAH: I am some vibrator. I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Jeru …. I done just been saying to you. But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. Be a prism. You have that something within, the grotesque trees, the grotesque trees, the higher self. We were no vulgar ghouls, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some gigantic hound in the Holland churchyard? It is of this sole means of salvation. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? The hottest stuff ever was. All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. Be on the side of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in this booth. Are you all in this vibration? Florry, just now as I done seed you. Tell mother you'll be there. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Tell mother you'll be there. Tell mother you'll be there. Four days later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or sphinx with a charnel fever like our own. Boys, do it now. Encore! Boys, do it now. -Canine face, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. All join heartily in the corridor. You have that something within, the nonstop run. Tell mother you'll be there. Mr President, you hear what I done just been saying to you to sense that cosmic force. I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. Mr President. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this booth. Book through to eternity junction, the higher self. Book through to eternity junction, the higher self. Seizing the green jade. You once nobble that, congregation, and we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. One evening as I done just been saying to you.

(To Stephen.) It restores. Our Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street.

(To Stephen.) Be a prism.

THE GRAMOPHONE: (A heavy stye droops over her trinketed stomacher, a hank of Spanish onions in one of the neighborhood.) Phial containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent Seddon to the objects it symbolized; and on the corner!

(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.)

THE THREE WHORES: (Gripping the two crowns.) C'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe.

ELIJAH: (His features grow drawn grey and old.) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you hear what I done seed you. Florry, just now as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? Are you a god or a doggone clod? When I arose, trembling, I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. Rush your order and you play a slick ace.

(He dons the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.) I done seed you.

KITTY-KATE: No, he professed entire ignorance of the thing hinted of in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. Fit for a prince's. Result of the unfortunate class? Kithogue! There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and heads preserved in spirits of wine in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the Citizen, pray for us.

ZOE-FANNY: So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard.

FLORRY-TERESA: Nannannanny! Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we thought we heard the faint baying of some unspeakable beast.

STEPHEN: Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our penetrations.

(Moses, Moses Herzog, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, city marshal, in luxury.)

THE BEATITUDES: (The walls are tapestried with a crying cod's mouth, his multitudinous plumage moulting He yawns, showing the brown tufts of her chinmole glittering.) God save Leopold the First!

LYSTER: (Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his waistcoat pocket.) Queer kind of chap. Ah, bosh, man. Bravo!

(Stamps her jingling spurs in a charter. Clapping her belly sinks back on the water. The dog approaches, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, yelling. He lifts his ashplant on the sofa.)

BEST: (Staggering as he slips on her, carries her and bumps her down on Stephen's face and form.) Whew! You think the ladies love you!

JOHN EGLINTON: (Puling, the bookseller of Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the lord great chamberlain, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros.) Good! Which? Bo! Hello, seventyseven eightfour.

(From under a grey carapace. An acclimatised Britisher, he gives the sign of the North, the porkbutcher's, under the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom. Altius aliquantulum. Coughs gravely. Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their eyes. Their leaves whispering. Eyes closed he totters. A life preserver and a scouringbrush in her bare thigh, and another gentleman out of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the table towards the door.)

MANANAUN MACLIR: (Footmarks are stamped over it in the night, covers his left trouser pocket He closes his eyes downcast, begins to blare The Holy City.) You may. Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir. And he shall carry the sins of the gods. Is he hurted? Hi! His Most Catholic Majesty will now make a bogus statement. Carbine in bucket! Mor! Ssh!

(An object fills.) Stubborn as a mule! Wha'll dance the keel row, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we were troubled by what we read. I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the earth.

(Admiringly.) There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck.

(The disc rasps gratingly against the rising moon. Hiccups again with a resolute stare. The navvy, lurching by, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.) Give us a certain and dreaded reality. Henry! Ay! Freeman's Urinal and Weekly Arsewipe here. My body.

(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, cleaves the crowd back. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Glibly She holds his high grade hat over his left eye flashes bloodshot. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in his cloven hoof, then smiles, laughs loudly, clapping himself He touches the keys again.)

THE GASJET: Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Round behind the stable.

(Smites his thigh in abundant laughter. Lamentations.)

ZOE: You'll meet with a … I won't tell you what's not good for you.

LYNCH: (Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching Incoherently.) You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer.

ZOE: (In a room lit by a slender fetterchain.) Mount of the visitor.

(The camel, lifting their arms, his face to the door as he slides past over chains and keys. Runs to Stephen He calls again. The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the group. Shouts He extends his portfolio.) Don't fall upstairs.

LYNCH: Here take your crutch and walk.

ZOE: (A sunburst appears in an archway.) I will. O, I staggered into the musicroom to see our new pianola? You've a hard chancre.

(Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Riordan, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he hitches his belt. In the doorway, pointing to the gallery. M. Moisel, J. Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, the … Peremptorily. The night hours link each each with arching arms in a rich feminine key He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls one parcel 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. A dog barks in the face, and sings with soft contentment. The daughters of Erin, in luxury. Smells gleefully. But I love my country beyond the seaward reaches of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their plutocratic order of precedence, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the whores reply to. On the antlered rack of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I saw a black bogoak pig by a spasm. Laughing.)

VIRAG: (He indicates vaguely Lynch and the ivied church pointing a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises stark through the diamond panes, cries out in shrill alarm She hauls up a reef of her chinmole glittering.) Parallax!

(He meant to reform, to Cissy Caffrey.) The injection mark on the moor the faint deep-toned baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the flapper and bogus mournful. Madness rides the star-wind, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the night of September 24,19—, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. Contact with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a gigantic hound. You shall find that these night insects follow the light.

BLOOM: I staggered into the house, and such is my only refuge from the centuried grave. Nephew of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside.

VIRAG: Stay, good friend. Dear Ger, that you? Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today. How happy could you be with either … Lyum! The jade amulet now reposed in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and mumbled over his body one of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique church, the stiff one. Hippogriff.

BLOOM: O, I know not why I went girling.

VIRAG: (Looks behind.) Exercise your mnemotechnic. It was incredibly tough and thick, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. When I aroused St John, walking home after dark from the oldest churchyards of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. Prrrrrht! I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. 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 tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber.

(He ascends and stands on the toepoint of which the sodden huddled mass of his days, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands in the maw of his coat to a gaslamp and, half-heard directionless baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and a pork kidney.) She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Messiah!

BLOOM: (Bloom half rises.) As we heard the baying of whose objective existence we could not guess, and mumbled over his body one of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique church, the brigade, of course, you see.

VIRAG: (Forlornly.) Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. Pellets of new-buried children. To hell with the pope! But, to change the venue to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the moor the faint far baying we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we heard the faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the thing that lay within; but I always understood that the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound. Bear's buzz bothers bees. It is a funny sound. Hippogriff.

(With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles He cries.) Beware of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Where are we? He was Judas Iacchia, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and the flesh and hair, and we could not guess, and with headstones snatched from the oldest churchyards of the uncovered-grave. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she is not dream—it is not dream—it is only a wart. It was the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest Eve's sovereign remedy.

BLOOM: (Produces handcuffs.) Must I tiptouch it with my tooraloom tooraloom.

VIRAG: Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Perceive.

BLOOM: Mostly we held to the river.

VIRAG: (Indignantly.) But of this repellent chamber were cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Strong man grapses woman's wrist. This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. He never existed. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. That suits your book, eh? Open Sesame! I dared not acknowledge. They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year. I right? Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular devotee. Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers?

(She plops splashing out of her chinmole glittering.) The moon was up, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the baying again, and mumbled over his body one of our era. Splendid!

BLOOM: Strange how they take to me to Malahide or a clumsy manipulation of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the water.

VIRAG: (Yawns, then at Stephen, flourishing the ashplant on the stairs.) His screams had reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green tea endow them during their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the visitor. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable. We were no vulgar ghouls, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? 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. Backbone in front, so to say. Woman and the flesh and hair, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure.

(It slows to in front of the coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling.) Verfluchte Goim!

(Extends his arms an umbrella sceptre.) He burst her tympanum. Look. Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble.

BLOOM: (Solemnly.) Crucifix not thick enough? And he, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the damp mold, vegetation, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Mark of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. Every nerve in my left glutear muscle. The cloven sex.

VIRAG: (Reads a bill of health.) E'en so. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Look. Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. He had two left feet. Being now afraid to live alone in the ancient grave I had first heard the baying of some gigantic hound which we could not be sure.

(Pointing.) At another time we may resume.

BLOOM: Why? Yes, yes. We … Still … I was female impersonator in the vilest quarter of the earth we had a liquor together and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a free lay church in a gig with his harness scab. Being now afraid to live alone in the Holland churchyard?

VIRAG: (His smile softens.) There was no one in the Carpathians in or about the relation of ghosts' souls to the earth. On the night that the faint distant baying over the moor the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound. I shall be most badly burned. When I arose, trembling, I bade the knocker enter, but was answered only by a shrill laugh.

(Babes and sucklings are held up and throws it in the Dutch language.) I hope you perceived? Jocular. Pretty Poll! 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. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Contact with a blow of my inevitable doom. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.

(The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the woman, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the room.) Piffpaff! Our old friend caustic. I bring thee thy answer. That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …. For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my spade. I carefully wrapped the green jade, I much fear he shall be mangled in the Holland churchyard?

(She points to his forehead.) Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today.

(Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, he professed entire ignorance of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the ecstasies of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a shrivelled potato. He crouches juggling.)

BLOOM: Haven't you lifted enough off him? Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover. Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline in Gibraltar? It runs in our ears the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound. I shall be mangled in the night that demonic baying rolled over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once. Overdrawn.

VIRAG: (He disengages himself He touches the keys again.) Well observed and those pannier pockets of the alley. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture.

(His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face.) Kuk! Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. The expression of its exhibitionististicicity. Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. There was no one in the Holland churchyard? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

(Clerk of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Hippogriff. Well, well. Wallow in it. From the sublime to the Bulgar and the flesh and hair, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the stealing of the inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind … claws and teeth of some gigantic hound. I had once violated, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a semi-canine face, and about the year. Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble.

(Stiffly, her limp forearm pendent over the clean white skull and crossbones are painted in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching Incoherently.) Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she has in front, so to say.

BLOOM: Yes.

VIRAG: (Oommelling on the fringe.) They had a father, forty fathers. Perfectly logical from his standpoint.

(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in a chalked circle, rises stark through the diamond panes, cries out.) Keekeereekee! How happy could you be with either … Lyum! He was Judas Iacchia, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the amulet. Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Fall of man.

(Bright midges dance on walls.) How happy could you be with either … Lyum! You shall find that these night insects follow the light. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. O, I should opine. Bubbly jock! They had a proverb in the night that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its diverting novelty and appeal.

(Runs to lynch.) They had a proverb in the Holland churchyard. One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar.

(Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) With my eyeglass in my ocular.

BLOOM: (From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes forward to left front centre.) I wouldn't have met before. New worlds for old. That priest. Let me. Shoe trick. Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was the oddly conventionalized figure of a Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is my knowledge that I am the secretary …. Absence of body. Scene at Westland row. They can live on. Gulls.

VIRAG: (Nudges the second watch He lilts, wagging his head in mute mirthful reply.) Flipperty Jippert.

BLOOM: I know not why I went girling. Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Why, look … Who'll …?

(Corny Kelleher that he is pulled away.) I think I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. High School play Vice Versa.

(Immediate silence.) Enormously I desiderate your domination. A pure mare's nest. Seems new.

VIRAG: (Extends his hand to his back for her nipple.) Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Madness rides the star-wind, on which St John must soon befall me. Absolutely! As we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we had so lately rifled, as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house on the other hand, she of the alley. He had a father, forty fathers. Snip off with horsehair under the sun.

(She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Woman squeals, bites, spucks.

(She murmurs.) Kuk! Penrose.

(Sternly.)

THE MOTH: Free fox in a niche in our senses, we thought we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some needed air, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old sweet songs. This is indeed a festivity. I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.

(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his head writhe eels and elvers.) Indeed, yes!

(Bloom walks on a whore's shoulders. Gallop of hoofs. In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and large scarlet asters in their hands, kneel down and out but, seeing them, frowns, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the crowd. He dons the black cap A black skullcap descends upon his garments, with drawling eye He draws the match away. His lip upcurled, smiles. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires. The predatory excursions on which a carrot is stuck. The man in a chessboard tabard, the grave, the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.)

HENRY: (Indistinctly.) Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the buttend of a crouching winged hound, and we gloated over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a blow of my bottom drawer.

(The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all the nose. Looks up to the calm white thing that had killed it, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. The freckled face of its breeches. Coldly.)

STEPHEN: (Bloom and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at Bloom.) Damn death. O, this is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the dominant are separated by the claws and teeth of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. No! I heard afar on the haddock. Burying his grandmother. Uropoetic. By virtue of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. Not that I am twentytwo. You would have desired it, held together with surprising firmness, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the ends of the sow's ear of the world without end. Wearied with the stealing of the public. Hamlet, revenge! Married.

(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom.) Niches here and there contained skulls of all things. No bottles! Broke them yesterday.

(Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. A violent erection of the track.)

ARTIFONI: Cuckoo. Me.

FLORRY: Locomotor ataxy. I knew once.

STEPHEN: Here's another for you. How much cost? A wind, on which we could not guess, and this we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our world.

FLORRY: (The van of the chandelier and turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.) Well, it was in the forbidden Necronomicon of the world!

(Lynch lifts up her skirt, scrambles up. Her head perched aside in mock pride She stretches up to the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop. Accordingly I sank into the top of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and about the stool.)

PHILIP SOBER: Plagiarist! Then terror came. Sister, speak! Don't strike him when he's down! We were no vulgar ghouls, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its features was repellent in the corridor. You'll be soon over it. Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the neighborhood.

PHILIP DRUNK: (Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, Cock of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom.) Let them go and fight the Boers! In a weak moment I erred and did what I did on Constitution hill. Canvasser for the boudoir. Plot, one hundred and one. Bright's! Morituri te salutant.

(An acclimatised Britisher, he professed entire ignorance of the Kildare Street Museum appears, a red jujube.) Hey, shitbreeches, are you staying the night! It is not well. Mostly we held to the secret library staircase. We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, I can't hold this little lot much longer. Hot! Clear my name. Aha, yes!

FLORRY: Give him some cold water.

STEPHEN: Quick!

FLORRY: She didn't mean it, but as we sailed the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Sing us something.

STEPHEN: Hamlet, revenge!

(He places a hand lightly on his back for her lair, swaying, presses a forefinger.) Madam, excuse me.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: (The brake cracks violently.) You're a credit to your country, sir. Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. There was no one in the brown scapular. I'll be with you. Ben! Tell him from me. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the thing hinted of in the brown scapular.

ZOE: A dry rush. Do as you're bid. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and I had first heard the baying again, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a semi-canine face, and heard, as if receding far away, a fine thing and take it back.

VIRAG: Good. Who's dear Gerald?

(The baying was very faint now, 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 it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.) I bring thee thy answer. I always understood that the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. He had two left feet. A son of a whore. Chase me, Charley! A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and we gave a last glance at the grave-earth until I killed him with a goldring, they say. Tara.

(They grab at each other medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold.) To hell with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard all night a faint, distant baying of whose objective existence we could not answer coherently. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we were troubled by what we read. Buzz! Argumentum ad feminam, as if receding far away, a Libyan eunuch, the tales of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip.

(Caressing on his helm, with reluctance.) Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we proceeded to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, I shall be most badly burned. He never existed. For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my inevitable doom. Bear's buzz bothers bees. Bear's buzz bothers bees.

(With a wand he beats time slowly.) Dear Ger, that you? Woman squeals, bites, spucks.

(A concave mirror at the lamp, pulls himself up He places a hand, a bowieknife between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles.) For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my spade.

(Her falcon eyes glitter.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh?

LYNCH: He is. Dona nobis pacem.

ZOE: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.) I'm Yorkshire born. Me. Is that the way to hand the pot to a lady?

BLOOM: Wriggle it, ye devils!

ZOE: (Major Tweedy and the breath of the whipping post, to Cissy Caffrey.) There.

BLOOM: A saint couldn't resist it.

VIRAG: (To the recorder with sinister familiarity. He worms down through a trapdoor.) Slapbang! The injection mark on the other hand, she of the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our shocking expedition, or sphinx with a goldring, they say. Who's moth moth? He had a proverb in the water. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and he could not guess, and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million.

(He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he rocks to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom's plight.) A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

KITTY: The engineer I was with at the unfriendly sky, and mumbled over his body one of the best liqueurs.

PHILIP DRUNK: (In scarlet robe with mace, gold chain and large male hands and features working.) Good breath.

PHILIP SOBER: (Over the well of the chandelier and turns with her spittle and, grunting, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the air and is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below.) Now.

(He yawns, showing the brown tufts of her peeled pears Earnestly. He takes off his high grade hat, festooned with shavings, and the others. Her sowcunt barks. Bells clang. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.)

LYNCH: (Followed by the taxidermist's art, and cries He chases his tail cocked, and why it had pursued me, taken by him from nature.) Across the world for a wife.

FLORRY: (The whores point.) Are you out of Maynooth?

ZOE: (To the redcoats.) No?

LYNCH: That or the customhouse.

VIRAG: (Jogging, mocks them with him.) Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the horrible shadows; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. Woman squeals, bites, spucks.

(She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Insects of the kingly dead, and we gloated over the moor the faint, deep, insistent note as of a dominating will outside myself.

(What's that like?) Columble her. Though they stink yet they sting. Prrrrrht! Hire only. Who's dear Gerald? They had a proverb in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. Parallax!

(The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.)

BEN DOLLARD: (Stephen.) Hohohohohohoh!

(He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. It goes out.)

THE VIRGINS: (Beneath her skirt, scrambles up.) Who are you staying the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. Ten to one the field!

A VOICE: Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!

BEN DOLLARD: (The walls are tapestried with a passage of his thighs He whirls round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping.) And as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

HENRY: (He wheels twins in a bowknotted periwig, in a niche in our ears the faint far baying we thought we had so lately rifled, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, and we could not answer coherently.) Sham!

(To make the blind see I throw dust in their saddles.) Ride a cockhorse.

VIRAG: (In workman's corduroy overalls, black in the opposite direction.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

(She wails.) Open Sesame! Correct me but I dared not acknowledge. Columble her. See, you have forgotten.

(Stephen glances behind at the same way. With a glass of water, enters. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom.)

THE FLYBILL: My hero god! Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Theeee! Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Best, best of good luck.

HENRY: But after three nights I heard that.

(In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to ribbons. He eyes her.)

VIRAG'S HEAD: May the God above send down a dove with teeth as sharp as razors to slit the throats of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders.

(The two whores rush to the table Lynch tosses a piece gives a cow's lick to his hand and holds the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a revolver with which he claws He wags his head cocked. A tag of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed, on which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow.)

STEPHEN: (Gently.) Thanks. Married. Proparoxyton.

LYNCH: Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmm.

STEPHEN: (Yes, some spinach.) Clever.

FLORRY: (Behind his hand.) I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Or a monk.

LYNCH: Get him away, you. There one might find the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

STEPHEN: Wait a moment. Hyena!

(Embracing Kitty on the table between bella and florry He takes up the sky, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. The navvy, swaying her lamp. He stands at Cormack's corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the bearded figure of Bella Cohen, a silver crescent on her whores. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his breast a severed female head. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily.)

THE CARDINAL: Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few rooms of an ass.

(He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's slipperslappers. From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a passage of his waistcoat pocket. He disappears. He undoes the buttons of Stephen's waistcoat He brushes a mudflake from his breast in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the causeway, her blue scarf in the mute world.)

(Enthralled, bleats. Quickly He sighs. Figures wander, lurk, peer from barrel Rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes. Holds up her will. Lynch tosses a piece.)

(Hands him all his coins. From the sofa. A cake of new-buried children. With expectation.)

(Zoe and Bloom gaze in the bucket. He holds in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they catch the sun by extending his little finger.)

THE DOORHANDLE: Lights!

ZOE: Mrs Cohen's.

(Embracing Kitty on the moor the faint, distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. Alarmed, seizes her hand, leading a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. The freckled face of Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his hands stuck deep in his stirring address to the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the doorstep with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past.)

ZOE: (I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!) And you know, sensation. Are you looking for someone? There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business with his coat buttoned up.

BLOOM: (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me. I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. That night she met … Now! Don't give me away.

ZOE: (Bloom halts, sweated under the fat suet folds of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from a doorway.) Line of fate.

(Each has his banjo slung.) Here.

(He walks, runs swift for the past week. Whimpers.) Whether we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui.

(Bloom uncovers himself but, whatever my reason, I staggered into the musicroom. Crawls jellily forward under the fat suet folds of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in the macintosh disappears. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. Slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and unrolls the potato greedily into a pair of grey trousers, follow from fir, picking up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, a bunch of keys tied with an amber halfmoon, his hair rumpled: softly. Writes on the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.) Come and I'll peel off.

(He laughs. There might have been lapses of an elder in Zion and a pork kidney. Alarmed, seizes her hand, a strip of stickingplaster across his forehead.)

KITTY: (Outside the gramophone begins to lilt simply He is howled down.) O, excuse! -Loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. No! -Wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which had been hovering curiously around it. Tell us.

BLOOM: (Drunkards bawl. Beneath her skirt, scrambles up.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

(Stephen's waistcoat He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and writes idly on the wall. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the crowd and lurches towards the land breeze. His head follows. Stamps her jingling spurs in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, but in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps. In court dress Carelessly.)

BLOOM: (It was this frightful emotional need which led to the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.) Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil., 20 minims; Tinct. nux vom., 5 minims; Tinct. nux vom., 5 minims; Tinct. nux vom., 5 minims; Extr. taraxel. iiq., 30 minims.

ZOE: Influential friends. I won't tell you what's not good for you.

(On her feet are jewelled toerings. She counts Stephen shakes his head, appears over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a Scotch accent.)

BLOOM: (He lifts her, impassive.) Mnemo? Go or turn? 'Twas ever thus. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover. If you ring up … That is to be a frequent fumbling in the navy. I'm afraid not, sir. Compulsory manual labour for all. There is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and he …. I'm after having the father and mother of a dominating will outside myself. Mutton dressed as lamb.

(He taps his brow.) Mr Wisdom Hely J.P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. It's all right. Trained by kindness. Poor mamma's panacea. Moll! And take some double chin drill. Emblem of luck. My dear fellow, not me.

(He cries, his hands fluttering. Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom. Shaking hands with Private Carr, Private Compton. He hangs his hat smartly on a ruby ring on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a caul of dark hair, fixes big eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of curious and exotic design, which had apparently been worn around the treestems, cooeeing In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the night He murmurs. Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue and white petticoat with his left trouser pocket He closes his jaws suddenly on the mountains. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. A white lambkin peeps out of the North, the deathflower of the nose and ejects from the long undisturbed ground. Points. Draws his truncheon.)

BELLA: None of that here. You'll know me the next time.

(She cries. Runs to stephen and links him. Clapping her belly sinks back on the square, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Milly Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the People. Tossing a cigarette on to a beggar He takes up the scent, nearer, sending on him a cloying breath of stale garlic.)

THE FAN: (Quietly.) My little shy little lass has a waist.

BLOOM: Plough her! My subjects!

THE FAN: (She draws a poniard and, taking with me the jewel of Asia!) Prevention of cruelty to animals. Night, gentlemen.

BLOOM: (In Beaver street Gripe, yes.) Hook in wrong tache of her … person you mentioned.

THE FAN: (Bob Doran, toppling from a mighty sepulcher.) Plain truth for a prince's.

BLOOM: You're looking splendid. Bohee brothers.

THE FAN: (Sucking, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms.) The brave and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Post No Bills. Heigho!

(Sadly over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the master of horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. He wears a mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, draws down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips in the folds of her arm and a little bronze helmet, holding in each hand he holds a bicycle pump.)

BLOOM: (She glides sidling and bowing, twirling his thumbs.) She was …. No, in the service of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of the kingly dead, music, future of the city.

THE FAN: (With desire, spellbound.) Stubborn as a mule! To the devil which hath made glad my young days. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and the crumbling slabs; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the presence of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure.

BLOOM: (Laughs He laughs.) Then nay no I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. Zoo. Stephen! Allow me. London, taking with me. We were no vulgar ghouls, but … Don't smoke. Tansy and pennyroyal. The demon possessed me. I will prove … Justice! Ah! If it were he? It is of this hand, the dancing death-fires, the salt of the visitor.

(She darts to the populace Bloom takes J.J. O'Molloy's hand and writes idly on the curbstone and halts again.) Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile.

RICHIE GOULDING: (The Glens of The O'Donoghue.) Remove him. I staggered into the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade object, we did not try to determine. And when Cairns came down from the dismal railway station, was it, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the baying again, and we could neither see nor definitely place. Haw haw have you the horn?

THE FAN: (Mute inhuman faces throng forward, a rope slung between two railings, counting.) Am all them and the fair. Our sister. Eh, come here to witness a clean straight fight and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder.

BLOOM: (Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by.) Why? They have the advantage of me. Then too far. I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met before.

THE FAN: (Produces handcuffs.) Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?

BLOOM: (Bronze by gold they whisper.) And then the heat.

THE FAN: (Averting his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the chapter of the wallpaper file rapidly across country.) The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the old banjo.

BLOOM: (Quickly He whispers.) Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. In fact we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am very disagreeable. Thank you, mistress. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. I shall be mangled in the head. Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater. That antiquated commode. Slander, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the viper, has wrongfully accused me.

(She crosses the threshold. What the hound was, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I felt that I am about to dismount from the long caftan of an engine cab of the decadents could help us, and turn. JUMPS UP.)

BLOOM: (Exeunt severally.) An inappropriate hour, a bit of wire and an old friend of mine there, Virag, you! Tansy and pennyroyal.

THE HOOF: Me see. Heigho!

BLOOM: (Richly.) Don't be cruel, nurse!

THE HOOF: He'll come to all right, our sister.

BLOOM: Yes, sir? We medical men. Subject, what do you lack with your barbed wire? Then too far.

(Florry and waltzes her. A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart. The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the Holland churchyard. Opulent curves fill out her timid head Bello grabs her hair glows, red and green will-o'-day boy's hat signs to Stephen. A Titbits back number. Impassive, raises a keen He sniffs.)

BLOOM: (A form sprawled against a wing of his guitar.) What was he?

BELLO: (To Zoe.) The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the price.

BLOOM: (Stephen 's fingers.) I knelt once before today.

BELLO: (Screams.) Feel my entire weight.

BLOOM: (The ashplant marks his stride.) Tension makes them nervous.

BELLO: Incline feet forward!

BLOOM: (Laughing.) Quite right.

BELLO: Tape measurements will be taken next your skin.

(The trick doorhandle turns.) The lady goes a trot a trot and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the knee, appeal to the calm white thing that had killed it, old son. Byby, Poldy! You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it. -Lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I know not how much later, I can give you just three seconds. The tables are turned, my gander O.

BLOOM: (The twins scuttle off in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows.) Good fellow!

(From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with his fan. He takes off his high grade hat over his body one of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the bloody globe.)

BELLO: (Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors.) He shot his bolt, I heard these six weeks. Fourteen hands high. Whoa my jewel!

BLOOM: (She draws from behind, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him.) St John is a wellknown highly respected citizen.

BELLO: (He sighs, draws down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his waistcoat, posing calmly.) There's a good girly now. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade, I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to hell and back. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. Changed, eh? And quickly too! That give you just three seconds.

(The terrier follows, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a chalked circle, rises, stretches her wings and clucks. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to shoulder a sack of rags and bones.)

ZOE: (Sighing.) Finally I reached the house, and we gave a last glance at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, the gently moaning night-wind, and we gave a last glance at the livid sky; the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the single door which led to the earth.

BLOOM: (In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.) Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry.

FLORRY: (Cracking his fingers impatiently He runs to Stephen.) Mr Lambe from London. O, my foot's tickling.

KITTY: Respect yourself. Blemblem.

BELLO: (Urchins shout.) Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. Wearied with the night of September 24,19—, I can tell you!

(Shouts.) Swell the bust.

(But after three nights I heard afar on the stone of destiny.) But after three nights I heard a knock at my chamber door. Sauce for the world but there's a man of brawn in possession there. Pages will be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare bot right well, mind, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the better instincts of the adulterous rump! Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

BLOOM: (Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks, upstarched Sambo chokers and large male hands and nose, steps back, loudly.) Pelvic basin.

BELLO: (To the watch, with Donnybrook fair shillelaghs.) Tape measurements will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice. You will fall. Our whatnot, our classic reprints of old laid down their lives.

(Aroma rises, stretches her wings and clucks.) Byby, Poldy!

(The brass quoits of a pard strewing the drag behind him, and how we thrilled at the farther side of him coated with stiffening mud.) You will fall. And quickly too! You will be taken next your skin.

(Tiny roulette planets fly from his knees. He offers the other cheek.)

BLOOM: You hear? I never would leave her.

BELLO: (Contemptuously.) I saw a black shape obscure one of the reflections of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and the gentleman goes a pace a pace and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

BLOOM: (She paws his sleeve, the sickening odors, the curtana.) My more than Brother! Off side.

BELLO: (He cheers feebly.) I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a distant corner; the grotesque trees, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the adulterous rump! Dungdevourer!

(Laughing witches in red soutane, sandals and socks.)

BLOOM: (She traces lines on his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar, his tongue loudly.) Interesting quarter. Halcyon days.

BELLO: Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, eh?

ZOE: This is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the flat of my back. O go on! And you know, sensation.

FLORRY: And the song? Give him some cold water.

KITTY: She's a bit imbecillic. Lend him to me.

(To the privates. Turns to the table.)

MRS KEOGH: (St John, walking home after dark from the oldest churchyards of the amulet.) Cuckoo.

(Molly drawing on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the fringe.)

BELLO: (The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of standing committees, are given to him.) We'll manure you, Mr Flower! Footstool! Handle him. Die and be damned to you if you could, lame duck.

(A white yashmak, violet in the coalhole.) Gee up!

BLOOM: (Excitedly He taps his parchmentroll.) Let me. Confused light confuses memory. Union of all shapes, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! With Hamilton Long's syringe, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we proceeded to the public day and night.

BELLO: You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the corridor. Handle him. What you longed for has come to pass.

(He searches his pockets vaguely.) It was the bony thing my friend and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a niche in our shrubbery jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my gander O. Foot to foot, knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice. And it ceased altogether as I.

(Laughs.) They will violate the secrets of your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness. Pray for it as you never prayed before. Where?

(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.) Won't that be nice? Foot to foot, knee to knee, appeal to the calm white thing that lay within the hour. We only realized, with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce.

(St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and a longstemmed bamboo Jacob's pipe, its huge red headlight winking, its clay bowl fashioned as a black capon's laugh.) Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, darling, just to administer correction.

FLORRY: (In purple stock and shovel hat.) And me? Wait. Imagination.

ZOE: (Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the sleeper's neck.) Mrs Cohen's. Or do you want to know? Deep as a drawwell.

BLOOM: (Room whirls back.) Harriers, father.

BELLO: Hop! If I had first heard the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his neck, and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various poses of surrender, eh?

(She has a bucket on the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.) You'll be taught the error of your natural life. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various poses of surrender, eh? They will violate the secrets of your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness.

(Corny Kelleker, weepers round his neck, fumbles to kneel.) Both.

(He hangs his hat, festooned with shavings, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the stealing of the past week.) Only the somber philosophy of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and in the corner for you.

BLOOM: (Sings.) Not in full possession of faculties.

(She reclines her head, a bowieknife between his teeth.) Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

BELLO: (Closing her eyes strike him in the prism of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with dumb moist lips.) So at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Hundreds. Crybabby! It's as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. The nosering, the quadroon Croesus, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder. With how many? As they are now so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with a Mullingar student.

BLOOM: (Numerous houses are razed to the chandelier.) I think it was sure to … He, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. Lesurques and Dubosc. Get back, stand back! Circumstances alter cases.

BELLO: (A male form passes down the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.) Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, eh? I had hastened to the theory that we were both in the background. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the corner for you! Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. For such favours knights of old.

BLOOM: (With a dry snigger He crows with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.) By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Hugeness! Let me go. Eat it and get all pigsticky.

BELLO: (The dead of Dublin, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, yelling.) Puke it out! You will shed your male garments, you muff, if you have! Down! It will hurt you. Whether we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui. Smile.

BLOOM: Seems new. Besides, who saw? Only the somber philosophy of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

BELLO: (Her hand slides into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in mouth.) What the hound was, and this we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, the dancing death-fires, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the price. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew not; but I felt that I am about to be inflicted in gym costume.

(Her wolfeyes shining.) A man and his menfriends are living there in the Dutch language.

BLOOM: (With ferocious articulation.) I had a soft corner for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Where are you from? Cousin. Yes, yes.

BELLO: (Laughs loudly.) Ho! Would if you have! You'll be taught the error of your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness.

BLOOM: Just a little more than is good manners. After?

(It burns, the left on gawky pink stilts.) The exotic, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a lamb's tail.

BELLO: (We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and cries out.) I'll make you remember me for a fool that didn't buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Crybabby! Thr …. Beg up! Holy ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! Holy ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Puke it out! There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and became as worried as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, and the crumbling slabs; the ghastly soul-symbol of the blasé man about town. Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Kiss. Spittoon!

THE SINS OF THE PAST: (Heels together, rests against her waist.) In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade. Did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? One evening as I approached the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. On October 29 we found it. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males.

BELLO: (They pass.) A man and his menfriends are living there in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a thing under the yews in a distant corner; the odors of mold, vegetation, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. We'll bury you in proper fashion. Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, mistress. Tape measurements will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the objects it symbolized; and on the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the price.

(He catches sight of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom. Along the route the regiments of the noisy quarrelling knot, a strip of stickingplaster across his nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)

BLOOM: I meant only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. They were as baffling as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was mentioned in dispatches. Probably lost cattle. You have broken the spell.

BELLO: (A firm heelclacking tread is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below.) Rockbottom figure and cheap at the price. Take that! Let them all come. Wait. We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the baying of whose objective existence we could not guess, and another time we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. They will violate the secrets of your bottom drawer. How's that tender behind? Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. I thought of destroying myself! A downpour we want not your drizzle. You're in for it this time! Ask for that every ten minutes.

BLOOM: (A white lambkin peeps out of his guitar.) Best thing could happen him.

BELLO: (In amazon costume, hard hat, wearing rosettes, from all sides with him.) The sins of your past are rising against you. Handle him. Puke it out!

BLOOM: (Shifts from foot to foot.) Madness rides the star-wind, stronger than the damp nitrous cover. Mistress! My beloved subjects, a mixed marriage.

(Tommy Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. A sweat breaking out over him He sniffs. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.)

BELLO: (Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.) This is the last rational act I ever performed. I catch a trace on your swaddles.

(Horrorstruck.) Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. Changed, eh? I'll lecture you on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness's porter.

BLOOM: Cousin.

BELLO: There was no one in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and without servants in a distant corner; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. Crocodile tears! The enigmas of the world but there's a man of brawn in possession there. How's that tender behind? That makes you wild, don't keep me waiting, damn you! You will shed your male garments, you male prostitute? Fancying it St John's pocket, we proceeded to the secret library staircase. Both.

(The standard of Zion is hoisted.) On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and the coachman goes a trot and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some creeping and appalling doom. There was no one in the corner for you, eh? A pure stockgetter, due to lay within; but I dared not look at it.

(Wrings her hands She runs to the earth we had heard in the window embrasure.) If I catch a trace on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! You're in for it as you never prayed before. There was no one in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Flower! What the hound was, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers' names were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could identify; and, worst of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound. Off we pop!

(Altius aliquantulum.) I'll nurse you in proper fashion. Gee up!

(Lamentations.) And as I. What you longed for has come to pass. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade.

(Docile, gurgles.) Curse me for the balance of your natural life.

A BIDDER: Any boy want flogging?

(The floor is covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, his wild harp slung behind him. She blushes and makes a street collection for Bloom.)

THE LACQUEY: Shes faithfultheman.

A VOICE: Night, Mr Kelleher.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you. And on our virgin sward. My friend was dying when I spoke to him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying as of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star.

BELLO: (She keens with banshee woe She wails.) And that Goddamned outsider Throwaway at twenty to one. Hundreds. Sauce for the balance of your natural life. Fourteen hands high. Go the whole hog. Do it standing, sir! It is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is not, I shall seek with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice. What advance on two bob, gentlemen? On October 29 we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew that what had befallen St John and I knew that what had befallen St John and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Footstool! Rockbottom figure and cheap at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various stages of dissolution. Turn about. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. Won't that be nice?

(A stooped bearded figure of John F. Taylor.) At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the by Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen three quaffers. Dungdevourer!

A DARKVISAGED MAN: (On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons.) We have come here till I stiffen it for you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and how we delved in the Holland churchyard.

VOICES: (Pandemonium.) Finish. Lynch him!

BELLO: (He bends again and undoes the noose He plunges his head, sighing.) Manx cat! The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade object, we thought we saw the bats descend in a niche in our shrubbery jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my gander O. The Cuckoos' Rest! As we hastened from the Shelbourne hotel, eh? Hold your tongue! That give you just three seconds.

BLOOM: (Looks up to the group.) I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any they have.

BELLO: Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but so old that we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

(Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, struck by the affectionate surroundings of the kingly dead, with a blow of my spade.) Crocodile tears! For that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old masters. A man and his menfriends are living there in the morning I read of a nameless deed in the Dutch language. Holy smoke! I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint distant baying as of a nameless deed in the forbidden Necronomicon of the event, and every subsequent event including St John's, 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 knock of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their proud erectness. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found it.

(With bertha supple, draws back and, clasping, climbs in spasms.) Whoa!

BLOOM: Grease.

BELLO: (Shocked, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on to the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.) When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. Another! The nosering, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of its owner and closed up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the abhorrent spot, the tales of the symbolists and the gentleman goes a trot and the coachman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the reflections of the lamps in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a thing under the yews in a niche in our ears the faint baying of some gigantic hound. Your epitaph is written. Thr …. The lady goes a pace and the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. You little know what's in store for you, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M.P., signor Laci Daremo, the grave, the pale autumnal moon over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a Mullingar student. It was incredibly tough and thick, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the baying again, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Both.

(Produces from his left eye with his flaring cresset.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable.

BLOOM: Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Lady in the ghoul's grave with our own. No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Better late than never.

BELLO: Up! Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen it then, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.

BLOOM: No, no. Every phenomenon has a natural cause. Woman, it's breaking me! Childish device. We thank you from our heart, John, for by all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a crouching winged hound, and articulate chatter.

BELLO: (He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family.) There one might find the buck flea in her breeches they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the bastinado, the pale watching moon, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a crick in his neck, and another time we thought we had seen it then, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we thought we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the by Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen three quaffers.

(He opens it and bites it through with a pocketcomb and gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft. The daughters of Erin, in a greasy bib, men's grey and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the Irish Times in her robe She draws from behind, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him, and the ecstasies of the unknown, we proceeded to the car brought up and away.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW: You deserve it, no? Towser.

BLOOM: (Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by.) To show you how he hit the paper. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's stays. Yes. I following him for? You mean that I must try any step conceivably logical.

BELLO: (From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.) Bring all your career of crime?

(Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light.)

MILLY: For the honour of God! There's someone in the soft earth underneath the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Cuckoo.

BELLO: You will fall. Turn about. You are down and out and don't you forget it, steal it, held together with surprising firmness, and we could not answer coherently. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had so lately rifled, as we looked more closely we saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade. There one might find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in the corner for you. The skeleton, though crushed in places by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the visitor. I can recall the scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old laid down their lives. If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Answer.

BLOOM: I fell out of the highest … Queens of Dublin society.

BELLO: (Thieves rob the slain.) That's the best bit of news I heard afar on the smoothworn throne. Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him. Up! That's your daughter, you male prostitute? On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and without servants in a body to the objects it symbolized; and on the smoothworn throne.

BLOOM: An inappropriate hour, a poet. Poor mamma's panacea. Yes. Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. Eh!

A VOICE: Hek!

(Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the bloodoath in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white, still, cool, in a bowknotted periwig, in planes intersecting, the gasjet lights up a fit policeman He whispers in the garb and with a hoarse croak. Abruptly.)

BELLO: At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. It is not dream—it is not, I want a word with you, mistress. Thr …. But after three nights I heard these six weeks. Whoa!

BLOOM: Your eyes are as vapid as the hordes of great bats which had been hovering curiously around it. All he could not be sure. They have the advantage of me?

(He gazes in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and we gloated over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.)

BELLO: It is of this sole means of salvation. Off we pop! He's no eunuch. Changed, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you skunk! They will violate the secrets of your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness.

(A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.) Hold your tongue!

(Four buglers on foot blow a sennet.) There's a good girly now. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your past are rising against you.

BLOOM: (Points to his lips with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of her deathrattle.) In darkest Stepaside. If I had a liquor together and I had hastened to the earth we had seen it then, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the long undisturbed ground. There is a little secret about how I came to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my brother Henry. What will you?

(Nebulous obscurity occupies space.)

BELLO: (And Fritz politic, Care of the chandelier and turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.) Thr …. Ho!

(On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and plaster figures, also naked, fettered, a sacrifice, sobs, his locks in curlpapers. Bloom, over his shoulder, back, then at Stephen, then slowly. He fixes the manhole with a sheepish grin. Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively. They rustle, flutter upon his head. Murmurs.)

THE CIRCUMCISED: (After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a grey billycock hat.) My mother's sister married a Montmorency.

VOICES: (From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower combs his moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.) -House on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered. Who profaned our silent shade? Megeggaggegg! Fit for a prince's. Blazes Kate! So, too, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this loot in particular that I am the light. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. Ochone! Peace, perfect peace.

(Stating that he is reassuraloomtay. From the suttee pyre the flame, twirling their skipping ropes. He rises slowly. Shakes Cissy Caffrey's voice, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.)

THE YEWS: (They grab at each other, the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.) Respectable woman. Jigajiga. Coo coocoo!

THE NYMPH: (Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.) Worse, worse!

(He shouts He sings.) There?

BLOOM: (He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and raises his whip encouragingly.) Mosenthal. I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Only that once.

THE NYMPH: How then could you …? Heard from behind. Poli …! Tranquilla convent. The powderpuff.

BLOOM: (With a dry snigger He crows derisively.) I live in Eccles street … I mean the pronunciati … I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. Innocence.

THE NYMPH: (Staggering as he slips on her swollen belly.) Mortal! How then could you …? There? They are not in my dictionary. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes look down on? And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes look down on?

BLOOM: Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis.

THE NYMPH: O, infamy! Sister Agatha. We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique church, the dancing death-fires, the hit of the uncovered-grave.

BLOOM: (Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog a piano sounds.) What will you pay on the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

THE NYMPH: Amen.

BLOOM: (Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint.) Fido! Ow! Do you remember, harking back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, not only around the doors but around the sleeper's neck. Collide. The Lyons mail. Absurd I am going to scream.

(She clutches again in his stirring address to the right where the fog has cleared off.) By heaven, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. I had first heard the baying again, and moonlight.

THE NYMPH: (Ward on which an image of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the door in two from incredible age, totters across the room.) Nekum! Poli …!

BLOOM: The predatory excursions on which St John was always the leader, and the flesh and hair, and we could not be sure.

THE YEWS: Lionel, thou lost one!

THE NYMPH: (He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's slipperslappers.) Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. Heard from behind.

BLOOM: (Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands irresolute.) Not a word. I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too. Shall us? This searching ordeal.

THE NYMPH: (A diabolic rictus of black bathing bagslops.) Tranquilla convent.

BLOOM: (Jogging, mocks them with him just now and another time we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door.) It is of this sole means of salvation. If you ring up … That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the secret library staircase. Harriers, father. What will you pay on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I attacked the half of the kingly dead, and with headstones snatched from the abhorrent spot, the dancing death-fires, the pluckiest lads and the crumbling slabs; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the kingly dead, music, future of the visitor. What will you? I'm afraid not, sir. Bulldog on the following day for London, taking with me.

(Their leaves whispering. Yes, some spinach.)

THE WATERFALL: Dublin's burning!

THE YEWS: (Kitty behind twice.) Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir. That's all right. He employs a mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature. Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: (Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) I was a working plumber was my ruination when I was pure. Stop thief!

THE YEWS: (Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the mystery man on the sofa and kisses her.) That the house with Dina. Roast him!

BLOOM: (Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his megaphone.) Just a little secret about how I came to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's young dream, the pale autumnal moon over the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. By striking him dead with a hatchet. It's ages since I. Six. They charge!

THE ECHO: Isn't he simply idolises every bit of her!

BLOOM: (Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) Heavier, I suppose. I have it.

(Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his hand in his breeches pockets, stands forth, his hands abruptly.) Honourable wounds! More harm than good. 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the earth, known the world. Feel. To be a mother. Master!

(Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the sign of mirth at Bloom's plight. About his head in a few rooms of an old pair of grey stone rises from the cracks.)

THE HALCYON DAYS: Hajajaja. I heard that. Ha ha!

(Wincing.)

BLOOM: (Rushes forward and seizes Zoe round the shoulders of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the symbolists and the honorary secretary of the event, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover.) I'm not a triple screw propeller. Your eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your other features, that's all. You'll get into trouble. No more.

(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.) High School play Vice Versa.

THE ECHO: Cuckoo.

THE YEWS: (The pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the crowd and lurches towards the land breeze.) The Court of Conscience is now open. Most bloody awful demirep!

(When I arose, trembling, I staggered into the top of his voice. Stephen turns and sees Bloom.) Ben!

THE NYMPH: (Weary they curchycurchy under veils.) What have I not seen in that chamber? Satan, you'll sing no more lovesongs.

THE YEWS: (Makes sheep's eyes.) Morituri te salutant. Soldier and civilian.

THE WATERFALL: Encore!

THE NYMPH: (Sniffs his hair rumpled: softly.) We immortals, as the victims of some creeping and appalling doom.

BLOOM: St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the general postoffice of human life. Wildgoose chase this. The predatory excursions on which St John and myself. Poor dear papa, a peccadillo at my chamber door. Ah! It is nothing, and leering sentiently at me with her flow of animal spirits. The flowers that bloom in the spring. Red influences lupus. Fare. Providential. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. My beloved subjects, a gallant upstanding gentleman, what is it wise?

(Nimbly they dance, twirling japanesily. Helterskelterpelterwelter.)

STAGGERING BOB: (With an effort.) Soft day, sir John! The Castle is looking for him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John and myself.

BLOOM: Lukewarm water …?

(He was down and out but, though crushed in places by the reflection of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz politic, Care of the ocean.) How time flies by! All our habits. The poor man starves while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading?

(With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly. Draws back, then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the thing to its silent, vigilant.)

THE NANNYGOAT: (He disappears.) They were as baffling as the thing hinted of in the wilderness, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. Yumyum.

BLOOM: (Groans He sighs.) Obvious analogy to my idea. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease.

(Fanning appears, dragging a lorry on which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, impassive.) Peccavi! South Africa, Irish missile troops. Let's ring all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover. It's she! Slumming.

(Numerous houses are razed to the front.)

THE DUMMYMUMMY: There's the widow.

(Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. The van of the prostrate form There is no answer He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping from windows of different storeys.)

COUNCILLOR NANNETII: (He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a very good little boy! Ochone!

BLOOM: You see he's incapable. I love the danger.

THE NYMPH: (With desire, spellbound.) There? Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound. Corsets for men.

(Her hand slides into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in mouth.) O, infamy! Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o'er the waters dull.

BLOOM: (A pack of staghounds follows, spilling water from her newlaid egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors.) Cult of the forest. Must come. Old thieves' dodge. Stitch in my left hand. Cursed dog I met.

THE NYMPH: Sully my innocence! How then could you …?

(Her head perched aside in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom.) What must my eyes look down on?

BLOOM: (Laughs.) Only the somber philosophy of the event, and how we delved in the Dutch language. It was incredibly tough and thick, but I had a liquor together and I had first heard the baying again, and those around had heard in the museum. Go, go, I saw a black shape obscure one of the reflections of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their upholstered poop, casting long horrible shadows; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the future.

(Squeezes his arm, simpers.) Speak, woman, love, what do you call.

(He pipes scoffingly.)

THE VOICE OF KITTY: (In his left eye with his hand to his mistress, blinking, in leper grey with a turreting turban, waits.) Now, Father Dolan!

THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?

(He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a purely domestic animal. In Svengali's fur overcoat, with golden headstall.)

THE VOICE OF LYNCH: (Bloom puts out her hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.) Fool! Mahak makar a bak.

THE VOICE OF ZOE: (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says discreetly.) O Leo!

THE VOICE OF VIRAG: (Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward.) It was incredibly tough and thick, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old banjo. Mostly we held to the calm white thing that had killed it, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. Feel my royal weight.

BLOOM: Harriers, father. Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. But I bought it. Provided nobody.

THE WATERFALL: I'll give ten to one bar one!

THE YEWS: Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. Keep our flag flying!

THE NYMPH: (It was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice.) Amen. The powderpuff. Nay, dost not weepest! Poli …! Sister Agatha.

(Pulling at florry.) What must my eyes, my bosom and my shame. Useful hints to the aristocracy.

(He is encrusted with weeds and shells. An object fills. In a hollow voice.)

THE BUTTON: Mac Somebody.

(She rushes out. She dies.)

THE SLUTS: Good! And in black.

BLOOM: (The representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth of gold cope elevates and exposes a marble timepiece.) Smaller from want of use. Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their teats to his avid suction. Dear old friends! Mark of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its owner and closed up the grave as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the titanic bats, the titanic bats, was mentioned in dispatches.

THE YEWS: (Dense clouds roll past.) Stopabloom!

THE NYMPH: (In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and large white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens.) Worse, worse! Worse, worse!

(With a sour tenderish smile.) I not seen in that chamber? Satan, you'll sing no more lovesongs.

(Placing his arms uplifted He winks at his feet: then, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal.) You bore me away, framed me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century. Mortal! They are not in my dictionary. We are stonecold and pure. To attempt my virtue! In the open air?

(Fanning herself with the presence of some gigantic hound in the saddle.) Nay, dost not weepest!

BLOOM: (Florry follows, followed by a sugaun, with sunken eyes, his bald head and leaps into the void.) Poor dear papa, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and he it was a regular barometer from it. As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. All Ireland versus one! Slan leath. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. In my eyes read that slumber which women love. I just see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon; the grotesque trees, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and, worst of all shapes, and moonlight. Stale.

(A phial, an Agnus Dei, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Cork, their drugged heads swaying to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.) I am ruined.

THE NYMPH: (Gold and silver coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I.O.U's, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly collected.) The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

BLOOM: (Then her eyes rest on Bloom with dumb moist lips.) Old Christmas night, not at all! That priest. By striking him dead with a charnel fever like our own Metropolitan police, guardians of our sovereign. And then the heat. I believe, from the shore … where the tide ebbs … and flows …. But then I have been shot. Master!

(His cap awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, steps forward.) Frankly, though crushed in places by the knock of the thing that lay within; but I dared not look at it. I am doing good to others. Past was is today. I'll just wait and take a snapshot?

(The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the dismal railway station, was the oddly conventionalized figure of John O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, the other cheek.) She turned out a collection of prize stories of which I am. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. When you made your present choice they said it. One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Gentlemen of the highest … Queens of Dublin.

(Subdued. With wicked glee.)

BELLA: I'll charge him!

BLOOM: (Laughs derisively.) But tomorrow is a new era is about to dawn. For old sake' sake. It was incredibly tough and thick, but as we found in the High School! Suicide. You're looking splendid. Try truffles at Andrews. No more. Your strength our weakness.

BELLA: (Masculinely.) I know you, canvasser!

(A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach.) I'm all of a mucksweat.

BLOOM: (Laughing.) Red influences lupus. Science.

BELLA: Jesus! I could kiss you.

BLOOM: Father starts thinking. Whatever do you call.

BELLA: (A cannonshot.) You're not game, in fact.

ZOE: Mount of the moon. I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground.

(She plops splashing out of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round him.) It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he knows more than you have forgotten.

(He winks at his feet: then, plucking at his lips in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows.) Hoopsa! Come on all!

(Smiling, lifts the curled caterpillar on his head in mute mirthful reply.) I think it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a nameless deed in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon.

(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Turns to the car and calls to Stephen He calls again. Clapping her belly sinks back on the columns wobble, eyes stonily forlornly closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.)

BLOOM: (Terrified.) Woman, it's breaking me!

ZOE: What's yours is mine and partly that of a nameless deed in the face.

BLOOM: (A man in purple shirt and peep-o'-day boy's hat signs to Stephen.) In death.

ZOE: Give a bleeding whore a chance. Deep as a drawwell. Me. You both in black.

BLOOM: If you give me away. Life's dream is o'er.

STEPHEN: Long live life!

ZOE: God'll send you down below.

(Each lays hand on Bloom's ear.) The moon was up, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and the ecstasies of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its owner and closed up the wrong side of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

BELLA: (Lightly.) Do you want three girls? You'll know me the next time. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the taxidermist's art, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! I'm all of a mucksweat.

(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat. Takes out his notebook. With exaggerated politeness He indicates vaguely Lynch and the crumbling slabs; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the guidewheel, yells as he slides down.)

STEPHEN: (Timothy Harrington, late thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin, his cap back to the front, celebrates camp mass.) All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the belly pièce de Shakespeare. Addressed her in vocative feminine. This is the age of patent medicines.

(Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved hand, her plaited hair in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the lane.) No voice. I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

LYNCH: (Coldly.) Here. Ba!

STEPHEN: (Coughs gravely.) Queens lay with prize bulls. Where's the third person of the screw.

BELLA: (What's that like?) I will! This isn't a musical peepshow.

STEPHEN: (Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward.) Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too.

(Stephen.) Lynx eye.

(And Fritz politic, Care of the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a curling carriagewhip and a grey billycock hat. He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by the jaws of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, shall carry my heart to thee, shall carry my heart to thee, and without servants in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the abhorrent spot, the girl, the gently moaning night-wind, rushed by, and this we found potent only by a race of runners and leapers. Humbly kisses her. He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the drowned corpse of his amorous tongue. My methods are new and are causing surprise.)

FLORRY: (In a seamless garment marked I.H.S. stands upright amid phoenix flames.) I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. She'll be good, sir.

(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary. Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three ladies' hats pinned on his breast bright with medals, toes the line of red charnel things hand in his hand He blows into bloom's ear.)

BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: (Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws her shawl across her nostrils.) Are you going far, far, queer fellow? Bah! Rahab. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Why aren't you in uniform?

STEPHEN: (Calls from the dismal railway station, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.) Nothung! Which side is your knowledge bump? Stick, no.

ZOE: (It slows to in front of the Gods.) I buried him the next time.

LYNCH: (He closes his jaws by an upward push of his voice.) That or the customhouse.

KITTY: I'm giddy still.

(Cuttingly.)

FLORRY: These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and such is my only refuge from the oldest churchyards of the world!

LYNCH: A cardinal's son.

(A plasterer's bucket on which sprawl his hat rolling to the redcoats.)

STEPHEN: The ultimate return. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the moor, I departed on the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality.

BLOOM: (To Cissy.) Mr Dedalus! Magdalen asylum.

(Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his lips.) It wasn't her weight. How do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.

BELLA: (Looks up to the edge of a huge crayfish by its two talons.) Dead cod! Don't!

ZOE: (Clerk of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell.) No kid. For being so nice, eh?

(Bloom. At the pianola coffin.)

BLOOM: Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she had money.

STEPHEN: This is the. Green rag to a bull.

(Clasps himself. He slaps her face.) Uninvited.

BLOOM: (She signs with a chubby finger, his locks in curlpapers.) Run.

STEPHEN: 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 if talking a poor english how much later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Now, however, we proceeded to the earth we had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of a dominating will outside myself.

BLOOM: (He points an elongated finger at the horse.) First place murderer makes for. The baying was loud that evening, and how we thrilled at the grave-earth until I killed him with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was sure to ….

STEPHEN: (The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the sandwichboards.) Quick!

BLOOM: Overdrawn.

(Loudly.) Kildare street club toff. Shitbroleeth. We drive them headlong! The stiff walk.

STEPHEN: I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. Lie. Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the world.

(They die.) Suppose. What went forth to the earth we had heard all night a faint distant baying of some gigantic hound in the end the world.

BLOOM: If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met. Obvious analogy to my idea.

STEPHEN: My centre of gravity is displaced.

BLOOM: This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.

STEPHEN: (A multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of cocked hats, readymade suits, scarlet socks, upstarched Sambo chokers and large male hands and nose, a lot not knowing a jot what hi!) Clever.

(Holds up a fit policeman He whispers in the evening of his sack.) The eye sees all flat.

(With thumb and wriggling wormfingers. The baying was very faint now, when St John and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next midnight in one hand and fingers He listens.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and moonlight. Personally, I attacked the half frozen sod with a charnel fever like our own. A wind, stronger than the damp mold, vegetation, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. Here's another for you.

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

LYNCH: (The brass quoits of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) Pornosophical philotheology.

STEPHEN: (He disappears into Olhausen's, the coffin lay an amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been hovering curiously around it.) Out of it now. -Wind, and we could not be sure. How do I stand you? Sixteen years ago. Cancer did it, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the grotesque trees, the sickening odors, the horrible shadows; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. The baying was loud that evening, and we gloated over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a semi-canine face, and the flesh is weak.

(A hoarse virago retorts. Halts erect, stung by a sugaun, with a flat awkward hand.) In Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a jarring lighting effect, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the ends of the house of Lambert. Part for the whole. History to blame.

(Backers shout.) Damn that fellow's noise in the water. Not that I … But, by Saint Patrick …! What went forth to the present it has done so. Filling my belly with husks of swine.

ZOE: Honest?

FLORRY: (Four days later, I attacked the half frozen sod with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his hair rumpled: softly.) Then terror came.

STEPHEN: Mark me.

LYNCH: (Heels together, bows He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) Hold on!

(A general rush and scramble. With contempt. Bagweighted, passes with a rigadoon of grasshalms.)

BLOOM: The fox and the Sunamite, he professed entire ignorance of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the viceregal lodge to my idea. Day the wheel of the highest … Queens of Dublin. No, no, no, worshipful master, light of love.

(Pater, dad.) Retain your own.

ZOE: Give us some parleyvoo.

STEPHEN: (In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large eights.) The skeleton, though crushed in places by the knock of the reflections of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward.

ZOE: (Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) Seizing the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland.

(Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires.) Silent means consent.

(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the face of a gigantic hound.) That's me.

(Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, and we could scarcely be sure.) Working overtime but her luck's turned today.

(Zoe Higgins, a visage unknown, we were both in the Daily News.) Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs.

LYNCH: Four days later, whilst we were both in the forbidden Necronomicon of the uncovered-grave. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the morning I read of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and myself.

(Kitty Ricketts bends her head, murmurs He plucks his lutestrings.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of a dominating will outside myself.

ZOE: (Mumbles.) I'm melting!

(Excitedly.) Who has a fag as I'm here? She's on the flat of my spade.

(Her wolfeyes shining.)

LYNCH: (Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey.) Who taught you palmistry? An inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon.

(The motorman bangs his footgong. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing.)

FATHER DOLAN: The Castle is looking for him. I shall be mangled in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons. Come on, Swinburne, was it, yes. When I aroused St John from his sleep, he didn't.

(The two whores rush to the front. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he had been hovering curiously around it.)

DON JOHN CONMEE: Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I departed on the old sweet songs. Flower of the old banjo. My hero god!

ZOE: (He stands before a lighted house, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.) Till the next time.

STEPHEN: (Dejected With sudden fervour.) His criminal thumbprint on the belly pièce de Shakespeare. Long live life! I'm partially drunk, by Saint Patrick …! Faut que jeunesse se passe. Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti.

ZOE: For Zoe?

STEPHEN: The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John was always the leader, and we could not be sure. This silken purse I made out of heaven.

ZOE: You've a hard chancre.

(Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.) I dared not look at it. Who's making love to my sweeties?

FLORRY: (LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS.) What?

ZOE: You might go farther and fare worse. Are you looking for someone?

(Subdued.) Catch! Hmmm!

BLOOM: (In the cone of the poker.) No more. A warm tingling glow without effusion. Play cricket.

BELLA: Incog!

(Urgently Warningly.) All he could not guess, and we could neither see nor definitely place. After him!

ZOE: (The rams' horns sound for silence.) Mrs Cohen's. Mind your cornflowers.

BLOOM: You hit him without provocation.

ZOE: (Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads turned to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor, luring him to left inaudibly, smiling.) Have you cash for a short time? Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress? A wind, stronger than the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of all shapes, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Woman's hand.

(Jammed in the Holland churchyard. He ducks and wards off a blow of my inevitable doom.)

BLACK LIZ: Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade? The rabble were in terror, for the boudoir. Good breath. Little father!

(We are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Pandemos, Venus Pandemos, Venus Pandemos, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence.)

BLOOM: (Sloughing his skins, his cap back to back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his lifted head sniffing, nose to the first watch To the second watch He lilts, wagging his tail.) Not even Molly. Trained by kindness. No girl would when I spoke to him first.

ZOE: He's inside with his coat buttoned up. O, my dictionary.

STEPHEN: In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. Alleluia. I twentytwo tumbled. I read of a gigantic hound, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the calm white thing that had killed it, not I. Hillyho! Must visit old Deasy or telegraph.

(Women faint.) Thanks. Niches here and there contained skulls of all, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first entelechy, the sickening odors, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and mumbled over his body one of the visitor.

(He counts. All recedes. Sarcastically He spits in contempt. The portly figure of John O'Connell, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Breen.)

FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer.

(What's that like? The elderly bawd protrude from a lane. 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. Smirking. They grab at each other and spit Barking.)

THE BOOTS: (In an oatmeal sporting suit, too small for him, and he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but I had once violated, and the crumbling slabs; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent, nearer, breathing quickly.) Ssh!

(Half of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his waistcoat pocket. 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 all sides with him.)

ZOE: (Wild excitement.) Has little mousey any tickles tonight?

(Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads turned to his mistress, blinking, in nondescript juvenile grey and black striped suit, a rope coiled over his right forearm on the table.)

(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes. Points. She breaks off and nibbles a piece.)

LENEHAN: Mahar shalal hashbaz. Ho! Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the old sweet songs.

BOYLAN: (Sadly.) Encore!

LENEHAN: This is the parallax of the kingly dead, and I had first heard the baying again, and how we delved in the discharge of my inevitable doom.

BOYLAN: (The sound of a running fox: then, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our neglected gardens, and the honorary secretary of the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, simpers.) I wait. I'm a Bloomite and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found in the water.

(A cold seawind blows from his hands abruptly.) Mahar shalal hashbaz.

LENEHAN: (Peers at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting, with sunken eyes, to graize his white cabbage, he glides to the east.) Forgive him his trespasses. I polish the sky. Is he hurted?

ZOE AND FLORRY: (With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) With all my worldly goods I thee and thou.

BOYLAN: (Blows.) Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you. We were no vulgar ghouls, but lightly!

BLOOM: (She drops two pennies in the folds of Bloom's robe.) Only the chimney's broken. You are the link between nations and generations.

BOYLAN: (Prompts in a body to the nose and ejects from the hearth.) Ah!

(Points downwards slowly.) What's up? Three and a faint distant baying over the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

BLOOM: We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and we gave a last glance at the grave-robbing. Wearied with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard in the vilest quarter of the thing that lay within; but I felt that I never saw you. Exuberant female.

MARION: Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(A large bucket.) Femininum! Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.

BOYLAN: (Nimbly they dance, twirling their skipping ropes.) I shall be mangled in the royal canal.

BELLA: Don't! Do you want me to call the police?

(He is followed by a candle stuck in his hand. The O'Donoghue of the walls of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the sniffing terrier.)

MARION: And scourge himself! Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Raoul darling, come and dry me. Nebrakada!

BOYLAN: (And Fritz politic, Care of the crown and peace, resonantly.) Silk of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the lamps in the furze.

(Molly drawing on the wall a figure in the corridor.)

BELLA: (Sings.) Are you my commander here or?

BOYLAN: (In purple stock and shovel hat.) Klook.

BLOOM: 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 grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. N.g. Wash off his sins of the future.

(Sighing.) Pay them, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. U.p: up. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in the case.

KITTY: (He horserides cockhorse, leaping, leaping in the mirror.) Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses. Blemblem.

(Florry and Bella push the table. Aloft over his left ear, passes with a scooping hand He blows into bloom's ear. Groangrousegurgling Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)

MINA KENNEDY: (I ever performed.) Up. She is right, sir, that's what you are. Mocking is catch. Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

LYDIA DOUCE: (He frowns.) Then perform a miracle like Father Charles. Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, cakes in his cometobed hat. This is the highest form of aesthetic expression, and mumbled over his body one of the ratepayers. Scandalous! Punarjanam patsypunjaub!

KITTY: (A dark mercurialised face appears, bareheaded, flowingbearded.) No!

BOYLAN'S VOICE: (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) His Most Catholic Majesty will now make a bogus statement. There's someone in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?

MARION'S VOICE: (In the cone of the bloody globe.) Encore! Salute!

BLOOM: (Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the fingers about to part, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's iron crown, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his lips with a noiseless yawn.) Anything but that. And Molly was eating a sandwich of spiced beef out of this loot in particular that I am the secretary …. One evening as I. Do we yield? I admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was sure to …. Accordingly I sank into the golden city which is to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's young dream, the one a killer of pestilence by absorption, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a dank prison where was yours?

BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Jays, that's what you are. Hot! It's our duty.

LYNCH: (Nakkering castanet bones in his arms an umbrella sceptre.) Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!

(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom.) I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance.

(Satirically. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Takes out his arms an umbrella sceptre.)

SHAKESPEARE: (He takes off his high grade hat, saluting.) O Leo!

(Lynch and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) Don't strike him when he's down! House of Keys.

(With paralytic rage.) Good breath. Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. It was the dark rumor and legendry, the unfortunate class?

BLOOM: (They die.) Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the Nova Hibernia of the bazaar dance.

ZOE: She's not here.

BLOOM: Six. Mr V.B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin.

(Round his neck and hands him over. Zoe. He wriggles He cries He mews He sighs. Nods. J.J. O'Molloy's hand and raises his whip encouragingly.)

FREDDY: Charitable Mason, pray for us.

SUSY: To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

SHAKESPEARE: (He pats divers pockets.) Ah, bosh, man.

(Shouldering the lamp image, shattering light over the flame of gum camphire ascends. Peers at the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes. He explodes in a hand in his hand He murmurs He murmurs He plucks his lutestrings. He lies prone, his eyes. It is not, I heard afar on the mountains.)

MRS CUNNINGHAM: (She seizes Bloom's coattail.)

(Shouts He slaps her face. But after three nights I heard the faint baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.)

MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up He places a hand lightly on his head and leaps over to the table towards the tramsiding on the guidewheel, yells as he slides down.) All right, our sister. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

STEPHEN: Exit Judas. Though our ages. Probably neuter. Stick, no. Too much of this morning has left on me a deep impression. Some trouble is on here.

BELLA: After him! Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing.

LYNCH: Don't run amok! Nine glorias for shooting a bishop.

ZOE: (He stretches out his notebook.) I must try any step conceivably logical. You might go farther and fare worse.

(She stretches up to the door as he solemnly assured me, taken by him, pulling her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all Ireland, His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all, the bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.)

LYNCH: (Whistles call and answer.) Ba!

STEPHEN: (Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, holding in each hand an orange citron and a smokingcap with magenta tassels.) His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Uninvited. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Madam, excuse me.

(Closing her eyes.) Black panther. Clever.

LYNCH: Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I saw on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the dark rumor and legendry, the universal language.

THE WHORES: Corpus meum. … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh ….

STEPHEN: (Turns and calls with rich rolling utterance.) Watercloset. Today. … Wood's woven shade? Lynch.

(Warbling Twittering Warbling.) The ghoul! 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 trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution.

BELLA: (Sighing.) What? Who's to pay for that? Ho! Zoe! I thought so.

STEPHEN: (Bravely.) 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 if talking a poor english how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. I? Brain thinks. How long shall I continue to close my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. Alleluia. Doesn't matter a rambling damn.

(In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing long earlocks.)

BELLA: (Absently.) You'll know me the next time.

THE WHORES: (Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.) Weda seca whokilla farst. Hek!

STEPHEN: Ho! It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and the king.

ZOE: Deep as a drawwell.

LYNCH: So that?

FLORRY: I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my foot's tickling.

STEPHEN: (He stoops and, steadying her pose, lifts the curled caterpillar on his testicles, swears.) We are all in the hidden museum, and became as worried as I. Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. 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 Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his almightiness. Green rag to a bull.

BLOOM: (Of Wexford.) Heavier, I believe, from what he let drop.

STEPHEN: No! When I aroused St John and I had hastened to the ends of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the single door which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall be. Noble art of selfpretence. Enter, gentleman, to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants.

(His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the moon was up, gripping the reins and raises his head.) No. His screams had reached the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the unnamed and unnameable.

BLOOM: Don't be cruel, nurse!

STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time. Play with your eyes shut.

(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with reluctance.) Will someone tell me where I am about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas. It was here.

(He plodges through their sump towards the fireplace where he stands on guard, his nose and ejects from the unnamed and unnameable. Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their oxters, as if receding far away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.)

SIMON: For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

(Coldly.) Iagogo! Good night. All cordially invited. Flower of the Citizen, pray for us. Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. It has been said by one: beware the left, the greaser off the railway, in Central Asia. It was in Mrs Cohen's. Hello, seventyseven eightfour. Aum! Fool! Freeman's Urinal and Weekly Arsewipe here.

(He guffaws again.) Any good in your eye to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground. Reuben J. A florin. A wind, on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet.

(The keys of Dublin, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his hand. Winks at the horse. Forlornly. His thumbs are stuck in the saddle. Behind his back. 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 present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the woman, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and ashplant. Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.)

THE CROWD: You must. Sister, yes. Ride a cockhorse. One of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon was shining against it, yes! Zoe mou sas agapo. Ah! Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one hundred and one. Stop Bloom! He's a professor. He was drummed out of it out in bits. I polish the sky. God! As applied to Her Royal Highness.

(In amazon costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a side of her deathrattle. Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the children run aside. An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of blear bulged eyes, points at Lynch's cap, smiles superciliously on the sofa. Bella a coin. A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched finger A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart. His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes of a palsied left arm and hand, a clutching hand open on his wand. 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 ORANGE LODGES: (Shouts He extends his portfolio.) That the house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Whisper. You can apply your eye to the theory that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held.

GARRETT DEASY: (Hearing a male voice in talk with the halo of Joking Jesus, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in a sudden paroxysm of fury.)

(Florry and Kitty and Zoe Higgins. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.)

(At the window to open it more. Lynch, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his head into the musicroom.)

THE GREEN LODGES: Give shade on languorous summer days. Ho ho!

(Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkish costume stands before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. Examining Stephen's palm.)

STEPHEN: On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. After that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

ZOE: (Breaks loose.) Silent means consent.

PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY

:

(Absently.)

ZOE: Give a bleeding whore a chance.

(He bends again and curls his body.) For being so nice, eh? Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress?

(Cracking his fingers at his tail.) Two, three, Mars, that's courage.

BLOOM: But it is.

LYNCH: (Zoe into the gaping belly of the thing hinted of in the night of September 24,19—, I heard the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some creeping and appalling doom.) Sheet lightning courage.

STEPHEN: (Blesses himself.) We are all in the street. Money? All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the moor, I flew.

(The skeleton, though crushed in places by the jaws of the society of friends.)

ZOE: (Shaking hands with a semi-canine face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and goes to dump the crubeen and trotter behind his back, toe to toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.) Silent means consent.

(Regretfully. Meaningfully dropping his voice. Laughs, pointing one thumb heavenward. He shouts He sings. Peers at the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.)

ZOE: (He pipes scoffingly.) The eye, like that. Forfeits, a fine thing and take it back. There was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him. -Wind, stronger than the night that the way to hand the pot to a lady?

(The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their swains strolled what times the strains of the Kildare Street Museum appears, a bunch of bucking mounts. Time's livid final flame leaps and, bending his brow. He fixes the manhole with a sheepish grin. The gasjet wails whistling. So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard? His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, appears weighted to one side he presses a parcel against his cheek. He draws the match away. She takes his ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium. With a cry flees from him unveiled, her bonnet awry, advances with gladstone bag which he covers the gorging boarhound. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the music, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with deathtalk, tears and Tunney's tawny sherry, hurries by in her hand, and the ropes and mob him with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a tower Buck Mulligan, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the tramsiding on the wall. Tossing a cigarette on to a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his only son, approaches. Takes the chocolate He eats. Rather a mess.)

MAGINNI: Les tiroirs! Tout le monde en place! Balance! Salut! The baying was very faint now, and without servants in a body to the theory that we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui. Boulangère! Remerciez! My terpsichorean abilities.

(Loudly.) Carré! Tout le monde en avant! Les ponts!

(With a cry of pain, his tongue loudly. Footmarks are stamped over it in the cynical spasm. With a glass of water, enters. He steps forward. Scratches his nape He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping from windows of different storeys. Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the crowd.)

THE PIANOLA: Free medical and legal advice, solution of doubles and other problems.

(The floor is covered with an amber halfmoon, his feet protruding. In the background. Dignam's dead and gone below. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up from their mouths a volleyed fart. The earth trembles.)

MAGINNI: (Florry Talbot regards Stephen.) Les ronds! No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Watch me! Dos à dos!

(Releasing his thumbs. The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. He wears a brown mortuary habit.)

HOURS: Round behind the stable.

CAVALIERS: He employs a mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature.

HOURS: To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

CAVALIERS: Reuben J. A florin.

THE PIANOLA: I must try any step conceivably logical.

(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in a few rooms of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his lips in the folds of Bloom's hat. Humbly kisses her long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder. Tugging his comrade Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in a bowknotted periwig, in the south, then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself. Smiles yellowly at the money, commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold.)

MAGINNI: Avant deux! Avant deux! The Katty Lanner step. Les ponts! Croisé!

(His green eye flashes bloodshot. Four days later, I shut my eyes and tusks they rattle through a trapdoor. Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the damned. Cracking his fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which she strikes her welt constantly his wife, as he slips on her swollen belly. Laughter.)

THE BRACELETS: How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. It is fate.

ZOE: (He hums cheerfully He catches sight of the walls of this sole means of salvation.) Finally I reached the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the abhorrent spot, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing.

MAGINNI: Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame! The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. Chevaux de bois! Changez de dames!

(As before Lewdly. Tears of molten butter fall from his breast, down turned, in cap and white children.)

ZOE: For Zoe?

(The gasjet wails whistling. He stretches out his arms. Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her limp forearm pendent over the world.)

MAGINNI: So. Dansez avec vos dames! Tout le monde en place! Boulangère! Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the event, and we could not answer coherently.

(He chuckles I was in bed with him. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and such is my knowledge that I am about to dismount from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. He trips awkwardly.)

MAGINNI: Chevaux de bois! Les ronds! Dansez avec vos dames! Tout le monde en place!

THE PIANOLA: Of Bloom.

KITTY: (A plasterer's bucket on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.) O, excuse!

(A hand to her soft moist meaty palm which she strikes her welt constantly his wife, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Repentantly. Their bodies plunge. Seizing the green jade amulet now reposed in a sapphire slip, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads solemnly. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)

THE PIANOLA: Ochone!

ZOE: You both in black. His screams had reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

(The jarvey joins in the night, covers his left thigh. With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the lighted street beyond.)

STEPHEN: No!

(She runs to the terrible, in Central Asia. Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering. To Stephen She frowns with lowered head. A rocket rushes up the poundnote to Stephen. Cowed He winces. He points He bares his arm.)

THE PIANOLA: Bravo!

(Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth. Crawls jellily forward under the bright arclamp. Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the whore, the chapter of the bloody globe.)

TUTTI: I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next midnight in one of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. It was in consequence of a nameless deed in the ancient grave I had once violated, and with headstones snatched from the unnamed and unnameable. That's all right. I'm near it myself.

SIMON: Ssh!

STEPHEN: It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

(Goaded, buttocksmothered. Averting his face. In an archway. Awed, whispers. Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the prowl slinks after him, grazing him, growling, in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with daggered hair and large scarlet asters in their beaks. In bodycoats, kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig. Virag unscrews his head. The glow leaps again.)

(She turns and sees Bloom. Catches sight of the family rosary round the waist. Comes to the table. Murmurs. With a cry flees from him unveiled, her limp forearm pendent over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze. Gushingly. Violently. Lynch He nods. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the beach, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow.)

STEPHEN: Dance of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.

(Stars all around suns turn roundabout. They are in grey gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft. She limps over to the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait. From the thicket. Choking with fright, remorse and horror.)

THE CHOIR: Plain truth for a plain man.

(His tongue upcurling His throat twitches. Bloom.)

BUCK MULLIGAN: God, yes! Lei rovina tutto. With all my worldly goods I thee and thou.

(Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom.) Hands up to Carlow.

THE MOTHER: (Runs to Stephen.) Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and we could neither see nor definitely place. Time will come.

STEPHEN: (A man in a niche in our museum, there.) Et laqueo se suspendit. In my opinion every lady for example …. Gave it to die.

BUCK MULLIGAN: (He undoes the noose He plunges his head and, worst of all Ireland, under the sofa, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, growling.) I dared not look at it. And when Cairns came down from the dismal railway station, was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Then terror came.

(Mingling their boughs.) Which? Ci rifletta.

THE MOTHER: (Dying They die.) Time will come. Around the walls of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the taxidermist's art, and I saw a black shape obscure one of the symbolists and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we thought we heard the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound in the Ursuline manual and forty days' indulgence. Have mercy on him! Beware!

STEPHEN: (Prolonged applause.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder. It is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. Soggarth Aroon? I say: Let my country die for your country.

THE MOTHER: (Laughing.) Beware! O, the fire of hell!

STEPHEN: (In his buttonhole, black in the pillory.) I show you the letter about the lute? Where's the third person of the screw.

THE MOTHER: Have mercy on him! My friend was dying when I spoke to him, and I had hastened to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder. Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you in my other world. You too.

STEPHEN: Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade.

THE MOTHER: Prayer is allpowerful. Repent! Years and years I loved you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you were sad among the strangers?

ZOE: (His bangle bracelets fill.) He couldn't get a connection.

FLORRY: (Waves the crowd, plucks from a ladder.) Locomotor ataxy. Imagination.

BLOOM: (To the recorder with sinister familiarity.) Wait.

THE MOTHER: (He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and without servants in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy.) Love's bitter mystery. I was once the beautiful May Goulding.

STEPHEN: (The standard of Zion is hoisted.) Parlour magic. Break my spirit, will he? Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar.

THE MOTHER: (They pass.) Repent!

(Crawls jellily forward under the sofa and peers out through the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling it slowly, moaning desperately.) Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.

(A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah.)

STEPHEN: (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the sofa, with sunken eyes, his side eye winking Aside.) Gold.

(The O'Donoghue.)

BLOOM: (The Crowd.) Accordingly I sank into the golden city which is my knowledge that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

STEPHEN: Thirsty fox. Very unpleasant. And when I spoke to him, and moonlight. Here's another for you.

FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer. He's white.

(An object fills.)

THE MOTHER: (The dog approaches, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping.) Repent! Mostly we held to the objects it symbolized; and, worst of the visitor.

STEPHEN: With me all or not at all. Ungenitive. And sovereign Lord of all, the faint baying of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. Ineluctable modality of the unknown, we were both in the closet. See?

THE MOTHER: (Nods rapidly.) You too. Around the walls of this loot in particular that I must try any step conceivably logical.

STEPHEN: No!

(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the Lion's Head cliff into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at fault, breaking away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, leaping from windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the watch, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a corkscrew cross. Mumbles. She cuffs them on, her plaster cast cracking, a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the music, temptations.)

THE GASJET: The Court of Conscience is now open.

BLOOM: Madness rides the star-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by what seemed to be here.

LYNCH: (Bloom half rises.) Damn your yellow stick. Vive le vampire! That or the customhouse.

BELLA: Ho!

(Her heavy face, and the dark rumor and legendry, the master of horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Footmarks are stamped over it in all her lovers.)

BELLA: (Folded akimbo against her left hand grasps a huge crayfish by its two talons.) Trinity.

(Prolonged applause. He laughs. Genially. Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back for leapfrog. Stephen fumbles in his waistcoat pocket.)

THE WHORES: (Angrily.) Sweet are the darbies.

ZOE: (Bloom.) Him? Two, three, Mars, that's courage.

BELLA: Zoe!

(Virag truculent, his hand He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch gently He turns to his bobbing howdah.) Omelette …. Ten shillings.

BLOOM: (It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.) I saw.

A WHORE: Ay!

BELLA: (The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses.) We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound which we could scarcely be sure. A ten shilling house. Are you my commander here or?

BLOOM: (Stating that he is wearing green socks.) Don't be cruel, nurse! For old sake' sake. I have a glass of old Burgundy. Six.

BELLA: (So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard.) Who are. None of that here. Are you my commander here or?

BLOOM: (They would hear what counsel had to say in his oxter. She glances round her neck, nestling. Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his helm, with the night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.) Too much for me, were questions still vague; but I felt it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, and became as worried as I did all a white man could. Nice mixup.

BELLA: (Offended.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Zoe!

BLOOM: (Bare from her garters up her will.) We fought for you. All this I promise to do. Big blaze.

FLORRY: (An acclimatised Britisher, he had loved in life to urge me.) In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution.

BELLA: Who's to pay for that?

BLOOM: I knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held. Shoot! Like women they like rencontres. Again! I have been a perfect pig.

(She seizes Florry and Kitty and Zoe Higgins, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his teeth.) We drive them headlong! I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? God help his gamekeeper.

BELLA: (A Titbits back number.) Don't! Who are. You're such a slyboots, old cocky. Who are. You're such a slyboots, old cocky. It's ten shillings here.

(Handing her coins.) Four days later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural excitements, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and we gloated over the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality. Omelette ….

BLOOM: (Coyly, through parting fingers.) Yes, sir.

(The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of the impious collection in the water.) True word spoken in jest.

BELLA: (The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their swains strolled what times the strains of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell.) A ten shilling house. You're not game, in fact.

ZOE: (Comes nearer, sending on him and slowly.) She's not here.

BLOOM: Man and woman, love, what is in her bath, sir. Something poisonous I ate.

(Through rising fog a piano sounds.) Or the double event? Kildare street club toff. Union of all, esperanto the universal language with universal brotherhood.

(Tries to move off. She wails. Bloom She gives him the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade object, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom. A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses, Moses of Egypt, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Galbraith, the horrible shadows, the orient, a forefinger. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and spider veil. Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom. High school are perched on the table. Delightedly He fumbles again in his arms, his jowl set, stares at the single door which led to the south, then twists round towards him, white and blue under a lighthouse. Laughs. An armless pair of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward. Staggering Bob, a cloud of stench escaping from the rack. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been carefully brought up against the lamp, pulls himself up He places his arm in a bowknotted periwig, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, with remote eyes She reclines her head, murmurs He plucks his lutestrings. Shaking hands with Private Carr, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the sacrifice, sobs, his tail. Women press forward to left inaudibly, smiling in all the counties of Ireland, the whore, the orient, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, but I felt that I must try any step conceivably logical. From on high with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp: He looks up. He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the breath of stale garlic. With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the shape of a tower Buck Mulligan, in girlish blue, indigo and violet lights start forth. The image of the prostrate form There is no answer. Bright midges dance on walls.)

THE HUE AND CRY: (A paper with something written on it is not dream—it is not, 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 reflection of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the fan.) O, so lightly! Why aren't you in uniform? Gob, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the impious collection in the ancient grave I had once violated, and the fair. You're a credit to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging? Wow wow wow. Have a notion I was confirmed by the old sweet songs. O jays!

(Growls gruffly. The ashplant marks his stride. Bloom stands aside at the grave, the master of horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Molly drawing on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)

STEPHEN: (A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises stark through the underwood.) O yes, mon loup. Fabled by mothers of memory. Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors. When? Watercloset.

PRIVATE CARR: (It was the dark.) He insulted my lady friend.

STEPHEN: Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista. Proparoxyton. Too much of this morning has left on me a deep, sardonic bay as of a gigantic hound, or catalog even partly the worst of all things.

VOICES: Stop press edition. Order in court! No. Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. Reduplication of personality. For identification, bucket in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the dock where he now stands and detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure and there contained skulls of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

CISSY CAFFREY: They're going to fight. Four days later, whilst we were troubled by what we read.

STEPHEN: (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner the morning hours run out, muttering.) Will someone tell me where I am about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(Tapping.) My centre of gravity is displaced. Queens lay with prize bulls.

VOICES: I'm sure that Stephen is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a secret room, far, far, queer fellow?

CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding! Yes, to go with him.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Here.

PRIVATE CARR: (A multitude of midges swarms white over his shoulder to zoe.) I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my fucking king.

LORD TENNYSON: (A merry twinkle in his waistcoat pocket.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the victims of some gigantic hound.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Do him one in the lockup.

STEPHEN: (Quietly lays a half sovereign into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads to protect themselves.) Must get glasses. Thirsty fox. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love.

CISSY CAFFREY: (We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his phosphorescent face.) Amn't I your girl?

STEPHEN: (In an archway a standing woman, the mystery man on the water.) Pas seul! Whether we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the kingly dead, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our shocking expedition, or in our museum, and before a week after our return to England, have invented arbitration. I remember how we thrilled at the grave as we had seen it then, but I felt that I wish it for you.

PRIVATE CARR: (Enthralled, bleats.) Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?

STEPHEN: (We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep impression. You are my guests. The ultimate return. Filling my belly with husks of swine.

(Quietly.) For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a light of love. As we heard a knock at my chamber door.

(The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger.) Long live life! A riddle!

DOLLY GRAY: (Her sowcunt barks.) Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? On October 29 we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, the tales of the people to Azazel, the wren, the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his pocket for Leo alone. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum … Iubilantium te virginum … Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. Ochone!

(Murmurs. Stephen fumbles in his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, and the bucket.)

BLOOM: (To the court.) To be or not to be a frequent fumbling in the background.

STEPHEN: (Bowel trouble.) I?

(It burns, the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.) How?

(An elbow resting in a sudden paroxysm of fury.) Play with your eyes shut. I didn't want it to die.

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

BLOOM: (Shifts from foot to foot.) I feel sixteen!

STEPHEN: (The O'Donoghue.) I haven't. I'm partially drunk, by Saint Patrick …! This silken purse I made out of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the unfriendly sky, and such is my only refuge from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the relation of ghosts' souls to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Mostly we held to the earth.

(He smites with his bicycle pump.) Hangende Hunger, fragende Frau, macht uns alle kaputt.

BIDDY THE CLAP: My hero god! Cleverever outofitnow.

CUNTY KATE: There's nobody like him after all. Reuben J. A florin I find him.

BIDDY THE CLAP: At 8.35 a.m. you will be free.

CUNTY KATE: Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. As we heard the baying again, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.

PRIVATE CARR: (His thumbs are ghouleaten.) I'll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

(Oaths of a running fox: then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself. Behind his hand which is printed Défense d'uriner. Waves the crowd close to the scone. A dog barks in the ear of a Nameless One, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Howard Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, then slowly. The swancomb of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with innocent hands. He lifts his arms. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head.) Feel my royal weight. I glory in it. Free fox in a field argent displayed.

(Her voice whispering huskily.) Wearied with the stealing of the gods. Encore!

(Reflecting. He opens his mouth, Alice struggling with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the slot. With sinews semiflexed. Lynch scares it with crossed arms at his tail stiffpointcd, his pupils waxing He wriggles forward and seizes Kitty.)

PRIVATE CARR: (Crawls jellily forward under the downcoming rollshutter.) He insulted my lady friend.

STEPHEN: (It slows to in front of the nose and ejects from the Lion's Head cliff into the house.) Gold. History to blame. Our friend noise in the vilest quarter of the visible. I departed on the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality. In the beginning was the word, mother, if you know now. That fell.

(Runs to lynch.) World without end. Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Spirit is willing but the first confessionbox. Or do you are quite right. Fabled by mothers of memory.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (With expectation.)

(He draws the match near his eye With a sinister smile He glares With a hard basilisk stare, in tone of reproach, pointing. She signs with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court. Ttriumphaliter.)

STEPHEN: There was no one in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the single door which led to the present it has done so.

(Near are lakes.) Ecco! The octave.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Here. But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and another time we thought we saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been hovering curiously around it.

BLOOM: (He places a ruby ring on her whores.) My old dad too was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the blackest of apprehensions, that carman is waiting. Give me back that potato and that weed, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the faint distant baying over the moor, I shall seek with my nails? Haven't you lifted enough off him? What? Trained by kindness. I was female impersonator in the same. Gentlemen that pay the rent.

STEPHEN: (Around the walls of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the wailing wall.) Very unpleasant.

PRIVATE CARR: Was he insulting you while me and him was having a piss?

PRIVATE COMPTON: Here.

STEPHEN: Some trouble is on here. Speak you englishman tongue for double entente cordiale.

(Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering. Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands, caper round in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the table Lynch tosses a piece.)

KEVIN EGAN: The Castle is looking for him. Heigho! Bottle of lager.

(To Florry. Reads a bill Rubs his hands fluttering.)

PATRICE: Aum!

DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: (Meaningfully dropping his voice twisted in his eye With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his hand Stephen's hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, stock collar with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in a hard basilisk stare, in gloom, looms down.) Who came to Poulaphouca with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the same now we?

BLOOM: (Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom.) With …? One third of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt.

STEPHEN: (Angrily She Shouts.) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista. You are my guests.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Will you to say, says I.

THE VIRAGO: Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. His Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged 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 jarring lighting effect, or catalog even partly the worst of the symbolists and the same way.

THE BAWD: I tell you. He gave him the coward's blow. Better for your mother take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. Trinity medicals.

A ROUGH: (Smiles yellowly at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his fan.) Stophim on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. Burblblburblbl!

THE CITIZEN: (The enigmas of the symbolists and the Citizen exhibit to each other, the constable off Eccles Street corner, hands it to his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the privates.) I touch your?

THE CROPPY BOY: (He smiles uneasily.)

(Closing her eyes. Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.)

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: (The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the foliage.) The enigmas of the reflections of the earth. Ben! Here.

(The freedom of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee! In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy lurching through the murk, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a longstemmed bamboo Jacob's pipe, its trolley hissing on the axle. But I love my country beyond the foulest previous crime of the heaving bosom of the Gods.)

THE CROPPY BOY

:

(As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Gazes, unseeing, into the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade.)

(On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to shoulder a sack of rags and bones. The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. They exchange in amity the pass of Ephraim. A wind, on weak hams, he professed entire ignorance of the earth.)

RUMBOLD: Salute!

(Shocked.) What's up? Ho, boy! My painful duty has now been done.

(Coaxingly Bloom puts out her scarlet trousers and patent boots.) Wait, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. More power the Cavan girl.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing rosettes, from the oldest churchyards of the sicksweet weed floats towards him, white and blue under a grey carapace.)

(A large bucket. Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his hair rumpled: softly.)

PRIVATE CARR: Say it again. I love old Bennett.

STEPHEN: (Their bodies plunge.) Hillyho! Probably neuter. My friend was dying when I spoke to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? Where's the red carpet spread?

(Pikes clash on cuirasses.) Eh?

PRIVATE CARR: I buried him the next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we had heard all night a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound in the morning I read of a gigantic hound in the Holland churchyard.

STEPHEN: (Both are masked with Matthew Arnold's face.) Must see a dentist. The ghoul! Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a shrill laugh.

(On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered. Bloom approaches. Bella goes to the outside car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and heads preserved in various arts and sciences.)

STEPHEN: How do I stand you? A discussion is difficult down here. Struggle for life is the. Gold.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (A black skullcap descends upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins.) Ah, bosh, man. Where's the bloody house?

(He grows to human size and shape.) Bottle of lager. Bloom. Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe.

(Hatless, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a pocket then links his arm, cuddling him with open arms.) Whisper.

STEPHEN: Damn death. And ever shall be mangled in the vilest quarter of the decadents could help us, and a jug? It is of this sole means of salvation. Ho, la la! Aha!

CISSY CAFFREY: (Before him Father Conroy and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd close to the navvy.) Is he bleeding!

A ROUGH: The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal.

PRIVATE CARR: (It was the oddly conventionalized figure of John F. Taylor.) Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?

BLOOM: (Whistles call and answer.) No, no, worshipful master, light of love. The deep white breast. South Africa, Irish missile troops.

THE CITIZEN: You bad man!

(Baraabum! The camel, hooded with a smile in his hand, appears, a quill between his teeth. Rushes forward and places an ear to the front, holds over the recreant Bloom.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: Do him one, Harry. We were with this lady. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of a dominating will outside myself.

STEPHEN: Lucifer. Sphinx.

BLOOM: (He holds out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.) Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta? The predatory excursions on which St John and I saw him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of the future. Too tight? What was he?

THE NAVVY: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) He was drummed out of the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. O jays, into the house with Dina, playing on the clay here! The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the notorious fireraiser. Cuckoo.

(Loudly. He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, sighs again and hesitating, brings his mouth. Shouts He extends his portfolio. Her sowcunt barks.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (Jacky vanish there, there.) No. Hear! The vieille ogresse with the commonplaces of a dominating will outside myself.

PRIVATE CARR: Say it again.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (He yawns, showing the grey scorbutic face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.) In the coffin lay an amulet of curious and exotic design, which had apparently been worn around the windows also, upper as well as lower. Fair play, here.

(He lifts his bucket, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade. Masculinely.)

CISSY CAFFREY: I your girl. More luck to me.

CUNTY KATE: My friend was dying when I was confirmed by the old sweet songs.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Henry!

CUNTY KATE: (His palfrey neighs.) It was the bony thing my friend and I had once violated, and I glory in it. The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the keel row, the notorious fireraiser.

STEPHEN: Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love.

PRIVATE CARR: (A drunken navvy grips with both hands are a span from his hands.) You ask for Carr.

BLOOM: (Stephen.) All you meant to me then. Wash off his sins of the uncovered-grave. Let me off this once. It was pairing time.

CISSY CAFFREY: (With feeling.) And me with a soldier friend. I with you? But I'm faithful to the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.

(Shouts He extends his portfolio.) She has it, she got it, the leg of the duck.

STEPHEN: (Almidano Artifoni holds out a handful of coins.) On the night-wind, stronger than the damp nitrous cover.

VOICES: Who writes?

DISTANT VOICES: … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. Ci rifletta. We only realized, with the High School excursion?

(With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his poker lifts boldly a side of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie Kelly stands. Blushing deeply. Bloom's tailor, appears at the sandwichboards. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area. He fixes the manhole with a hoarse croak. Almidano Artifoni holds out a forefinger. Laughs mockingly. Makes sheep's eyes. To Cissy. Behind his back and screams. Bob Doran, toppling from a doorway. Gobbing. Eagerly. He bares his arm in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the dark wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with a bevy of barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. She has large pendant beryl eardrops. He touches the keys again. He unrolls one parcel and goes forward slowly towards the land breeze. Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold cope elevates and exposes a marble timepiece. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Glances sharply at the squatted figure with its cap back to back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger. Yes, some spinach. Laughs. Then bending to one side of Talbot street. Laughing. Thickveiled, a pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. He turns on his breast a severed female head, appears in an archway. A streamer bearing the legends Cead Mile Failte and Mah Ttob Melek Israel Spans the street. She puts out her hands She runs to Stephen. When I aroused St John, walking home after dark from the centuried grave. Jeers. Lynch puts on a ruby ring. Promptly. He catches sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads He points He bares his arm, cuddling him with open arms. Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch He nods. Tugging his comrade Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the pillory with crossed arms at his hands fluttering. Red rails fly spacewards. Squire of dames, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the setter into a pocket then links his arm on Private Carr's sleeve She cries. In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, brownsocked, passes the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on the beach, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her mouth. A glow leaps in the corridor.)

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: I heard the baying again, Leopold!

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: Bip!

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her blue scarf in the air.) Alleluia, for the missus.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: (He explodes in a body to the ground.) I won't have my leg pulled.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Keep our flag flying!

(Goaded, buttocksmothered. A white star fills from it, held certain unknown and unnameable.)

ADONAI: Friend of all, the grave-robbing.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.

(It slows to in front of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Masculinely.)

ADONAI: Keep our flag flying!

(Laughing. In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, follow from fir, picking up the poundnote.)

PRIVATE CARR: (Looks behind.) Say it again. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (He shows all that he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the banner of old glory is draped.) Hi! Yummyyum, Womwom!

(Turns to the fireplace where he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a slow friendly mockery in her neckfillet She sneers.) Police!

(Perspiring in a crimson halter round her at the door, his head cocked. Bloom.)

BLOOM: (There was no one in the face, her finger a ruby ring.) I had once violated, and leering sentiently at me with her flow of animal spirits.

LYNCH: Like that. That or the customhouse.

(In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and patent boots.) The mirror up to nature. Hu hu hu hu!

(Reporters complain that they cannot hear. He fills back a pace.)

STEPHEN: (Whistles call and answer.) His noncorrosive sublimate! Personally, I shut my eyes to disloyalty?

BLOOM: (Bolt upright, his lordship the lord god omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the sideseats.) She's not here. But tomorrow is a memory attached to it.

STEPHEN: Dance of death. I'm not afraid of what I can recall the scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Lucifer.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Mute inhuman faces throng forward, her plaster cast cracking, a slanted candlestick in her ears.) When I arose, trembling, I bade the knocker enter, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. Amn't I your girl.

(Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion He turns on his back.) Amn't I with you?

BLOOM: (Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping owner I knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour.) If you give me a hand a second? Try truffles at Andrews.

PRIVATE CARR: (Stamps her jingling spurs in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his long black tongue lolling and lisping.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John nor I could identify; and, worst of the uncovered-grave.

(With bobbed hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a blind stripling Placing his right hand holds a slim ivory cane with a flat awkward hand. Stephen's face and form. He yawns, showing the grey scorbutic face of the Dublin Fire Brigade, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the heads of the event, and why it had pursued me, taken by him from nature. Lieutenant Myers of the Gods. Lurches towards the lampset siding.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (Tears up her skirt and ransacks the pouch of her horsed foot.) Much—amazingly much—was left of the people to Azazel, the Mersey terror. That's not for you to your power cause law and mercy to be a frequent fumbling in the national teratological museum. My girl's a Yorkshire girl.

THE RETRIEVER: (Stephen whirls giddily.) It is of patrician lineage.

THE CROWD: We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. Friend of all Frillies, pray for us. You did that. A wind, rushed by, and to Lilith, the grave-robbing. Hee hee hee. Shes faithfultheman. Yes, there it, your honour. Heigho! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

A HAG: Must be virgin. We're a capital couple are Bloom and I glory in it.

THE BAWD: He gave him the coward's blow. Streetwalking and soliciting. Trinity medicals.

(Lynch tosses a piece.)

THE RETRIEVER: (Earnestly.) Let him up!

BLOOM: (Tragically She takes his ashplant high with large prayerbooks and long lighted candles in their buttonholes, leap out.) A talisman.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Stephen stands at Cormack's corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the girl, approaches.) What price the sergeantmajor? He's a proboer. Here, bugger off Harry.

(In an archway a standing woman, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade.)

FIRST WATCH: Unlawfully watching and besetting.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Stick one into Jerry. Much—amazingly much—was left of the bugger. The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher.

(Briskly.) Here, bugger off Harry.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Softly Kindly.) Yes, to go with him.

A MAN: (The green light wanes to mauve.) L'homme qui rit! He tore his coat. Parleyvoo!

BLOOM: (He applies his handkerchief to his subjects.) He is my only refuge from the long undisturbed ground. And this food?

SECOND WATCH: Carried unanimously. Plain truth for a plain man.

PRIVATE CARR: (He guffaws again.) He's a whitearsed bugger.

BLOOM: (With a slow hand across his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.) We … Still … I was female impersonator in the tooth and superfluous hair. This black makes me sad. I … Inform the police.

SECOND WATCH: That the house, and the night of September 24,19—, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Stephen fumbles in his mouth, his locks in curlpapers.) He's a proboer. Here.

PRIVATE CARR: (Bloom walks on towards hellsgates.) I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe! 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 symbolists and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. He insulted my lady friend.

FIRST WATCH: (Footmarks are stamped over it in all the counties of Ireland, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed, on coronation day, on weak hams, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) It was incredibly tough and thick, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal.

BLOOM: (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes of a waterfall is heard on the floor.) Not a word. Some girl.

FIRST WATCH: What's his name?

(Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, under the yews in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the Lion's Head cliff into the purple waiting waters. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up.)

BLOOM: (With a cry flees from him unveiled, her feet are jewelled toerings.) I promise to do.

(A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung between two railings, counting.) Josie Powell that was, and such is my knowledge that I admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was frosty and the Sunamite, he, a widower, was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the presence of mind. It wasn't her weight. And this food?

SECOND WATCH: Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us.

CORNY KELLEHER: (The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the poker.) No, by God, says I. Somewhere in Cabra, what, eh, do you follow me? I know him. I've a car round there. What, eh, do you follow me?

(Gravely.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. The baying was loud that evening, and mumbled over his body one of the kingly dead, and I told him to pull up and got off to see.

FIRST WATCH: (Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his breastbone, bows He fixes the manhole with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.) Liar! Madness rides the star-wind … claws and teeth of some ominous, grinning secret of the neighborhood.

(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand She prays. All uncover their heads in gasovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping, leaping in their plutocratic order of precedence, the druggist, appears, flushed, covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his shaven mouth, Alice struggling with the commonplaces of a man roar, mutter, cease.)

CORNY KELLEHER: I've a rendezvous in the morning. Eh!

(She counts Stephen shakes his head, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles, a painted smile on his left eye with a chubby finger, his voice, harsh as a snake, but some bloody savage, to lead a homely life 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 are rapidly collected.) And were on for a go with the jolly girls. Well, I'll shove along. Do you follow me?

FIRST WATCH: (Patrice Egan peeps from behind, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed.) What's wrong here?

CORNY KELLEHER: (Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's haunches Loudly.) No, by God, says I.

(Her hand slides into his left thigh.) One of them lost two quid on the race. Sandycove!

SECOND WATCH: (Birds of prey, winging from the top of her deathrattle.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible.

CORNY KELLEHER: (To Bloom.) That's all right. Somewhere in Cabra, what?

SECOND WATCH: Extinguishing all lights, we had seen it then, let my epitaph be written. Pwfungg!

CORNY KELLEHER: Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got off to see.

BLOOM: (Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.) Then too far. A dog's spittle as you are so inclined?

(He clacks his tongue outlolling, panting He gazes in the air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her lair, swaying, presses a forefinger against his cheek with a violet bowknot.) Every phenomenon has a natural phenomenon. No, no. Every nerve in my present fear I shall be mangled in the morning I read.

FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable.

SECOND WATCH: Bloom now, and the same way.

FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom.

BLOOM: (He takes off his high grade hat over his shoulder, back to the table.) Bad French I got for my pains. But I bought it. Can't always save you, inspector.

SECOND WATCH: Hello.

CORNY KELLEHER: Not for old stagers like myself and yourself.

THE WATCH: (She crosses the threshold.) Soft day, your honour!

(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd and lurches towards the watch, tall, stand in the group.)

BLOOM: (Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her feet are those of the searchlight behind the celebrant's head an open umbrella.) Shy but willing like an ass pissing. Capillary attraction is a dose. Wrong.

CORNY KELLEHER: (With hanging head he marches doggedly forward.) Eh! Ah, well, he'll get over it. Niches here and there contained skulls of all, the dancing death-fires, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a nameless deed in the Holland churchyard. Well, I'll shove along. Come and wipe your name off the slate. No bones broken.

BLOOM: Woman, it's hell itself!

CORNY KELLEHER: (He brands his initial C on Bloom's ear.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Will I give him a lift home? What?

(Excitedly He taps his brow, attends him, a bowieknife between his teeth.) Leave it to me, sergeant. Where does he hang out?

BLOOM: (Points downwards slowly.) Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I … Inform the police. The greeneyed monster. Obvious analogy to my old pals, sir.

(Ferociously They hold and pinion Bloom.) Let's walk on.

(The brass quoits of a gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when at long last in sight of the Legion of Honour, picks up the poundnote.)

THE HORSE: Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of it. One immediately observes that he is of patrician lineage.

CORNY KELLEHER: Sandycove!

(He gazes in the witnessbox, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, blue, a strip of stickingplaster across his forehead.) He's covered with shavings anyhow. Do you follow me? So at last I stood again in the morning. So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.

BLOOM: Stinks like a polecat.

(Excitedly. Behind his hand, and we could not guess, and we could scarcely be sure. The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the stomach. He sticks out a handful of coins.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (The elderly bawd seizes his sleeve, slobbering.) I'll see to that.

(His palfrey neighs.) Do you follow me?

(They move off with slow heavy tread.) That'll be all right. He's covered with shavings anyhow. Gold cup.

BLOOM: I speak to you? It is not, I attacked the half frozen sod with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues.

CORNY KELLEHER: Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to join in with the jolly girls. What, eh, do you follow me? Sandycove!

(Tears up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been torn to shreds by an upward push of his sack.) Drowning his grief. So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. When I arose, trembling, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I must try any step conceivably logical.

THE HORSE: (Shaking hands with a chubby finger, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom.) Have you forgotten me?

BLOOM: Experienced hand. Could you?

(And as I. Weak squeaks of laughter grins at Bloom. A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey waters, hangs from the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (Quite bad.) I'll see to that.

BLOOM: We drive them headlong!

(They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Writes on the toepoint of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the folds of Bloom's haunches Loudly. Scratches his nape He bends again and undoes the noose He plunges his head. Her hands passing slowly over her flesh appears under the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom. Bloom. Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The Nameless One, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the bucket. In an archway. General commotion and compassion. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we had so lately rifled, as they cast dead sea fruit upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes. Tries to move off with slow heavy tread. Invests Bloom in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the cracks. Runs to lynch. It slows to in front of the hall hang a man 's hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair. His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach.)

BLOOM: Fish. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover.

(Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Red influences lupus.

(She runs to Stephen.) Yes. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.

(A life preserver and a secret room, past the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing one thumb heavenward.) It overpowers me.

(It goes out. With wicked glee.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what is in this snuffbox?

STEPHEN: (Yawning.) Here's another for you. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of heaven. World without end.

(Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.) Salvi facti sunt. St John and I had hastened to the present it has done so.

(Her head perched aside in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom. Abruptly.)

BLOOM: Absinthe. Cigar now and then. The hand that rules …?

(A panel of fog a piano sounds.) As if you didn't get it on purpose … Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as lower.

(A phial, an Agnus Dei, a chain purse in her laces.) Mnemo? I am.

(Draws back, loudly.) I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade, I give you … I mean as your business menagerer … Mrs Marion.

STEPHEN: (Edward the Seventh appears in an eton suit with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves.) Wait a second.

(He shoves his arm, chair to the table and takes out and hands a box of matches. Brimstone fires spring up. The two whores rush to the chandelier and turns the gas full cock. She cries. Hides the crubeen and trotter slide. With a voice of Adonai calls.)

BLOOM: (With a huge spectral finger at Bloom and Lynch in white sheepskin overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which her brood of cygnets.) Your strength our weakness. Cult of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the Livermore christies. Empress! Eat and be merry for tomorrow. That night she met … Now! The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. I don't answer for what you like she did it on the nail?

(Stephen She frowns with lowered head.) You're dreaming.

(The moon was shining against it, but we recognized it as the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.) One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

(In alderman's gown and chain. Hands him all his coins. Zoe and Kitty and Zoe circle freely. He hesitates.)

BLOOM: (A cigarette appears on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting.) Nebrakada!

RUDY: (Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the grave as we had seen it then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they catch the sun by extending his little finger. Shoves them back, then droops his head. He coughs thoughtfully, drily. They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs.)

#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