by James Joyce
THE CARDINAL:
Conservio lies captured.
He lies in the lowest dungeon
With manacles and chains around his limbs
Weighing upwards of three tons.
(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour.)
O, the poor little fellow
Hi-hi-hi-hi-his legs they were yellow
He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake
But some bloody savage
To graize his white cabbage
He murdered Nell Flaherty’s duckloving drake.
(A multitude of midges swarms over his robe. He scratches himself with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims.)
I’m suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they’d walk me off the face of the bloody globe.
(His head aslant, he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers, imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar, merciful, male, melodious.)
Shall carry my heart to thee,
Shall carry my heart to thee,
And the breath of the balmy night
Shall carry my heart to thee.
(The trick doorhandle turns)
the doorhandle: Theeee.
ZOE: The devil is in that door.
(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.)
ZOE: (Sniffs his hair briskly) Hum. Thank your mother for the rabbits. I’m very fond of what I like.
BLOOM: (Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep, pricks his ears) If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double event?
ZOE: (Tears open the silverfoil) Fingers was made before forks. (She breaks off and nibbles a piece, gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then turns futtenishly to Lynch) No objection to French lozenges? (He nods. She taunts him.) Have it now or wait till you get it? (He opens his mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.) Catch. (She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it through with a crack.)
KITTY: (Chewing) The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with his lady. The gas we had on the Toft’s hobbyhorses. I’m giddy still.
BLOOM: (In Svengali’s fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the door. Then, rigid, with left foot advanced, he makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.) Go, go, go, I conjure you, whoever you are.
(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside. Bloom’s features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate!)
BLOOM: (Solemnly) Thanks.
ZOE: Do as you’re bid. Here. (A firm heelclacking is heard on the stairs)
BLOOM: (Takes the chocolate) Aphrodisiac? But I thought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red influences lupus. Colours affect women’s characters, any they have. This black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. (He eats) Influence taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at Andrews.
(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress enters. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and cools herself, flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed, with orangetainted nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)
BELLA: My word! I’m all of a mucksweat.
(She glances around her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated face, neck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)
THE FAN: (Flirting quickly, then slowly) Married, I see.
BLOOM: Yes…Partly, I have mislaid…
THE FAN: (Half opening, then closing) And the missus is master. Petticoat government.
BLOOM: (Looks down with a sheepish grin) That is so.
THE FAN: (Folding together, rests against her eardrop) Have you forgotten me?
BLOOM: Yes. No.
THE FAN: (Folded akimbo against her waist) Is me her was you dreamed before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now we? (Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan)
BLOOM: (Wincing) Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which women love.
THE FAN: (Tapping) We have met. You are mine. It is fate.
BLOOM: (Cowed) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog’s spittle, as you probably…(He winces) Ah!
RICHIE GOULDING: (Bagweighted, passes the door) Mocking is catch. Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s liver and kidney.
THE FAN: (Tapping) All things end. Be mine. Now.
BLOOM: (Undecided) All now? I should not have parted with my talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on lie sea rocks, a peccadillo at my time of life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause.
THE FAN: (Points downwards slowly) You may.
BLOOM: (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace) We are observed.
THE FAN: (Points downwards quickly) You must.
BLOOM: (With desire, with reluctance) I can make a true black knot. Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellet’s. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah!
(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, ageing, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.)
BLOOM: (Murmurs lovingly) To be a shoefitter in Mansfield’s was my love’s young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to knee-length the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris.
THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.
BLOOM: (Crosslacing) Too tight?
THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick your football for you.
BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Nook in wrong tache of her…person you mentioned. That night she met…Now! (He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes gram dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)
BLOOM: (Mumbles) Awaiting your further orders, we remain, gentlemen…
BELLO: (With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice) Hound of di
shonour!
BLOOM: (Infatuated) Empress!
BELLO: (His heavy cheekchops sagging) Adorer of the adulterous rump!
BLOOM: (Plaintively) Hugeness!
BELLO: Dungdevourer!
BLOOM: (With sinews semiflexed) Magnificence.
BELLO: Down! (He taps her on the shoulder with his fan) Incline feet forward! Slide left foot one pace back. You will fall. You are falling. On the hands down!
BLOOM: (Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing) Truffles!
(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his feet, then lies, shamming dead with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most excellent master)
BELLO: (With bobbed hair, purple gills, fat moustache rings round his shaven mouth, in mountaineer’s puttees, green siherbuttoned coat, sport skirt and alpine hat with moorcock’s feather, his hands stuck deep in his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in) Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot’s glorious heels, so glistening in their proud erect-ness.
BLOOM: (Enthralled, bleats) I promise never to disobey.
BELLO: (Laughs loudly) Holy smoke! You little know what’s in store for you. I’m the tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I’ll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be inflicted in gym costume.
(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the
fringe)
ZOE: (Widening her slip to screen her) She’s not here.
BLOOM: (Closing her eyes) She’s not here.
FLORRY: (Hiding her with her gown) She didn’t mean it, Mr Bello. She’ll be good, sir.
KITTY: Don’t be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won’t, ma’amsir.
BELLO: (Coaxingly) Come, ducky dear. I want a word with you, darling, just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. (Bloom puts out her timid head) There’s a good girly now. (Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward) I only want to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How’s that tender behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready.
BLOOM: (Fainting) Don’t tear my…
BELLO: (Savagely) The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging hook, the knout I’ll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old. You’re in for it this time. I’ll make you remember me for the balance of your natural life. (His forehead veins swollen, his face congested) I shall sit on your ottomansaddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson’s fat ham rashers and a botde of Guinness’s porter. (He belches) And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler’s Gazette. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you.
(He twists her arm. Bloom squeaks, turning turtle.)
BLOOM: Don’t be cruel, nurse! Don’t!
BELLO: (Twisting) Another!
BLOOM: (Screams) O, it’s hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches like mad!
BELLO: (Shouts) Good, by the ramping jumping general! That’s the best bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don’t keep me waiting, damn you. (He slaps her face)
BLOOM: (Whimpers) You’re after hitting me. I’ll tell…
BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.
ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will.
FLORRY: I will. Don’t be greedy.
KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me. (The brothel cook, Mrs Keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib, men’s grey and green socks and brogues, flour-smeared, a rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door) MRS
KEOGH: (Ferociously) Can I help? (They hold and pinion Bloom)
BELLO: (Squats, with a grunt, on Bloom’s upturned face, puffing cigar smoke, nursing a fat leg) I see Keating Clay is elected chairman of the Richmond Asylum and bytheby Guinness’s preference shares are at sixteen three quarters. Curse me for a fool that I didn’t buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, curse it. And that Goddamned outsider Throwaway at twenty to one. (He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom’s ear) Where’s that Goddamned cursed ashtray?
BLOOM: (Goaded, buttocksmothered) O! O! Monsters! Cruel one!
BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg, pray for it as you never prayed before. (He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar) Here, kiss that. Both. Kiss. (He throws a leg astride and, pressing with horseman’s knees, calls in a hard voice) Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I’ll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. (He bends sideways and squeezes his mount’s testicles roughly, shouting) Ho! off we pop! I’ll nurse you in proper fashion. (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the saddle) The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop.
FLORRY: (Pulls at Bello) Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked before you.
ZOE: (Pulling at Florry) Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress?
BLOOM: (Stifling) Can’t.
BELLO: Well, I’m not. Wait. (He holds in his breath) Curse it. Here. This bung’s about burst. (He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting his features, farts loudly) Take that! (He recorks himself) Yes, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters.
BLOOM: (A sweat breaking out over him) Not man. (He sniffs) Woman.
BELLO: (Stands up) No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling over head and shoulders and quickly too.
BLOOM: (Shrinks) Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I tiptouch it with my nails?
BELLO: (Points to his whores) As they are now, so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille, with whalebone busk, to the diamond trimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petti- coats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at first in such delicate thigh-casing but the frilly nimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you…
BLOOM: (A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male hands and nose, leering mouth) I tried her things on only once, a small prank, in Holies street. When we were hardup I washed them to save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift.
BELLO: (Jeers) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh! and showed offcoquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat’s udders, in various poses of surrender, eh? Ho! Ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunk leg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne Hotel, eh?
BLOOM: Miriam, Black. Demimondaine.
BELLO: (Guffaws) Christ Almighty, it’s too tickling, this! You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade, about to be violated by Lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell, M.P., Signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henry Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. (He guffaws again) Christ, wouldn’t it make a Siamese cat laugh?
BLOOM: (Her hands and features
working) It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play Vice Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister’s stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful.
BELLO: (With wicked glee) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne.
BLOOM: Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (Earnestly) And really it’s better the position…because often I used to wet…
BELLO: (Sternly) No insubordination.The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn’t I? Do it standing, sir! I’ll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you’ll find I’m a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.
THE SINS OF THE PAST: (In a medley of voices) He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black Church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in d’Olier Street while-he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order?
BELLO: (Whistles loudly) Say! What was the most revolt- ing piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out. Be candid for once.