Ulysses - Gabler Edition [213]
(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)
THE URCHINS
Mind out, mister!
(Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling)
THE BELLS
Haltyaltyaltyall.
BLOOM
(halts erect, stung by a spasm) Ow!
(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The motorman bangs his footgong.)
THE GONG
Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.
(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman’s whitegloved hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys.)
THE MOTORMAN
Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?
(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.)
BLOOM
No thoroughfare. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow’s exercises again. On the hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. (he feels his trouser pocket) Poor mamma’s panacea. Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard’s corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. (he closes his eyes an instant) Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow!
(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O’Beirne’s wall, a visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.)
BLOOM
Bueñas noches, señorita Blanca. Que calle es esta?
THE FIGURE
(impassive, raises a signal arm) Password. Sraid Mabbot.
BLOOM
Haha. Merci. Esperanto. Slan leath. (he mutters) Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater.
(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps left, ragsackman left.)
BLOOM
I beg.
(He leaps right, sackragman right.)
BLOOM
I beg.
(He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on.)
BLOOM
Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who lost my way and contributed to the columns of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes for. Wash off his sins of the world.
(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.)
BLOOM
O
(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watchfob, pocketbookpocket, pursepoke, sweets of sin, potatosoap.)
BLOOM
Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves’ dodge. Collide. Then snatch your purse.
(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn face.)
RUDOLPH
Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with drunken goy ever. So you catch no money.
BLOOM
(hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.
RUDOLPH
What you making down this place? Have you no soul? (with feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom) Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?