Ulysses - Gabler Edition [217]
MRS BREEN
(all agog) O, not for worlds.
BLOOM
Let’s walk on. Shall us?
MRS BREEN
Let’s.
(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)
THE BAWD
Jewman’s melt!
BLOOM
(in an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd’s plaid Saint Andrew’s cross scarftie, white spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a grey billycock hat) Do you remember a long long time, years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?
MRS BREEN
(in smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider veil) Leopardstown.
BLOOM
I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I’ll lay you what you like she did it on purpose ....
MRS BREEN
She did, of course, the cat! Don’t tell me! Nice adviser!
BLOOM
Because it didn’t suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of a fullstop.
MRS BREEN
(squeezes his arm, simpers) Naughty cruel I was!
BLOOM
(low, secretly, ever more rapidly) And Molly was eating a sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher’s lunch basket. Frankly, though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her style. She was ....
MRS BREEN
Too ....
BLOOM
Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O’Reilly were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across ....
MRS BREEN
(eagerly) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her feet apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed sodden playfight.)
THE GAFFER
(crouches, his voice twisted in his snout) And when Cairns came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings for Derwan’s plasterers.
THE LOITERERS
(guffaw with cleft palates) O jays!
(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)
BLOOM
Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.
THE LOITERERS
Jays, that’s a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the men’s porter.
(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.)
THE WHORES
Are you going far, queer fellow?
How’s your middle leg?
Got a match on you?
Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.
(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.)
THE NAVVY
(belching) Where’s the bloody house?
THE SHEBEENKEEPER
Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout. Respectable woman.
THE NAVVY
(gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them) Come on, you British army!
PRIVATE CARR
(behind his back) He aint half balmy.