Ulysses - Gabler Edition [251]
THE NYMPH
(her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit) Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! (a large moist stain appears on her robe) Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman. (she clutches again in her robe) Wait. Satan, you’ll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. (she draws a poniard and, clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins) Nekum!
BLOOM
(starts up, seizes her hand) Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o’ nine lives! Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? (he clutches her veil) A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?
THE NYMPH
(with a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks) Poli ...!
BLOOM
(calls after her) As if you didn’t get it on the double yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your strength our weakness. What’s our studfee? What will you pay on the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read. (the fleeing nymph raises a keen) Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me. (he sniffs) Rut. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease.
(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)
BELLA
You’ll know me the next time.
BLOOM
(composed, regards her) Passée. Mutton dressed as lamb. Long in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of your other features, that’s all. I’m not a triple screw propeller.
BELLA
(contemptuously) You’re not game, in fact. (her sowcunt barks) Fbhracht!
BLOOM
(contemptuously) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully’s cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself.
BELLA
I know you, canvasser! Dead cod!
BLOOM
I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!
BELLA
(turns to the piano) Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul?
ZOE
Me. Mind your cornflowers. (she darts to the piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms) The cat’s ramble through the slag. (she glances back) Eh? Who’s making love to my sweeties? (she darts back to the table) What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own.
(Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom approaches Zoe.)
BLOOM
(gently) Give me back that potato, will you?
ZOE
Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing.
BLOOM
(with feeling) It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma.
ZOE
Give a thing and take it back
God’ll ask you where is that
You’ll say you don’t know
God’ll send you down below.
BLOOM
There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it.
STEPHEN
To have or not to have that is the question.
ZOE
Here. (she hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking) Those that hides knows where to find.
BELLA
(frowns) Here. This isn’t a musical peepshow. And don’t you smash that piano. Who’s paying here?
(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)
STEPHEN
(with exaggerated politeness) This silken purse I made out of the sow’s ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. (he indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom) We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch. Dans ce bordel où tenons nostre état.
LYNCH
(calls from the hearth) Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me.
STEPHEN
(hands Bella a coin) Gold. She has it.
BELLA
(looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty) Do you want three girls? It’s ten shillings here.
STEPHEN
(delightedly) A hundred thousand apologies. (he fumbles again and takes out and hands her two crowns) Permit, brevi manu, my sight is somewhat troubled.