Ulysses - Gabler Edition [259]
LYNCH
(rushes forward and seizes Stephen’s hand) Here! Hold on! Don’t run amok!
BELLA
Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.)
BELLA
(screams) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES
(jammed in the doorway, pointing) Down there.
ZOE
(pointing) There. There’s something up.
BELLA
Who pays for the lamp? (she seizes Bloom’s coattail) Here, you were with him. The lamp’s broken.
BLOOM
(rushes to the hall, rushes back) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE
He tore his coat.
BELLA
(her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points) Who’s to pay for that? Ten shillings. You’re a witness.
BLOOM
(snatches up Stephen’s ashplant) Me? Ten shillings? Haven’t you lifted enough off him? Didn’t he ....?
BELLA
(loudly) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn’t a brothel. A tenshilling house.
BLOOM
(His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Puling, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the chimney’s broken. Here is all he ....
BELLA
(shrinks back and screams) Jesus! Don’t!
BLOOM
(warding off a blow) To show you how he hit the paper. There’s not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY
(with a glass of water, enters) Where is he?
BELLA
Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM
O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he’s a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (he makes a masonic sign) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vicechancellor. You don’t want a scandal.
BELLA
(angrily) Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is he? I’ll charge him! Disgrace him, I will! (she shouts) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM
(urgently) And if it were your own son in Oxford? (warningly) I know.
BELLA
(almost speechless) Who are. Incog!
ZOE
(in the doorway) There’s a row on.
BLOOM
What? Where? (he throws a shilling on the table and starts) That’s for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air.
(He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog has cleared off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph’s hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun Al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follow from far, picking up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman’s slipperslappers. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, VB Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O’Rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O’Dowd, Pisser Burke, the Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, the Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d