Ulysses - Gabler Edition [261]
BLOOM
(propping him) Retain your own.
STEPHEN
(laughs emptily) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. (he taps his brow) But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP
Did you hear what the professor said? He’s a professor out of the college.
CUNTY KATE
I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP
He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology.
CUNTY KATE
Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR
(pulls himself free and comes forward) What’s that you’re saying about my king?
(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wars a white jersey on which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner’s and Probyn’s horse, Lincoln’s Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left hand he holds a plasterer’s bucket on which is printed Défense d’uriner. A roar of welcome greets him.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH
(slowly, solemnly but indistinctly) Peace, perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (he turns to his subjects) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a bak. (he shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and Lynch)
(General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)
PRIVATE CARR
(to Stephen) Say it again.
STEPHEN
(nervous, friendly, pulls himself up) I understand your point of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point. You die for your country. Suppose. (he places his arm on Private Carr’s sleeve) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn’t want it to die. Damn death. Long live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH
(levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face)
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN
Kings and unicorns! (he falls back a pace) Come somewhere and we’ll ... What was that girl saying ...?
PRIVATE COMPTON
Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one into Jerry.
BLOOM
(to the privates, softly) He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster. I know him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right.
STEPHEN
(nods, smiling and laughing) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR
I don’t give a bugger who he is.
PRIVATE COMPTON
We don’t give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN
I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o’-day boy’s hat signs to Stephen.)
KEVIN EGAN
H’lo! Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes.
(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.)
PATRICE
Socialiste!
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY
(in medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the privates) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM
(to Stephen) Come home. You’ll get into trouble.
STEPHEN
(swaying) I don’t avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP
One immediately observes that he is of patrician lineage.
THE VIRAGO
Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD
The red’s as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers! Up King Edward!