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Ulysses 

901 

of

 1305 

Seems new. Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late 

than never. Try truffles at Andrews. 

(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, 

enters. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round 

the hem with tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black 

horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On her left hand are 

wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has 

a sprouting moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated 

and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. She has large pendant 

beryl eardrops.) 

BELLA: My word! I’m all of a mucksweat. 

(She glances round her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on 

Bloom with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards 

her heated faceneck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.) 

THE FAN: (Flirting quickly, then slowly) Married, I see. 

BLOOM: Yes. Partly, I have mislaid ... 

THE FAN: (Half opening, then closing) And the missus is 

master. Petticoat government. 

BLOOM: (Looks down with a sheepish grin) That is so. 

THE FAN: (Folding together, rests against her left eardrop) 

Have you forgotten me? 

BLOOM: Yes. Yo. 

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THE FAN: (Folded akimbo against her waist) Is me her 

was you dreamed before? Was then she him you us since 

knew? Am all them and the same now we? 

(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.) 

BLOOM:  (Wincing) Powerful being. In my eyes read 

that slumber which women love. 

THE FAN: (Tapping) We have met. You are mine. It is 

fate. 

BLOOM:  (Cowed) Exuberant female. Enormously I 

desiderate your domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, 

no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted 

letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late 

box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and 

window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo 

feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I 

have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear 

muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, 

was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal 

heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the 

end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he 

shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog’s 

spittle as you probably ... (He winces) Ah! 

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RICHIE GOULDING: (Bagweighted, passes the door) 

Mocking is catch. Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s. 

Liver and kidney. 

THE FAN: (Tapping) All things end. Be mine. Now, 

BLOOM:  (Undecided) All now? I should not have 

parted with my talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the 

searocks, a peccadillo at my time of life. Every 

phenomenon has a natural cause. 

THE FAN: (Points downwards slowly) You may. 

BLOOM:  (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened 

bootlace) We are observed. 

THE FAN: (Points downwards quickly) You must. 

BLOOM: (With desire, with reluctance) I can make a true 

black knot. Learned when I served my time and worked 

the mail order line for Kellett’s. Experienced hand. Every 

knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before 

today. Ah! 

(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to 

the edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, 

silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and 

with gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.) 

BLOOM:  (Murmurs lovingly) To be a shoefitter in 

Manfield’s was my love’s young dream, the darling joys of 

sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength 

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the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly 

small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model 

Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and 

stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris. 

THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal 

weight. 

BLOOM: (Crosslacing) Too tight? 

THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick 

your football for you. 

BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the 

night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache 

of her ... person you mentioned. That night she met ... 

Now! 

(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom 

raises his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. 

His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.) 

BLOOM:  (Mumbles) Awaiting your further orders we 

remain, gentlemen, ... 

BELLO:  (With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice) 

Hound of dishonour! 

BLOOM: (Infatuated) Empress! 

BELLO:  (His heavy cheekchops sagging) Adorer of the 

adulterous rump! 

BLOOM: (Plaintively) Hugeness! 

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