Ulysses
831
of
1305
treasures
in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure
up. He urged me (stating that he felt it his mission in life
to urge me) to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery
at the earliest possible opportunity.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS:
(In amazon costume, hard hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion
waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long
train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes her welt
constantly) Also me. Because he saw me on the polo
ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus
the Rest of Ireland. My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I
watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings win
the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. This plebeian
Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and
sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such
as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any
lady. I have it still. It represents a partially nude señorita,
frail and lovely (his wife, as he solemnly assured me, taken
by him from nature), practising illicit intercourse with a
muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me to
do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the
garrison. He implored me to soil his letter in an
unspeakable manner, to chastise him as he richly deserves,
Ulysses
832
of
1305
to bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious
horsewhipping.
MRS BELLINGHAM: Me too.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Me too.
(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper
letters received from Bloom.)
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS:
(Stamps her jingling spurs in a sudden paroxysm of fury) I will,
by the God above me. I’ll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as
long as I can stand over him. I’ll flay him alive.
BLOOM: (His eyes closing, quails expectantly) Here? (He
squirms) Again!
(He pants cringing) I love the danger.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS:
Very much so! I’ll make it hot for you. I’ll make you
dance Jack Latten for that.
MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the
upstart! Write the stars and stripes on it!
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful! There’s
no excuse for him! A married man!
BLOOM: All these people. I meant only the spanking
idea. A warm tingling glow without effusion. Refined
birching to stimulate the circulation.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS:
(Laughs derisively) O, did you, my fine fellow? Well, by the
Ulysses
833
of
1305
living God, you’ll get
the surprise of your life now, believe
me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for.
You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into
fury.
MRS BELLINGHAM:
(Shakes her muff and quizzing-
glasses vindictively) Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him
ginger. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his life. The
cat-o’-nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him.
BLOOM: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with
hangdog mien) O cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial
beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let me off this once. (He
offers the other cheek)
MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Severely) Don’t do so
on any account, Mrs Talboys! He should be soundly
trounced!
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS:
(Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently) I’ll do no such thing.
Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! To dare
address me! I’ll flog him black and blue in the public
streets. I’ll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a
wellknown cuckold. (She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in
the air) Take down his trousers without loss of time. Come
here, sir! Quick! Ready?
Ulysses
834
of
1305
BLOOM:
(Trembling, beginning to obey) The weather has
been so warm.
(Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot
newsboys.)
DAVY STEPHENS: Messenger of the Sacred Heart and
Evening Telegraph with Saint Patrick’s Day supplement.
Containing the new addresses of all the cuckolds in
Dublin.
(The very reverend Canon O’Hanlon in cloth of gold cope
elevates and exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father
Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.)
THE TIMEPIECE: (Unportalling)
Cuckoo.
Cuckoo.
Cuckoo.
(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)
THE QUOITS: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag.
(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the
jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted,
Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John
Henry Menton Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard,
Nosey Flynn, M’Coy and the featureless face of a Nameless
One.)