This eBook is designed and published by Planet pdf. For more free

Ulysses 

869 

of

 1305 

BLOOM:  (Bitterly) Man and woman, love, what is it? 

A cork and bottle. I’m sick of it. Let everything rip. 

ZOE:  (In sudden sulks) I hate a rotter that’s insincere. 

Give a bleeding whore a chance. 

BLOOM: (Repentantly) I am very disagreeable. You are 

a necessary evil. Where are you from? London? 

ZOE:  (Glibly) Hog’s Norton where the pigs plays the 

organs. I’m Yorkshire born. (She holds his hand which is 

feeling for her nipple) I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that 

and begin worse. Have you cash for a short time? Ten 

shillings? 

BLOOM: (Smiles, nods slowly) More, houri, more. 

ZOE: And more’s mother? (She pats him offhandedly 

with velvet paws) Are you coming into the musicroom to 

see our new pianola? Come and I’ll peel off. 

BLOOM:  (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the 

unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the 

symmetry of her peeled pears) Somebody would be dreadfully 

jealous if she knew. The greeneyed monster. (Earnestly) 

You know how difficult it is. I needn’t tell you. 

ZOE: (Flattered) What the eye can’t see the heart can’t 

grieve for. (She pats him) Come. 

BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the 

cradle. 

---

Ulysses 

870 

of

 1305 

ZOE: Babby! 

BLOOM: (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul 

of dark hair, fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze 

buckles with a chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping) 

One two tlee: tlee tlwo tlone. 

THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me. 

ZOE: Silent means consent. (With little parted talons she 

captures his hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch 

of secret monitor, luring him to doom.) Hot hands cold gizzard. 

(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him 

towards the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the 

vice of her painted eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous 

folds lurks the lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed 

her.) 

THE MALE BRUTES: (Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung 

and ramping in their loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged 

heads swaying to and fro) Good! 

(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores 

are seated. They examine him curiously from under their pencilled 

brows and smile to his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.) 

ZOE:  (Her lucky hand instantly saving him) Hoopsa! 

Don’t fall upstairs. 

BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. (He stands 

aside at the threshold) After you is good manners. 

---

Ulysses 

871 

of

 1305 

ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after. 

(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, 

holding out her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the 

antlered rack of the hall hang a man ‘s hat and waterproof. 

Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them, frowns, then smiles, 

preoccupied. A door on the return landing is flung open. A man 

in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an 

ape’s gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full 

waterjugjar, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting 

his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the halltable the 

spaniel eyes of a running fox: then, his lifted head sniffing, 

follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper 

dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies, 

colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of 

jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped 

over it in all senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet 

locked, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a 

scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls are tapestried with a paper 

of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate is spread a screen of 

peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on the hearthrug of 

matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he beats time 

slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, 

doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in 

her hand, sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg 

---

Ulysses 

872 

of

 1305 

and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A 

tag of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch 

indicates mockingly the couple at the piano.) 

KITTY: (Coughs behind her hand) She’s a bit imbecillic. 

(She signs with a waggling forefinger) Blemblem. (Lynch lifts up 

her skirt and white petticoat with his wand she settles them down 

quickly.) Respect yourself. (She hiccups, then bends quickly her 

sailor hat under which her hair glows, red with henna) O, 

excuse! 

ZOE: More limelight, Charley. (She goes to the chandelier 

and turns the gas full cock) 

KITTY: (Peers at the gasjet) What ails it tonight? 

LYNCH: (Deeply) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins. 

ZOE: Clap on the back for Zoe. 

(The wand in Lynch’s hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen 

stands at the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With 

two fingers he repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry 

Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of 

mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the sofacorner, her limp 

forearm pendent over the bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops 

over her sleepy eyelid.) 

KITTY:  (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot) O, 

excuse! 

---