Ulysses Part 127

BLOOM: _(Quietly)_ You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more?

STEPHEN: _(Hands him all his coins)_ Be just before you are generous.

BLOOM: I will but is it wise? _(He counts)_ One, seven, eleven, and five. Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost.

STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next Lessing says. Thirsty fox. _(He laughs loudly)_ Burying his grandmother.

Probably he killed her.

BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say.

STEPHEN: Doesn't matter a rambling d.a.m.n.

BLOOM: No, but...

STEPHEN: _(Comes to the table)_ Cigarette, please. _(Lynch tosses a cigarette from the sofa to the table)_ And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. _(A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it)_ Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. _(He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy)_

LYNCH: _(Watching him)_ You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer.

STEPHEN: _(Brings the match near his eye)_ Lynx eye. Must get gla.s.ses.

Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat. _(He draws the match away. It goes out.)_ Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. _(He frowns mysteriously)_ Hm.

Sphinx. The beast that has twobacks at midnight. Married.

ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him.

FLORRY: _(Nods)_ Mr Lambe from London.

STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world.

LYNCH: _(Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply) Dona n.o.bis pacem._

_(The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it in the grate.)_

BLOOM: Don't smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. _(To Zoe)_ You have nothing?

ZOE: Is he hungry?

STEPHEN: _(Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the bloodoath in the_ Dusk of the G.o.ds)

Hangende Hunger, Fragende Frau, Macht uns alle kaputt.

ZOE: _(Tragically)_ Hamlet, I am thy father's gimlet! _(She takes his hand)_ Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand. _(She points to his forehead)_ No wit, no wrinkles. _(She counts)_ Two, three, Mars, that's courage. _(Stephen shakes his head)_ No kid.

LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not s.h.i.+ver and shake. _(To Zoe)_ Who taught you palmistry?

ZOE: _(Turns)_ Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. _(To Stephen)_ I see it in your face. The eye, like that. _(She frowns with lowered head)_

LYNCH: _(Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice)_ Like that. Pandybat.

_(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.)_

FATHER DOLAN: Any boy want flogging? Broke his gla.s.ses? Lazy idle little schemer. See it in your eye.

_(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises from the pianola coffin.)_

DON JOHN CONMEE: Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very good little boy!

ZOE: _(Examining Stephen's palm)_ Woman's hand.

STEPHEN: _(Murmurs)_ Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.

ZOE: What day were you born?

STEPHEN: Thursday. Today.

ZOE: Thursday's child has far to go. _(She traces lines on his hand)_ Line of fate. Influential friends.

FLORRY: _(Pointing)_ Imagination.

ZOE: Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... _(She peers at his hands abruptly)_ I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to know?

BLOOM: _(Detaches her fingers and offers his palm)_ More harm than good.

Here. Read mine.

BELLA: Show. _(She turns up bloom's hand)_ I thought so. k.n.o.bby knuckles for the women.

ZOE: _(Peering at bloom's palm)_ Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and marry money.

BLOOM: Wrong.

ZOE: _(Quickly)_ O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That wrong?

_(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, stretches her wings and clucks.)_

BLACK LIZ: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.

_(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off)_

BLOOM: _(Points to his hand)_ That weal there is an accident. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen.

ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.

STEPHEN: See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. _(He winces)_ Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?

_(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)_

FLORRY: What?

_(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a gallantb.u.t.tocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)_