Part 200

BLOOM: Miriam. Black. Demimondaine.

BELLO: (Guffaws.) Christ Almighty it’s too tickling, this! You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M. P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. (He guffaws again.) Christ, wouldn’t it make a Siamese cat laugh?

BLOOM: (Her hands and features working.) It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play Vice Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister’s stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful.

BELLO: (With wicked glee.) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne.

BLOOM: Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (Earnestly.) And really it’s better the position... because often I used to wet...

BELLO: (Sternly.) No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn’t I? Do it standing, sir! I’ll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you’ll find I’m a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.

THE SINS OF THE PAST: (In a medley of voices.) He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D’Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order?

BELLO: (Whistles loudly.) Say! What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be candid for once.

(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny, Cassidy’s hag, blind stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other, the...)

BLOOM: Don’t ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath...

BELLO: (Peremptorily.) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr...

BLOOM: (Docile, gurgles.) I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant...

BELLO: (Imperiously.) O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when you’re spoken to.

BLOOM: (Bows.) Master! Mistress! Mantamer!

(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall.)

BELLO: (Satirically.) By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won’t that be nice? (He places a ruby ring on her finger.) And there now! With this ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress.

BLOOM: Thank you, mistress.

BELLO: You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh’s the cook’s, a sandy one. Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I’ll lecture you on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the hairbrush. You’ll be taught the error of your ways. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights of old laid down their lives. (He chuckles.) My boys will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I’ll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? (He points.) For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. (He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom’s vulva.) There’s fine depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (He shoves his arm in a bidder’s face.) Here wet the deck and wipe it round!

A BIDDER: A florin.

(Dillon’s lacquey rings his handbell.)

THE LACQUEY: Barang!

A VOICE: One and eightpence too much.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean.

BELLO: (Gives a rap with his gavel.) Two bar. Rockbottom figure and cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine shis points. Handle hrim. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His sire’s milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa, my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! (He brands his initial C on Bloom’s croup.) So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen?

A DARKVISAGED MAN: (In disguised accent.) Hoondert punt sterlink.

VOICES: (Subdued.) For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid.

BELLO: (Gaily.) Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the blasé man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.

BLOOM: (Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in mouth.) O, I know what you’re hinting at now!