No More Learning

He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the
pope's bastard. _(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid,
his eye agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world)_
A son of a whore. Apocalypse.

KITTY: And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from
Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow
and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all
subscribed for the funeral.

PHILIP DRUNK: _(Gravely) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position,
Philippe? _

PHILIP SOBER: _(Gaily) c'etait le sacre pigeon, Philippe. _

_(Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.
And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a
whore's shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off. )_

LYNCH: _(Laughs)_ And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated
anthropoid apes.

FLORRY: _(Nods)_ Locomotor ataxy.

ZOE: _(Gaily)_ O, my dictionary.

LYNCH: Three wise virgins.

VIRAG: _(Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony
epileptic lips)_ She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Panther,
the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. _(He sticks out
a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork)_
Messiah! He burst her tympanum. _(With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks
his hips in the cynical spasm)_ Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk!

_(Ben Jumbo Dollard, Rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled,
hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fat-papped, stands
forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing
bagslops. )_

BEN DOLLARD: _(Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels
jovially in base barreltone)_ When love absorbs my ardent soul.

_(The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the
ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms. )_

THE VIRGINS: _(Gushingly)_ Big Ben! Ben my Chree!

A VOICE: Hold that fellow with the bad breeches.

BEN DOLLARD: _(Smites his thigh in abundant laughter)_ Hold him now.

HENRY: _(Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs)_ Thine
heart, mine love. _(He plucks his lutestrings)_ When first I saw. . .

VIRAG: _(Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting)_ Rats!
_(He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an upward
push of his parchmentroll)_ After having said which I took my departure.
Farewell. Fare thee well. _Dreck! _

_(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb
and gives a cow's lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to
the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two
ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the
wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head. )_

THE FLYBILL: K. II. Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks.

HENRY: All is lost now.

_(Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm. )_

VIRAG'S HEAD: Quack!

_(Exeunt severally. )_

STEPHEN: _(Over his shoulder to zoe)_ You would have preferred
the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware
Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The
agony in the closet.

LYNCH: All one and the same God to her.

STEPHEN: _(Devoutly)_ And sovereign Lord of all things.

FLORRY: _(To Stephen)_ I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Or a monk.

LYNCH: He is. A cardinal's son.

STEPHEN: Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw.

_(His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland,
appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven
dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train,
peeping under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His
thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his
neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross.
Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high with large wave
gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp:)_

THE CARDINAL:

Conservio lies captured
He lies in the lowest dungeon
With manacles and chains around his limbs
Weighing upwards of three tons.

_(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left
cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and
fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour:)_

O, the poor little fellow
Hihihihihis legs they were yellow
He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake
But some bloody savage
To graize his white cabbage
He murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake.

_(A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches himself
with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims:)_

I'm suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to
Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they'd
walk me off the face of the bloody globe.

_(His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers,
imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying
his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his
trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling,
Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar,
merciful male, melodious:)_

Shall carry my heart to thee,
Shall carry my heart to thee,
And the breath of the balmy night
Shall carry my heart to thee!
_(The trick doorhandle turns. )_


THE DOORHANDLE: Theeee!

ZOE: The devil is in that door.

_(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking
the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily
and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his
pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe. )_

ZOE: _(Sniffs his hair briskly)_ Hmmm! Thank your mother for the
rabbits. I'm very fond of what I like.

BLOOM: _(Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep,
pricks his ears)_ If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double
event?

ZOE: _(Tears open the silverfoil)_ Fingers was made before forks. _(She
breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then
turns kittenishly to Lynch)_ No objection to French lozenges? _(He nods.
She taunts him. )_ Have it now or wait till you get it? _(He opens his
mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head
follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her. )_ Catch!

_(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it
through with a crack. )_

KITTY: _(Chewing)_ The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have
lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with
his lady. The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses. I'm giddy still.

BLOOM: _(In Svengali's fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic
forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance
towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift
pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing
his right arm downwards from his left shoulder. )_ Go, go, go, I conjure
you, whoever you are!

_(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside.
Bloom's features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing
calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate. )_

BLOOM: _(Solemnly)_ Thanks.

ZOE: Do as you're bid. Here!

_(A firm heelclacking tread is heard on the stairs. )_

BLOOM: _(Takes the chocolate)_ Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But I
bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red
influences lupus. Colours affect women's characters, any they have. This
black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. _(He eats)_ Influence
taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. 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.

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!

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 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!

BELLO: Dungdevourer!

BLOOM: _(With sinews semiflexed)_ Magmagnificence!

BELLO: Down! _(He taps her on the shoulder with his fan)_ Incline feet
forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling.
On the hands down!

BLOOM: _(Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps)_
Truffles!

_(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting,
snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut
tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most
excellent master. )_

BELLO: _(With bobbed hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his
shaven mouth, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport
skirt and alpine hat with moorcock's feather, his hands stuck deep in
his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in)_
Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of
your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness.

BLOOM: _(Enthralled, bleats)_ I promise never to disobey.

BELLO: _(Laughs loudly)_ Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for
you. I'm the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I'll bet
Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me,
I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be
inflicted in gym costume.

_(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe. )_

ZOE: _(Widening her slip to screen her)_ She's not here.

BLOOM: _(Closing her eyes)_ She's not here.

FLORRY: _(Hiding her with her gown)_ She didn't mean it, Mr Bello.
She'll be good, sir.

KITTY: Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won't, ma'amsir.

BELLO: _(Coaxingly)_ Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling,
just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk,
sweety. _(Bloom puts out her timid head)_ There's a good girly now.
_(Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward)_ I only want
to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How's that tender
behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready.

BLOOM: _(Fainting)_ Don't tear my. . .

BELLO: _(Savagely)_ The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging
hook, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian
slave of old. You're in for it this time! I'll make you remember me for
the balance of your natural life. _(His forehead veins swollen, his face
congested)_ I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after
my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a bottle
of Guinness's porter. _(He belches)_ And suck my thumping good Stock
Exchange cigar while I read the _Licensed Victualler's Gazette_. Very
possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and
enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted
and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will
hurt you. _(He twists her arm. Bloom squeals, turning turtle. )_

BLOOM: Don't be cruel, nurse! Don't!

BELLO: _(Twisting)_ Another!

BLOOM: _(Screams)_ O, it's hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches
like mad!

BELLO: _(Shouts)_ Good, by the rumping jumping general! That's the best
bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn
you! _(He slaps her face)_

BLOOM: _(Whimpers)_ You're after hitting me. I'll tell. . .

BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.

ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will.

FLORRY: I will. Don't be greedy.

KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me.

_(The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib,
men's grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a rollingpin stuck
with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door. )_

MRS KEOGH: _(Ferociously)_ Can I help? _(They hold and pinion Bloom. )_

BELLO: _(Squats with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, puffing
cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg)_ I see Keating Clay is elected
vicechairman of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness's preference
shares are at sixteen three quaffers. Curse me for a fool that didn't
buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck,
curse it. And that Goddamned outsider _Throwaway_ at twenty to one.
_(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear)_ Where's that Goddamned
cursed ashtray?

BLOOM: _(Goaded, buttocksmothered)_ O! O! Monsters! Cruel one!

BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never
prayed before. _(He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar)_ Here,
kiss that. Both. Kiss. _(He throws a leg astride and, pressing with
horseman's knees, calls in a hard voice)_ Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury
cross. I'll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. _(He bends sideways and
squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting)_ Ho! Off we pop! I'll
nurse you in proper fashion. _(He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the
saddle)_ The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot
and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop.

FLORRY: _(Pulls at Bello)_ Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked
before you.

ZOE: _(Pulling at florry)_ Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet,
suckeress?

BLOOM: _(Stifling)_ Can't.

BELLO: Well, I'm not. Wait. _(He holds in his breath)_ Curse it. Here.
This bung's about burst. _(He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting
his features, farts loudly)_ Take that! _(He recorks himself)_ Yes, by
Jingo, sixteen three quarters.

BLOOM: _(A sweat breaking out over him)_ Not man. _(He sniffs)_ Woman.

BELLO: _(Stands up)_ No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has
come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing
under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male
garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously
rustling over head and shoulders. And quickly too!

BLOOM: _(Shrinks)_ Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I
tiptouch it with my nails?

BELLO: _(Points to his whores)_ As they are now so will you be, wigged,
singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape
measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel
force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to
the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure,
plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks,
pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course,
with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice
scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be
a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly
flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you. . .

BLOOM: _(A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large
male hands and nose, leering mouth)_ I tried her things on only twice,
a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to
save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift.

BELLO: _(Jeers)_ Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed
off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds
your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various poses of surrender,
eh? Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and
short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that
Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne hotel, eh?

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?