No More Learning

BLOOM: Stop!

LYNCH: _(Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand)_ Here! Hold on! Don't
run amok!

BELLA: Police!

_(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark,
beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door. )_

BELLA: _(Screams)_ After him!

_(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns. )_

THE WHORES: _(Jammed in the doorway, pointing)_ Down there.

ZOE: _(Pointing)_ There. There's something up.

BELLA: Who pays for the lamp? _(She seizes Bloom's coattail)_ Here, you
were with him. The lamp's broken.

BLOOM: _(Rushes to the hall, rushes back)_ What lamp, woman?

A WHORE: He tore his coat.

BELLA: _(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points)_ Who's to pay
for that? Ten shillings. You're a witness.

BLOOM: _(Snatches up Stephen's ashplant)_ Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you
lifted enough off him? Didn't he. . . ?

BELLA: _(Loudly)_ Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A
ten shilling house.

BLOOM: _(His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Puling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant. )_ Only
the chimney's broken. Here is all he. . .

BELLA: _(Shrinks back and screams)_ Jesus! Don't!

BLOOM: _(Warding off a blow)_ To show you how he hit the paper. There's
not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!

FLORRY: _(With a glass of water, enters)_ Where is he?

BELLA: Do you want me to call the police?

BLOOM: O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. _(He makes
a masonic sign)_ Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You
don't want a scandal.

BELLA: _(Angrily)_ Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces
and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is he? I'll
charge him! Disgrace him, I will! (She Shouts) Zoe! Zoe!

BLOOM: _(Urgently)_ And if it were your own son in Oxford? _(Warningly)_
I know.

BELLA: _(Almost speechless)_ Who are. Incog!

ZOE: _(In the doorway)_ There's a row on.

BLOOM: What? Where? _(He throws a shilling on the table and starts)_
That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air.

_(He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows,
spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores
clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog has cleared
off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows to in front
of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is
about to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts
his face. Bella from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow
ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly
lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and Kitty
still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's hood
and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack
of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in
tallyho cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follow from fir, picking
up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing
their tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks,
runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel,
cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's
slipperslappers. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops
in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, night watch, John Henry
Menton, Wisdom Hely, V. B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes,
Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Nameless One,
Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface,
Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir
Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes,
red Murray, editor Brayden, T. M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John
Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs
Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland
Row postmistress, C. P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan,
maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver,
rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe
Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy,
Father Cowley, Crofton out of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson,
dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs
Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide
behindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of_ Sweets of Sin, _Miss
Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck,
the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky,
Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty,
Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner,
old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a
retriever, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. )_

THE HUE AND CRY: _(Helterskelterpelterwelter)_ He's Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stophim on the corner!

_(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a
jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether. )_

STEPHEN: _(With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly)_ You
are my guests. Uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh
of Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.

PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy Caffrey)_ Was he insulting you?

STEPHEN: Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.

VOICES: No, he didn't. I seen him. The girl there. He was in Mrs
Cohen's. What's up? Soldier and civilian.

CISSY CAFFREY: I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to
do--you know, and the young man run up behind me. But I'm faithful to
the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.

STEPHEN: _(Catches sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads)_ Hail, Sisyphus.
_(He points to himself and the others)_ Poetic. Uropoetic.

VOICES: Shes faithfultheman.

CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.

PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.

PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy)_ Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?

LORD TENNYSON: _(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket
flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded)_ Theirs not to reason why.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry.

STEPHEN: _(To Private Compton)_ I don't know your name but you are quite
right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their
shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.

CISSY CAFFREY: _(To The Crowd)_ No, I was with the privates.

STEPHEN: _(Amiably)_ Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every
lady for example. . .

PRIVATE CARR: _(His cap awry, advances to Stephen)_ Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?

STEPHEN: _(Looks up to the sky)_ How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. _(He waves his hand)_ Hand
hurts me slightly. _Enfin ce sont vos oignons. _ _(To Cissy Caffrey)_
Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely?

DOLLY GRAY: _(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign
of the heroine of Jericho)_ Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to
Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.

_(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes. )_

BLOOM: _(Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve
vigorously)_ Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.

STEPHEN: _(Turns)_ Eh? _(He disengages himself)_ Why should I not speak
to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange?
_(He points his finger)_ I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see
his eye. Retaining the perpendicular.

_(He staggers a pace back)_

BLOOM: _(Propping him)_ Retain your own.

STEPHEN: _(Laughs emptily)_ My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle
for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the
tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. _(He taps his
brow)_ But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor
out of the college.

CUNTY KATE: I did. I heard that.

BIDDY THE CLAP: He expresses himself with such marked refinement of
phraseology.

CUNTY KATE: Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Pulls himself free and comes forward)_ What's that
you're saying about my king?

_(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wars a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of
Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's
and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable
artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed
as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron,
marked_ made in Germany. _In his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket
on which is printed_ Defense d'uriner. _A roar of welcome greets him. )_

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly)_ Peace, perfect
peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. _(He turns
to his subjects)_ We have come here to witness a clean straight fight
and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a bak.

_(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and
Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously
in acknowledgment. )_

PRIVATE CARR: _(To Stephen)_ Say it again.

STEPHEN: _(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up)_ I understand your point
of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of
patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the
point. You die for your country. Suppose.
_(He places his arm on Private
Carr's sleeve)_ Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country
die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn't want it to die.
Damn death. Long live life!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and
with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent
face)_

My methods are new and are causing surprise. To make the blind see I
throw dust in their eyes.

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! _(He fills back a pace)_ Come somewhere and
we'll. . . What was that girl saying? . . .

PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.

BLOOM: _(To the privates, softly)_ He doesn't know what he's saying.
Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster. I
know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right.

STEPHEN: _(Nods, smiling and laughing)_ Gentleman, patriot, scholar and
judge of impostors.

PRIVATE CARR: I don't give a bugger who he is.

PRIVATE COMPTON: We don't give a bugger who he is.

STEPHEN: I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.

_(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day
boy's hat signs to Stephen. )_

KEVIN EGAN: H'lo! _Bonjour! _ The _vieille ogresse_ with the _dents
jaunes_.

_(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince
leaf. )_

PATRICE: _Socialiste! _

DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: _(In medieval hauberk,
two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a
mailed hand against the privates)_ Werf those eykes to footboden, big
grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!

BLOOM: _(To Stephen)_ Come home. You'll get into trouble.

STEPHEN: _(Swaying)_ I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.

BIDDY THE CLAP: One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.

THE VIRAGO: Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.

THE BAWD: The red's as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!

A ROUGH: _(Laughs)_ Ay! Hands up to De Wet.

THE CITIZEN: _(With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls)_

May the God above
Send down a dove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throats
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.

THE CROPPY BOY: _(The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands)_

I bear no hate to a living thing, But I love my country beyond the king.

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: _(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with gladstone bag which he opens)_ Ladies and gents,
cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin
dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the
cellar, the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial
containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent Seddon
to the gallows.

_(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim's legs and drag
him downward, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently. )_

THE CROPPY BOY:

Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest.

_(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts
of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys
rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up. )_

RUMBOLD: I'm near it myself. _(He undoes the noose)_ Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness.
_(He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out
his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails)_ My painful
duty has now been done. God save the king!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and
sings with soft contentment)_

On coronation day, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!

PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?

STEPHEN: _(Throws up his hands)_ O, this is too monotonous! Nothing.
He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for
some brutish empire of his. Money I haven't. _(He searches his pockets
vaguely)_ GAVE IT TO SOMEONE.

PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money?

STEPHEN: _(Tries to move off)_ Will someone tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? _Ca se voit aussi a paris. _ Not
that I. . . But, by Saint Patrick. . . !

_(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her
breast. )_

STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats
her farrow!

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Rocking to and fro)_ Ireland's sweetheart, the king
of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!
_(She keens with banshee woe)_ Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! _(She
wails)_ You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?

STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.

CISSY CAFFREY: _(Shrill)_ Stop them from fighting!

A ROUGH: Our men retreated.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Tugging at his belt)_ I'll wring the neck of any fucker
says a word against my fucking king.

BLOOM: _(Terrified)_ He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.

THE CITIZEN: _Erin go bragh! _

_(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce
hostility. )_

PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer.

STEPHEN: Did I? When?

BLOOM: _(To the redcoats)_ We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by
our monarch.

THE NAVVY: _(Staggering past)_ O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!

_(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted
spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in
bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt
chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line.
He gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars. )_

MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Growls gruffly)_ Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them!
Mahar shalal hashbaz.

PRIVATE CARR: I'll do him in.

PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Waves the crowd back)_ Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger.

_(Massed bands blare_ Garryowen _and_ God save the King. )

CISSY CAFFREY: They're going to fight. For me!

CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.

CUNTY KATE: _(Blushing deeply)_ Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry
saint George for me!

STEPHEN:

The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave Old Ireland's
windingsheet.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Loosening his belt, shouts)_ I'll wring the neck of any
fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

BLOOM: _(Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders)_ Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman,
sacred lifegiver!

CISSY CAFFREY: _(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve)_ Amn't I with
you? Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. _(She cries)_ Police!

STEPHEN: _(Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey)_

White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.


VOICES: Police!

DISTANT VOICES: Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire!

_(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on
cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea,
rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets,
cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins,
blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The
midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin
from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black
goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless
yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives
at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void.
He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they
spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy
clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their
skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red
cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters
blisters. It rains dragons' teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows.
They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight
duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith
O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt,
Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond,
John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord
Gerald Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The
O'Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the feldaltar
of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns.
From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the
smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of
unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly.
Father Malachi O'Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his
two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr
Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head
and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant's head an open
umbrella. )_

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: _Introibo ad altare diaboli. _

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: _(Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host) Corpus meum. _

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: _(Raises high behind the celebrant's
petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot
is stuck)_ My body.