No More Learning

Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his flaring
cresset. _

_Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools,
middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south
beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward,
cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding on the farther side
under the railway bridge bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread
and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen's hairdresser's window a
composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image. A concave mirror
at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave
Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. he passes, struck by the
stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror grin unstruck
the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy. _

_At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright
arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on. )_

BLOOM: Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!

_(He disappears into Olhausen's, the porkbutcher's, under the downcoming
rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter,
puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one
containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter,
sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to
one side he presses a parcel against his ribs and groans. )_

BLOOM: Stitch in my side. Why did I run?

_(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset
siding. The glow leaps again. )_

BLOOM: What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.

_(He stands at Cormack's corner, watching)_

BLOOM: _Aurora borealis_ or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course.
South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar's bush. We're
safe. _(He hums cheerfully)_ London's burning, London's burning! On
fire, on fire! (_He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the
crowd at the farther side of Talbot street_) I'll miss him. Run. Quick.
Better cross here.

_(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout. )_

THE URCHINS: Mind out, mister! (_Two cyclists, with lighted paper
lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling_)

THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall.

BLOOM: _(Halts erect, stung by a spasm)_ Ow!

_(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon
sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him,
its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The
motorman bangs his footgong. )_

THE GONG: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.

_(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved
hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown
forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over
chains and keys. )_

THE MOTORMAN: Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?

BLOOM: _(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a
mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand. )_ No thoroughfare. Close
shave that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow's exercises again.
On the hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential.
_(He feels his trouser pocket)_ Poor mamma's panacea. Heel easily catch
in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled
off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick.
Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous.
Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same
style of beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word
spoken in jest. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I
ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. _(He
closes his eyes an instant)_ Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of
the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow!

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a
visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved
sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye. )

BLOOM: _Buenas noches, senorita Blanca, que calle es esta? _

THE FIGURE: (_Impassive, raises a signal arm_) Password. _Sraid Mabbot. _

BLOOM: Haha. _Merci. _ Esperanto. _Slan leath. (He mutters)_ Gaelic
league spy, sent by that fireeater.

_(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps
left, ragsackman left. )_

BLOOM: I beg. (_He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on_. )

BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted
by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who
lost my way and contributed to the columns of the _Irish Cyclist_ the
letter headed _In darkest Stepaside_. Keep, keep, keep to the right.
Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer
makes for. Wash off his sins of the world.

_(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against
Bloom. )_

BLOOM: O

_(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.
Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket,
sweets of sin, potato soap. )_

BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves' dodge. Collide. Then snatch
your purse.

_(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form
sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan
of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned
spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are
on the drawn face. )_

RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with
drunken goy ever. So you catch no money.

BLOOM: _(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen,
feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi. _

RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? _(with
feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom)_ Are you not
my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold
who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham
and Jacob?

BLOOM: _(With precaution)_ I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that's
left of him.

RUDOLPH: _(Severely)_ One night they bring you home drunk as dog after
spend your good money. What you call them running chaps?

BLOOM: _(In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips,
narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent's sterling silver
waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one
side of him coated with stiffening mud)_ Harriers, father. Only that
once.

RUDOLPH: Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make
you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.

BLOOM: _(Weakly)_ They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I
slipped.

RUDOLPH: _(With contempt) Goim nachez_! Nice spectacles for your poor
mother!

BLOOM: Mamma!

ELLEN BLOOM: _(In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's
crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind,
grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net,
appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand,
and cries out in shrill alarm)_ O blessed Redeemer, what have they done
to him! My smelling salts! _(She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks
the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a
shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out)_ Sacred Heart of Mary,
where were you at all at all?

_(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in
his filled pockets but desists, muttering. )_

A VOICE: _(Sharply)_ Poldy!

BLOOM: Who? _(He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily)_ At your service.

_(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in
Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet
trousers and jacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles
her. A white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free
only her large dark eyes and raven hair. )_

BLOOM: Molly!

MARION: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to
me. _(Satirically)_ Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?

BLOOM: _(Shifts from foot to foot)_ No, no. Not the least little bit.

_(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions,
hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire,
spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled
toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her
a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of
innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with
disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb
wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish. )_

MARION: Nebrakada! Femininum!

_(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit,
offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops his
head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops
his back for leapfrog. )_

BLOOM: I can give you. . . I mean as your business menagerer. . . Mrs
Marion. . . if you. . .

MARION: So you notice some change? _(Her hands passing slowly over her
trinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes)_ O Poldy,
Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the
wide world.

BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower
water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the
morning.
_(He pats divers pockets)_ This moving kidney. Ah!

_(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon
soap arises, diffusing light and perfume. )_

THE SOAP: We're a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the
earth. I polish the sky.


_(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the
soapsun. )_

SWENY: Three and a penny, please.

BLOOM: Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe.

MARION: _(Softly)_ Poldy!

BLOOM: Yes, ma'am?

MARION: _ti trema un poco il cuore? _

_(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon,
humming the duet from_ Don Giovanni. )

BLOOM: Are you sure about that _voglio_? I mean the pronunciati. . .

_(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes
his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering. )_

THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched.
Fifteen. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

_(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie
Kelly stands. )_

BRIDIE: Hatch street. Any good in your mind?

_(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues
with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into
gloom. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker. )_

THE BAWD: _(Her wolfeyes shining)_ He's getting his pleasure. You won't
get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don't be all night
before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.

_(Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind, ogling,
and shows coyly her bloodied clout. )_

GERTY: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. _(She murmurs)_ You
did that. I hate you.

BLOOM: I? When? You're dreaming. I never saw you.

THE BAWD: Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman
false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take
the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you.

GERTY: _(To Bloom)_ When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer.
_(She paws his sleeve, slobbering)_ Dirty married man! I love you for
doing that to me.

_(She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat
with loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes
wideopen, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth. )_

MRS BREEN: Mr. . .

BLOOM: _(Coughs gravely)_ Madam, when we last had this pleasure by
letter dated the sixteenth instant. . .

MRS BREEN: Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you
nicely! Scamp!

BLOOM: _(Hurriedly)_ Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me?
Don't give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It's ages since I.
You're looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having
this time of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting
quarter. Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary. . .

MRS BREEN: _(Holds up a finger)_ Now, don't tell a big fib! I know
somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! _(Slily)_
Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!

BLOOM: _(Looks behind)_ She often said she'd like to visit. Slumming.
The exotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money.
Othello black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at
the Livermore christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter.

_(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks,
upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes,
leap out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands
jingle the twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they
rattle through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to
back, toe heel, heel toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips. )_

TOM AND SAM:

There's someone in the house with Dina
There's someone in the house, I know,
There's someone in the house with Dina
Playing on the old banjo.

_(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling,
chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away. )_

BLOOM: _(With a sour tenderish smile)_ A little frivol, shall we, if
you are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a
fraction of a second?

MRS BREEN: _(Screams gaily)_ O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!

BLOOM: For old sake' sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage
mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft
corner for you. _(Gloomily)_ 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear
gazelle.

MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. _(She
puts out her hand inquisitively)_ What are you hiding behind your back?
Tell us, there's a dear.

BLOOM: _(Seizes her wrist with his free hand)_ Josie Powell that was,
prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking
back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina
Simpson's housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game,
finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this
snuffbox?

MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic
recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the
ladies.

BLOOM: _(Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings,
blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl
studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand)_ Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty.

MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love's old sweet song.

BLOOM: _(Meaningfully dropping his voice)_ I confess I'm teapot with
curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little teapot
at present.

MRS BREEN: _(Gushingly)_ Tremendously teapot! London's teapot and I'm
simply teapot all over me! _(She rubs sides with him)_ After the parlour
mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase
ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company.

BLOOM: _(Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his
fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which
she surrenders gently)_ The witching hour of night. I took the splinter
out of this hand, carefully, slowly. _(Tenderly, as he slips on her
finger a ruby ring) La ci darem la mano. _

MRS BREEN: _(In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a
tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside
her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly)
Voglio e non. _ You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the
heart.

BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and
the beast. I can never forgive you for that. _(His clenched fist at
his brow)_ Think what it means. All you meant to me then. _(Hoarsely)_
Woman, it's breaking me!

_(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich-boards,
shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out,
muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of
the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter. )_

ALF BERGAN: _(Points jeering at the sandwichboards)_ U. p: Up.

MRS BREEN: _(To Bloom)_ High jinks below stairs. _(She gives him the
glad eye)_ Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to.

BLOOM: _(Shocked)_ Molly's best friend! Could you?

MRS BREEN: _(Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss)_
Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?

BLOOM: _(Offhandedly)_ Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without
potted meat is incomplete. I was at _Leah. _ Mrs Bandmann Palmer.
Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the
programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Feel.

_(Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, appears
weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which
a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it
and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and
tightpacked pills. )_

RICHIE: Best value in Dub.

_(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his
napkin, waiting to wait. )_

PAT: _(Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy)_ Steak and
kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait.

RICHIE: Goodgod. Inev erate inall. . .

_(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by,
gores him with his flaming pronghorn. )_

RICHIE: _(With a cry of pain, his hand to his back)_ Ah! Bright's!
Lights!

BLOOM: _(Ooints to the navvy)_ A spy. Don't attract attention. I hate
stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.

MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and
bull story.

BLOOM: I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here.
But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular
reason.

MRS BREEN: _(All agog)_ O, not for worlds.

BLOOM: Let's walk on. Shall us?

MRS BREEN: Let's.

_(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The
terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail. )_

THE BAWD: Jewman's melt!

BLOOM: _(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel,
tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white
spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in
bandolier and a grey billycock hat)_ Do you remember a long long time,
years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was
weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?

MRS BREEN: _(In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider
veil)_ Leopardstown.