No More Learning

Nebulous obscurity
occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares
over coughs and feetshuffling. )_

THE GRAMOPHONE: Jerusalem!

Open your gates and sing

Hosanna. . .

_(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star fills from it,
proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.
Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End
of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan
filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the
Three Legs of Man. )_

THE END OF THE WORLD: _(with a Scotch accent)_ Wha'll dance the keel
row, the keel row, the keel row?

_(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh
as a corncrake's, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with
funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the
banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet. )_

ELIJAH: No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole
Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths
shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God's
time is 12. 25. Tell mother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play
a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction, the
nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the
second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen
Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to
you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos?
No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something
within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama,
an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You once
nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back
number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest stuff ever
was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just the cutest snappiest line
out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It vibrates. I know
and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A.
J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? O. K.
Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That's it. You call me up
by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. _(He shouts)_
Now then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! _(He
sings)_ Jeru. . .

THE GRAMOPHONE: _(Drowning his voice)_ Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh. . .
_(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle)_

THE THREE WHORES: _(Covering their ears, squawk)_ Ahhkkk!

ELIJAH: _(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top
of his voice, his arms uplifted)_ Big Brother up there, Mr President,
you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of
believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss
Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems
to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been,
Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long
and help me save our sisters dear. _(He winks at his audience)_ Our Mr
President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing.

KITTY-KATE: I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did
on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in
the brown scapular. My mother's sister married a Montmorency. It was a
working plumber was my ruination when I was pure.

ZOE-FANNY: I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.

FLORRY-TERESA: It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of
Hennessy's three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the
bed.

STEPHEN: In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without
end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

_(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon,
Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast,
goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching)_

THE BEATITUDES: _(Incoherently)_ Beer beef battledog buybull businum
barnum buggerum bishop.

LYSTER: _(In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says
discreetly)_ He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the
light.

_(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily
laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a
mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and a high pagoda
hat. )_

BEST: _(Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown
of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot)_ I was
just beautifying him, don't you know. A thing of beauty, don't you know,
Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says.

JOHN EGLINTON: _(Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it
towards a corner: with carping accent)_ Esthetics and cosmetics are for
the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man. Tanderagee
wants the facts and means to get them.

_(In the cone of the searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave,
holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees.
He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his
head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His
right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by
its two talons. )_

MANANAUN MACLIR: _(With a voice of waves)_ Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor!
Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.
_(With a voice of whistling seawind)_ Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won't
have my leg pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult
of Shakti. _(With a cry of stormbirds)_ Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father!
_(He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its
cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with
the vehemence of the ocean. )_ Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the
homestead! I am the dreamery creamery butter.

_(A skeleton judashand strangles the light. The green light wanes to
mauve. The gasjet wails whistling. )_

THE GASJET: Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii!

_(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the
mantle. )_

ZOE: Who has a fag as I'm here?

LYNCH: _(Tossing a cigarette on to the table)_ Here.

ZOE: _(Her head perched aside in mock pride)_ Is that the way to hand
the _pot_ to a lady? _(She stretches up to light the cigarette over the
flame, twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch
with his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up
her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie's green. She puffs calmly
at her cigarette. )_ Can you see the beautyspot of my behind?

LYNCH: I'm not looking

ZOE: _(Makes sheep's eyes)_ No? You wouldn't do a less thing. Would you
suck a lemon?

_(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom,
then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue
fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously,
twirling his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her
spittle and, gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag,
basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts
two steps to the left on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several
overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which he holds a roll of
parchment. In his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor
Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On his head is perched an Egyptian pshent.
Two quills project over his ears. )_

VIRAG: _(Heels together, bows)_ My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely.
_(He coughs thoughtfully, drily)_ Promiscuous nakedness is much in
evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact
that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you
are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you
perceived? Good.

BLOOM: Granpapachi. But. . .

VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and
coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of
gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I
should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always
understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of
lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a
word. Hippogriff. Am I right?

BLOOM: She is rather lean.

VIRAG: _(Not unpleasantly)_ Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier
pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest
bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull
has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the
attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you
can wear today. Parallax! _(With a nervous twitch of his head)_ Did you
hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax!

BLOOM: _(An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek)_
She seems sad.

VIRAG: _(Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left
eye with a finger and barks hoarsely)_ Hoax! Beware of the flapper
and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button
discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon.
_(More genially)_ Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item
number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe
the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she
bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel.

BLOOM: _(Regretfully)_ When you come out without your gun.

VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your
money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either. . .

BLOOM: With. . . ?

VIRAG: _(His tongue upcurling)_ Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She
is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat.
Obviously mammal in
weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two
protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the
noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional
protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation,
which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts
are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers
reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and
gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their
brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That
suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in
it. Lycopodium. _(His throat twitches)_ Slapbang! There he goes again.

BLOOM: The stye I dislike.

VIRAG: _(Arches his eyebrows)_ Contact with a goldring, they say.
_Argumentum ad feminam_, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece
in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve's
sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. _(He twitches)_ It
is a funny sound. _(He coughs encouragingly)_ But possibly it is only a
wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on
that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

BLOOM: _(Reflecting)_ Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This
searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of
accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said. . .

VIRAG: _(Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking)_ Stop
twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten.
Exercise your mnemotechnic. _La causa e santa_. Tara. Tara. _(Aside)_ He
will surely remember.

BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over
parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a
deadhand cures. Mnemo?

VIRAG: _(Excitedly)_ I say so. I say so. E'en so. Technic. _(He taps his
parchmentroll energetically)_ This book tells you how to act with all
descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite,
melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about
amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with
horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar
and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike
women in male habiliments? _(With a dry snigger)_ You intended to devote
an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer
months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate!
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say?
Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case,
those complicated combinations, camiknickers? _(He crows derisively)_
Keekeereekee!

_(Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled
mauve light, hearing the everflying moth. )_

BLOOM: I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence
this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is
will then morrow as now was be past yester.

VIRAG: _(Prompts in a pig's whisper)_ Insects of the day spend their
brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the
inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve
in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! _(His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally)_
They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand
five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will
attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt
vinegar. Bear's buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time
we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. _(He coughs and, bending
his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a scooping hand)_ You shall
find that these night insects follow the light. An illusion for remember
their complex unadjustable eye. For all these knotty points see the
seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion
which Doctor L. B. says is the book sensation of the year. Some, to
example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Perceive. That
is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley!
_(He blows into bloom's ear)_ Buzz!

BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self
then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I. . .

VIRAG: _(His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key)_ Splendid!
Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. _(He gobbles
gluttonously with turkey wattles)_ Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are
we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! _(He unrolls his parchment rapidly and
reads, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the letters which he
claws)_ Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters will
shortly be upon us. I'm the best o'cook. Those succulent bivalves may
help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister
omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or
viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. _(He wags his head with
cackling raillery)_ Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. _(He
sneezes)_ Amen!

BLOOM: _(Absently)_ Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Always open
sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve
and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy
to my idea. Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. Wind their way
through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like
those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis.

VIRAG: _(His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly
closed, psalms in outlandish monotone)_ That the cows with their those
distended udders that they have been the the known. . .

BLOOM: I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. _(He repeats)_
Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their
teats to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. _(Profoundly)_ Instinct
rules the world. In life. In death.

VIRAG: _(Head askew, arches his back and hunched wingshoulders, peers
at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a horning claw and cries)_
Who's moth moth? Who's dear Gerald? Dear Ger, that you? O dear, he is
Gerald. O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Will some pleashe
pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass
tablenumpkin? _(He mews)_ Puss puss puss puss! _(He sighs, draws back
and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw)_ Well, well. He doth
rest anon. (He snaps his jaws suddenly on the air)

THE MOTH:

I'm a tiny tiny thing
Ever flying in the spring
Round and round a ringaring.
Long ago I was a king
Now I do this kind of thing
On the wing, on the wing!
Bing!

_(He rushes against the mauve shade, flapping noisily)_ Pretty pretty
pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.

_(From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes
forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping plumed
sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed
bamboo Jacob's pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears
dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour's
face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and
sparrow feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles
down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his
amorous tongue. )_

HENRY: _(In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar)_
There is a flower that bloometh.

_(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards
Zoe's neck. Henry gallant turns with pendant dewlap to the piano. )_

STEPHEN: _(To himself)_ Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my
belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my.
Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old
Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep
impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially
drunk, by the way. _(He touches the keys again)_ Minor chord comes now.
Yes. Not much however.

_(Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous
moustachework. )_

ARTIFONI: _Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto. _

FLORRY: Sing us something. Love's old sweet song.

STEPHEN: No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you
the letter about the lute?

FLORRY: _(Smirking)_ The bird that can sing and won't sing.

_(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with
lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with Matthew
Arnold's face. )_

PHILIP SOBER: Take a fool's advice. All is not well. Work it out with
the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve
you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew.
Mooney's en ville, Mooney's sur mer, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street
hospital, Burke's. Eh? I am watching you.

PHILIP DRUNK: _(Impatiently)_ Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way.
If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality.
Who was it told me his name? _(His lawnmower begins to purr)_ Aha, yes.
_Zoe mou sas agapo_. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not
Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He
told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no?

FLORRY: And the song?

STEPHEN: Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth? You're like someone I knew once.

STEPHEN: Out of it now. _(To himself)_ Clever.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: _(Their lawnmowers purring with a
rigadoon of grasshalms)_ Clever ever.