No More Learning

I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness
the deed and take a snapshot? _(He holds out an ointment jar)_ Vaseline,
sir? Orangeflower. . . ? Lukewarm water. . . ?

KITTY: _(From the sofa)_ Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What.

_(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping
loudly, poppysmic plopslop. )_

MINA KENNEDY: _(Her eyes upturned)_ O, it must be like the scent of
geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her!
Stuck together! Covered with kisses!

LYDIA DOUCE: _(Her mouth opening)_ Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round
the room doing it! Ride a cockhorse. You could hear them in Paris and
New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.

KITTY: _(Laughing)_ Hee hee hee.

BOYLAN'S VOICE: _(Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach)_ Ah!
Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!

MARION'S VOICE: _(Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat)_ O!
Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck?

BLOOM: _(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself)_ Show! Hide! Show!
Plough her! More! Shoot!

BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee!

LYNCH: _(Points)_ The mirror up to nature. _(He laughs)_ Hu hu hu hu hu!

_(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare,
beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the
reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall. )_

SHAKESPEARE: _(In dignified ventriloquy)_ 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks
the vacant mind. _(To Bloom)_ Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest
invisible. Gaze. _(He crows with a black capon's laugh)_ Iagogo! How my
Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo!

BLOOM: _(Smiles yellowly at the three whores)_ When will I hear the
joke?

ZOE: Before you're twice married and once a widower.

BLOOM: Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements
were taken next the skin after his death. . .

_(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with
deathtalk, tears and Tunney's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds,
her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a
pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late
husband's everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. She holds
a Scottish widows' insurance policy and a large marquee umbrella under
which her brood run with her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his collar
loose, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a
crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on,
her streamers flaunting aloft. )_

FREDDY: Ah, ma, you're dragging me along!

SUSY: Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over!

SHAKESPEARE: _(With paralytic rage)_ Weda seca whokilla farst.

_(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's
beardless face. The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the children run
aside. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and
kimono gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily. )_

MRS CUNNINGHAM: _(Sings)_

And they call me the jewel of Asia!

MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: _(Gazes on her, impassive)_ Immense! Most bloody
awful demirep!

STEPHEN: _Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. _ Queens lay with prize bulls.
Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions
of the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was
open.

BELLA: None of that here. Come to the wrong shop.

LYNCH: Let him alone. He's back from Paris.

ZOE: _(Runs to stephen and links him)_ O go on! Give us some parleyvoo.

_(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace where he
stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile
on his face. )_

LYNCH: _(Oommelling on the sofa)_ Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmm.

STEPHEN: _(Gabbles with marionette jerks)_ Thousand places of
entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves
and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable
house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about
princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries
extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english
how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous.
Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show
with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night.
Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in
universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then
disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young
with _dessous troublants_. _(He clacks his tongue loudly)_ _Ho, la la!
Ce pif qu'il a! _

LYNCH: _Vive le vampire! _

THE WHORES: Bravo! Parleyvoo!

STEPHEN: _(Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself)_
Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy
apostles big damn ruffians. _Demimondaines_ nicely handsome sparkling of
diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs
they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? _(He points about him with
grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to)_ Caoutchouc
statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very
lesbic the kiss five ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every
positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act
awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on
the belly _piece de Shakespeare. _

BELLA: _(Clapping her belly sinks back on the sofa, with a shout of
laughter)_ An omelette on the. . . Ho! ho! ho! ho! . . . omelette on the. . .

STEPHEN: _(Mincingly)_ I love you, sir darling. Speak you englishman
tongue for _double entente cordiale. _ O yes, _mon loup_. How much cost?
Waterloo. Watercloset. _(He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger)_

BELLA: _(Laughing)_ Omelette. . .

THE WHORES: _(Laughing)_ Encore! Encore!

STEPHEN: Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon.

ZOE: Go abroad and love a foreign lady.

LYNCH: Across the world for a wife.

FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries.

STEPHEN: _(Extends his arms)_ It was here. Street of harlots. In
Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the
red carpet spread?

BLOOM: _(Approaching Stephen)_ Look. . .

STEPHEN: No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World
without end. _(He cries) P_ater! Free!

BLOOM: I say, look. . .

STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? _O merde alors! (He cries, his
vulture talons sharpened)_ Hola! Hillyho!

_(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready. )_

SIMON: That's all right. _(He swoops uncertainly through the air,
wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard
wings)_ Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those
halfcastes. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep
our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed.
Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! _(He makes the beagle's call, giving
tongue)_ Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy!

_(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country.
A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his
grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth,
under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground,
sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded. Ward
Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six
Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty
sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips,
bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, greynegroes
waving torches. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players,
thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high
wizard hats clamour deafeningly. )_

THE CROWD:

Card of the races. Racing card!
Ten to one the field!
Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay!
Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one!
Try your luck on Spinning Jenny!
Ten to one bar one!
Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey!
I'll give ten to one!
Ten to one bar one!

_(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost,
his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of
bucking mounts. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel,
the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beaufort's
Ceylon, prix de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping
in their, in their saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain on a brokenwinded
isabelle nag, Cock of the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket,
orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockeystick at
the ready. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky
road. )_

THE ORANGE LODGES: _(Jeering)_ Get down and push, mister. Last lap!
You'll be home the night!

GARRETT DEASY: _(Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with
postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the
prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop)_

_Per vias rectas! _

_(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent
of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips,
potatoes. )_

THE GREEN LODGES: Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour!

_(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the
windows, singing in discord. )_

STEPHEN: Hark! Our friend noise in the street.

ZOE: _(Holds up her hand)_ Stop!
PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY:

Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire relish for. . .

ZOE: That's me. _(She claps her hands)_ Dance! Dance! _(She runs to the
pianola)_ Who has twopence?

BLOOM: Who'll. . . ?

LYNCH: _(Handing her coins)_ Here.

STEPHEN: _(Cracking his fingers impatiently)_ Quick! Quick! Where's my
augur's rod? _(He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his
foot in tripudium)_

ZOE: _(Turns the drumhandle)_ There.

_(She drops two pennies in the slot. Gold, pink and violet lights
start forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor
Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained
inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the
room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool and lifts
and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsel's
grace, his bowknot bobbing)_

ZOE: _(Twirls round herself, heeltapping)_ Dance. Anybody here for
there? Who'll dance? Clear the table.

_(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of_
My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. _Stephen throws his ashplant on the table
and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards
the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to
waltz her round the room. Bloom stands aside. Her sleeve filling from
gracing arms reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. Between the
curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins
a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his crown and
jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk
lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar
with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary
gloves. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed
directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places
a hand lightly on his breastbone, bows, and fondles his flower and
buttons. )_

MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. No connection
with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Fancy dress balls arranged.
Deportment. The Katty Lanner step. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean
abilities. _(He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet) Tout
le monde en avant! Reverence! Tout le monde en place! _

_(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms shrivels,
sinks, his live cape filling about the stool. The air in firmer waltz
time sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow,
fide gold rosy violet. )_

THE PIANOLA:

Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls,
Sweethearts they'd left behind. . .

_(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled,
in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance,
twirling their skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold.
Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking
mirrors, lifting their arms. )_

MAGINNI: _(Clipclaps glovesilent hands) Carre! Avant deux! _ Breathe
evenly! _Balance! _

_(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing
to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Cavaliers behind
them arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching,
rising from their shoulders. )_

HOURS: You may touch my.

CAVALIERS: May I touch your?

HOURS: O, but lightly!

CAVALIERS: O, so lightly!

THE PIANOLA:

My little shy little lass has a waist.

_(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours
advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their
cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey
gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze. )_

MAGINNI: _Avant huit! Traverse! Salut! Cours de mains! Croise! _

_(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon
and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered
hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils. )_

THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho!

ZOE: _(Twirling, her hand to her brow)_ O!

MAGINNI: _Les tiroirs! Chaine de dames! La corbeille! Dos a dos! _

_(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling. )_

ZOE: I'm giddy!

_(She frees herself, droops on a chair. Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her. )_

MAGINNI: Boulangere! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!

_(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands the night hours link each
each with arching arms in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn
cumbrously. )_

MAGINNI: _Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! Donnez le petit
bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez! _

THE PIANOLA:

Best, best of all,
Baraabum!

KITTY: (JUMPS UP) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus
bazaar!

_(She runs to Stephen. He leaves florry brusquely and seizes Kitty.
A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling
Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the
room. )_

THE PIANOLA:

My girl's a Yorkshire girl.

ZOE:

Yorkshire through and through.

Come on all!

_(She seizes Florry and waltzes her. )_

STEPHEN: _Pas seul! _

_(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his ashplant from
the table and takes the floor. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. Bloombella
Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits
in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under
thigh. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow
flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded
snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall
again. )_

THE PIANOLA:

Though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.

_(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scootlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum! )_

TUTTI: Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!

SIMON: Think of your mother's people!

STEPHEN: Dance of death.

_(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings,
Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded
ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On
nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone
onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram
filling bawling gum he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev.
evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly
with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback lumbering up
and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber
bumpshire rose. Baraabum! )_

_(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes
closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn
roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead. )_

STEPHEN: Ho!

_(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil, her
face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and
lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens
her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and
confessors sing voicelessly. )_

THE CHOIR:

Liliata rutilantium te confessorum. . .
Iubilantium te virginum. . .

_(from the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress
of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at
her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand. )_

BUCK MULLIGAN: She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the
afflicted mother. _(He upturns his eyes)_ Mercurial Malachi!

THE MOTHER: _(With the subtle smile of death's madness)_ I was once the
beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.

STEPHEN: _(Horrorstruck)_ Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman's trick
is this?

BUCK MULLIGAN: _(Shakes his curling capbell)_ The mockery of it! Kinch
dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. _(Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes on to the scone)_ Our great sweet mother! _Epi
oinopa ponton. _

THE MOTHER: _(Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of
wetted ashes)_ All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in
the world. You too. Time will come.

STEPHEN: _(Choking with fright, remorse and horror)_ They say I killed
you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.

THE MOTHER: _(A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth)_
You sang that song to me. _Love's bitter mystery. _

STEPHEN: _(Eagerly)_ Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word
known to all men.

THE MOTHER: Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at
Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the
strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the
Ursuline manual and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen.

STEPHEN: The ghoul! Hyena!

THE MOTHER: I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that
boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I loved
you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.

ZOE: _(Fanning herself with the grate fan)_ I'm melting!

FLORRY: _(Points to Stephen)_ Look! He's white.

BLOOM: _(Goes to the window to open it more)_ Giddy.

THE MOTHER: _(With smouldering eyes)_ Repent! O, the fire of hell!

STEPHEN: _(Panting)_ His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw
head and bloody bones.