No More Learning

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.

THE MOTHER: _(Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen
breath)_ Beware! _(She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly
towards Stephen's breast with outstretched finger)_ Beware God's hand!
_(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in
Stephen's heart. )_

STEPHEN: _(Strangled with rage)_ Shite! _(His features grow drawn grey
and old)_

BLOOM: _(At the window)_ What?

STEPHEN: _Ah non, par exemple! _ The intellectual imagination! With me
all or not at all. _Non serviam! _

FLORRY: Give him some cold water. Wait. _(She rushes out)_

THE MOTHER: _(Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately)_ O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred
Heart!

STEPHEN: No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I'll bring
you all to heel!

THE MOTHER: _(In the agony of her deathrattle)_ Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love,
grief and agony on Mount Calvary.

STEPHEN: _Nothung_!

_(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.
Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of
all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry. )_

THE GASJET: Pwfungg!

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?