Part 127 (1/2)

BLOOM: _(Quietly)_ You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more?

STEPHEN: _(Hands him all his coins)_ Be just before you are generous.

BLOOM: I will but is it wise? _(He counts)_ One, seven, eleven, and five. Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost.

STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next Lessing says. Thirsty fox. _(He laughs loudly)_ Burying his grandmother.

Probably he killed her.

BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say.

STEPHEN: Doesn't matter a rambling d.a.m.n.

BLOOM: No, but...

STEPHEN: _(Comes to the table)_ Cigarette, please. _(Lynch tosses a cigarette from the sofa to the table)_ And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. _(A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it)_ Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. _(He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy)_

LYNCH: _(Watching him)_ You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer.

STEPHEN: _(Brings the match near his eye)_ Lynx eye. Must get gla.s.ses.

Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat. _(He draws the match away. It goes out.)_ Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. _(He frowns mysteriously)_ Hm.

Sphinx. The beast that has twobacks at midnight. Married.

ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him.

FLORRY: _(Nods)_ Mr Lambe from London.

STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world.

LYNCH: _(Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply) Dona n.o.bis pacem._

_(The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it in the grate.)_

BLOOM: Don't smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. _(To Zoe)_ You have nothing?

ZOE: Is he hungry?

STEPHEN: _(Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the bloodoath in the_ Dusk of the G.o.ds)

Hangende Hunger, Fragende Frau, Macht uns alle kaputt.

ZOE: _(Tragically)_ Hamlet, I am thy father's gimlet! _(She takes his hand)_ Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand. _(She points to his forehead)_ No wit, no wrinkles. _(She counts)_ Two, three, Mars, that's courage. _(Stephen shakes his head)_ No kid.

LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not s.h.i.+ver and shake. _(To Zoe)_ Who taught you palmistry?

ZOE: _(Turns)_ Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. _(To Stephen)_ I see it in your face. The eye, like that. _(She frowns with lowered head)_

LYNCH: _(Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice)_ Like that. Pandybat.

_(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.)_