Part 131 (1/2)

_(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christa.s.s, lame crutch and leg sailor in c.o.c.kboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraab.u.m! 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 b.u.mp mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber b.u.mps.h.i.+re rose. Baraab.u.m!)_

_(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes closed he totters. Red rails fly s.p.a.cewards. 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 b.u.t.tered 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 b.i.t.c.hbody. She kicked the bucket. _(Tears of molten b.u.t.ter 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 h.e.l.l!

STEPHEN: _(Panting)_ His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw head and b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.d's hand!

_(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart.)_