Ulysses - Gabler Edition [256]
BLOOM
(her hands and features working) It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play Vice Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister’s stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful.
BELLO
(with wicked glee) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne.
BLOOM
Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (earnestly) And really it’s better the position .... because often I used to wet ....
BELLO
(sternly) No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn’t I? Do it standing, sir! I’ll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you’ll find I’m a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.
THE SINS OF THE PAST
(in a medley of voices) He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D’Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order?
BELLO
(whistles loudly) Say! What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be candid for once.
(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom, Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny, Cassidy’s hag, blind stripling, Larry rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other the, lane the.)
BLOOM
Don’t ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought the half of the ... I swear on my sacred oath ....
BELLO
(peremptorily) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr .....
BLOOM
(docile, gurgles) I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant ...
BELLO
(imperiously) O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when you’re spoken to.
BLOOM
(bows) Master! Mistress! Mantamer!
(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall.)
BELLO
(satirically) By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won’t that be nice? (he places a ruby ring on her finger) And there now! With this ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress.
BLOOM
Thank you, mistress.
BELLO
You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh’s the cook’s, a sandy one. Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I’ll lecture you on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the hairbrush. You’ll be taught the error of your ways. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights of old laid down