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Ulysses - Gabler Edition [257]

By Root 16208 0
their lives. (he chuckles) My boys will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I’ll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? (he points) For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. (he bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom’s vulva) There’s fine depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (he shoves his arm in a bidder’s face) Here wet the deck and wipe it round!

A BIDDER

A florin.

(Dillon’s lacquey rings his handbell.)

THE LACQUEY

Barang!

A VOICE

One and eightpence too much.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH

Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean.

BELLO

(gives a rap with his gavel) Two bar. Rockbottom figure and cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine shis points. Handle hrim. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His sire’s milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! (he brands his initial C on Bloom’s croup) So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen?

A DARKVISAGED MAN

(in disguised accent) Hoondert punt sterlink.

VOICES

(subdued) For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid.

BELLO

(gaily) Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the blasé man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.

BLOOM

(bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in mouth) O, I know what you’re hinting at now!

BELLO

What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? (he stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds of Bloom’s haunches) Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where’s your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It’s as limp as a boy of six’s doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. (loudly) Can you do a man’s job?

BLOOM

Eccles street ....

BELLO

(sarcastically) I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world but there’s a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! He’s no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy ginger, it’s kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! That makes you wild, don’t it? Touches the spot? (he spits in contempt) Spittoon!

BLOOM

I was indecently treated, I ..... Inform the police. Hundred pounds. Unmentionable. I ....

BELLO

Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want not your drizzle.

BLOOM

To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll .... We .... Still .....

BELLO

(ruthlessly) No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman’s will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Return and see.

(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW

Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle!

BLOOM

(in tattered mocassins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded

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