Ulysses - Gabler Edition [263]
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 glasses. 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 two backs 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 nobis 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 Gods)
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 shiver 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.)
FATHER DOLAN
Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little schemer. See it in your eye.
(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises from the pianola coffin.)
DON JOHN CONMEE
Now, Father Dolan! Now. I’m sure that Stephen is a very good little boy!
ZOE
(examining Stephen’s palm) Woman’s hand.
STEPHEN
(murmurs) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.
ZOE
What day were you born?
STEPHEN
Thursday. Today.
ZOE
Thursday’s child has far to go. (she traces lines on his hand) Line of fate. Influential friends.
FLORRY
(pointing) Imagination.
ZOE
Mount of the moon. You’ll meet with a .... (she peers at his hands abruptly) I won’t tell you what’s not good for you. Or do you want to know?
BLOOM
(detaches her fingers and offers his palm) More harm than good. Here. Read mine.
BELLA
Show. (she turns up Bloom’s hand) I thought so. Knobby knuckles for the women.
ZOE
(peering at Bloom’s palm) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and marry money.
BLOOM
Wrong.
ZOE
(quickly) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That wrong?
(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, stretches her wings and clucks.)
BLACK LIZ
Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook. (she sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off)
BLOOM
(points to his hand) That weal there is an accident. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen.
ZOE
I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.
STEPHEN
See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. (he winces) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?
(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)
FLORRY
What?
(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James