Ulysses - Gabler Edition [269]
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 gratefan) 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 hell!
STEPHEN
(panting) His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody 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 God’s hand!
(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen’s heart.)
STEPHEN
(strangled with rage, his features drawn grey and old) Shite!
BLOOM
(at the window) What?
STEPHEN
Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. Non serviam!
FLORRY
Give him some cold water. Wait. (she rushes out)
THE MOTHER
(wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately) O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred Heart!
STEPHEN
No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I’ll bring you all to heel!
THE MOTHER
(in the agony of her deathrattle) Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN
Nothung!
(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET
Pwfungg!
BLOOM
Stop!
LYNCH
(rushes forward and seizes Stephen’s hand) Here! Hold on! Don’t run amok!
BELLA
Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.)
BELLA
(screams) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES
(jammed in the doorway, pointing) Down there.
ZOE
(pointing) There. There’s something up.
BELLA
Who pays for the lamp? (she seizes Bloom’s coattail) Here, you were with him. The lamp’s broken.
BLOOM
(rushes to the hall, rushes back) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE
He tore his coat.
BELLA
(her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points) Who’s to pay for that? Ten shillings. You’re a witness.
BLOOM
(snatches up Stephen’s ashplant) Me? Ten shillings? Haven’t you lifted enough off him? Didn’t he ....?
BELLA
(loudly) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn’t a brothel. A tenshilling house.
BLOOM
(His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Puling, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the chimney’s broken. Here is all he ....
BELLA
(shrinks back and screams) Jesus! Don’t!
BLOOM
(warding off a blow) To show you how he hit the paper. There’s not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY
(with a glass of water, enters) Where is he?
BELLA
Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM
O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he’s a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (he makes