Ulysses

(SHOCKED, on weak hams, he HALTS.  Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. 
Bloom PATS with PARCELLED hands watch FOBPOCKET, BOOKPOCKET, PURSEPOKET,
sweets of sin, potato soap.)

Bloom:  Beware of pickpockets.  Old thieves’ dodge.  Collide.  Then snatch your purse.

(The RETRIEVER APPROACHES sniffing, nose to the ground.  A sprawled form
SNEEZES.  A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long CAFTAN of an
elder in Zion and A SMOKINGCAP with MAGENTA tassels.  HORNED spectacles
hang down at the wings of the nose.  Yellow poison streaks are on the
drawn face.)

Rudolph:  Second halfcrown waste money today.  I told you not go with drunken goy ever.  So you catch no money.

Bloom:  (HIDES the crubeen and Trotter behind his back and, CRESTFALLEN,
feels warm and cold FEETMEAT) ja, ICH Weiss, PAPACHI.

Rudolph:  What you making down this place?  Have you no soul? (With feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of bloom) Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold?  Are you not my dear son Leopold who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?

Bloom:  (With precaution) I suppose so, father.  Mosenthal.  All that’s left of him.

Rudolph:  (SEVERELY) One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money.  What you call them running chaps?

Bloom:  (In youth’s smart blue Oxford suit with white VESTSLIPS, NARROWSHOULDERED, in brown ALPINE hat, wearing GENT’S sterling silver WATERBURY keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one side of him coated with STIFFENING mud) Harriers, father.  Only that once.

Rudolph:  Once!  Mud head to foot.  Cut your hand open.  Lockjaw.  They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben.  You watch them chaps.

Bloom:  (WEAKLY) They challenged me to a sprint.  It was muddy.  I slipped.

Rudolph:  (With contempt) GOIM nachez!  Nice spectacles for your poor mother!

Bloom:  Mamma!

Ellen bloom:  (In pantomime dame’s STRINGED MOBCAP, widow TWANKEY’S CRINOLINE and BUSTLE, blouse with MUTTONLEG sleeves buttoned behind, grey MITTENS and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in A CRISPINE net, appears over the staircase BANISTERS, A slanted candlestick in her hand, and cries out in shrill alarm) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him!  My smelling salts! (She HAULS up A reef of skirt and RANSACKS the pouch of her striped BLAY petticoat.  A phial, an AGNUS DEI, A shrivelled potato and A celluloid doll fall out) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all?

(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to BESTOW his parcels in his filled pockets but DESISTS, muttering.)

A voice:  (SHARPLY) Poldy!

Bloom:  Who? (He ducks and wards off A blow CLUMSILY) At your service.

(He looks up.  Beside her Mirage of DATEPALMS A handsome woman in Turkish
costume stands before him.  OPULENT curves fill out her scarlet trousers
and jacket, SLASHED with gold.  A wide yellow CUMMERBUND girdles her.  A
white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only
her large dark eyes and RAVEN hair.)

Bloom:  Molly!

Marion:  Welly?  Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. (SATIRICALLY) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?

Bloom:  (SHIFTS from foot to foot) No, no.  Not the least little bit.

(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing GULPS of air, questions,
hopes, CRUBEENS for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire,
spellbound.  A coin GLEAMS on her forehead.  On her feet are jewelled
TOERINGS.  Her ankles are linked by A slender FETTERCHAIN.  Beside her A
camel, HOODED with A TURRETING turban, waits.  A silk ladder of
innumerable RUNGS CLIMBS to his bobbing HOWDAH.  He AMBLES near with
DISGRUNTLED hindquarters.  FIERCELY she SLAPS his haunch, her GOLDCURB
WRISTBANGLES ANGRILING, SCOLDING him in Moorish.)

Marion:  Nebrakada!  Femininum!

(The camel, lifting A foreleg, plucks from A tree A large mango fruit,
offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then DROOPS his
head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, FUMBLES to kneel.  Bloom STOOPS
his back for LEAPFROG.)

Bloom:  I can give you …  I mean as your business menagerer …  Mrs
Marion … if you ...

Marion:  So you notice some change? (Her hands passing slowly over her TRINKETED STOMACHER, A slow friendly mockery in her eyes) O Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud!  Go and see life.  See the wide world.

Bloom:  I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water.  Shop closes early on Thursday.  But the first thing in the morning.  (He PATS divers pockets) This moving kidney.  Ah!

(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon soap
ARISES, diffusing light and perfume.)

The soap: 

    We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I.
    He brightens the earth.  I polish the sky.