0 Ulysses
pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strong-
membered 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 nas-
ty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order?
BELLO: (Whistles loudly) Say! What was the most revolt-
ing 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, vanish-
ing, gibbering, Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny
Cassidy’s hag, blind stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the
woman, the whore, the other, the ...)
BLOOM: Don’t ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants
street. I only thought the half of the ... I swear on my sa-
cred oath ...
BELLO: (Peremptorily) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I in-
sist 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 rererere-
pugnant
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 fill.)
BELLO: (Satirically) By day you will souse and bat our