Complete Works of James Joyce (122 page)

CISSY CAFFREY: They’re going to fight. For me!

CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.

CUNTY KATE:
(Blushing deeply)
Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me!

STEPHEN:

The harlot’s cry from street to street Shall weave Old Ireland’s windingsheet.

PRIVATE CARR:
(Loosening his belt, shouts)
I’ll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

BLOOM:
(Shakes Cissy Caffrey’s shoulders)
Speak, you! Are you struck dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver!

CISSY CAFFREY:
(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s sleeve)
Amn’t I with you? Amn’t I your girl? Cissy’s your girl.
(She cries)
Police!

STEPHEN:
(Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey)

    
White thy fambles, red thy gan

 
   
And thy quarrons dainty is.

VOICES: Police!

DISTANT VOICES: Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s burning! On fire, on fire!

(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete’s singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons’ teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against Daniel O’Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M’Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O’Leary against Lear O’Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O’Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The O’Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the feldaltar of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi O’Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant’s head an open umbrella.)

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN:
Introibo ad altare diaboli.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN:
(Takes from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host) Corpus meum.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE:
(Raises high behind the celebrant’s petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck)
My body.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ADONAI: Dooooooooooog!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ADONAI: Goooooooooood!

(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing
Kick the Pope
and
Daily, daily sing to Mary.)

PRIVATE CARR:
(With ferocious articulation)
I’ll do him in, so help me fucking Christ! I’ll wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!

OLD GUMMY GRANNY:
(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen’s hand)
Remove him, acushla. At
8.35 a
.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free.
(She prays)
O good God, take him!

(THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.)

BLOOM:
(Runs to lynch)
Can’t you get him away?

LYNCH: He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty!
(To Bloom)
Get him away, you. He won’t listen to me.

(He drags Kitty away.)

STEPHEN:
(Points) exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.

BLOOM:
(Runs to Stephen)
Come along with me now before worse happens. Here’s your stick.

STEPHEN: Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.

CISSY CAFFREY:
(Pulling Private Carr)
Come on, you’re boosed. He insulted me but I forgive him.
(Shouting in his ear)
I forgive him for insulting me.

BLOOM:
(Over Stephen’s shoulder)
Yes, go. You see he’s incapable.

PRIVATE CARR:
(Breaks loose)
I’ll insult him.

(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)

MAJOR TWEEDY:
(Loudly)
Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute!

THE RETRIEVER:
(Barking furiously)
Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.

THE CROWD: Let him up! Don’t strike him when he’s down! Air! Who? The soldier hit him. He’s a professor. Is he hurted? Don’t manhandle him! He’s fainted!

A HAG: What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers!

THE BAWD: Listen to who’s talking! Hasn’t the soldier a right to go with his girl? He gave him the coward’s blow.

(They grab at each other’s hair, claw at each other and spit)

THE RETRIEVER:
(Barking)
Wow wow wow.

BLOOM:
(Shoves them back, loudly)
Get back, stand back!

PRIVATE COMPTON:
(Tugging his comrade)
Here. Bugger off, Harry. Here’s the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group.)

FIRST WATCH: What’s wrong here?

PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady. And he insulted us. And assaulted my chum.
(The retriever barks)
Who owns the bleeding tyke?

CISSY CAFFREY:
(With expectation)
Is he bleeding!

A MAN:
(Rising from his knees)
No. Gone off. He’ll come to all right.

BLOOM:
(Glances sharply at the man)
Leave him to me. I can easily...

SECOND WATCH: Who are you? Do you know him?

PRIVATE CARR:
(Lurches towards the watch)
He insulted my lady friend.

BLOOM:
(Angrily)
You hit him without provocation. I’m a witness. Constable, take his regimental number.

SECOND WATCH: I don’t want your instructions in the discharge of my duty.

PRIVATE COMPTON:
(Pulling his comrade)
Here, bugger off Harry. Or Bennett’ll shove you in the lockup.

PRIVATE CARR:
(Staggering as he is pulled away)
God fuck old Bennett. He’s a whitearsed bugger. I don’t give a shit for him.

FIRST WATCH:
(Takes out his notebook)
What’s his name?

BLOOM:
(Peering over the crowd)
I just see a car there. If you give me a hand a second, sergeant...

FIRST WATCH: Name and address.

(Corny Kelleker, weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand, appears among the bystanders.)

BLOOM:
(Quickly)
O, the very man!
(He whispers)
Simon Dedalus’ son. A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.

SECOND WATCH: Night, Mr Kelleher.

CORNY KELLEHER:
(To the watch, with drawling eye)
That’s all right. I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway.
(He laughs)
Twenty to one. Do you follow me?

FIRST WATCH:
(Turns to the crowd)
Here, what are you all gaping at? Move on out of that.

(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)

CORNY KELLEHER: Leave it to me, sergeant. That’ll be all right.
(He laughs, shaking his head)
We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse. What? Eh, what?

FIRST WATCH:
(Laughs)
I suppose so.

CORNY KELLEHER:
(Nudges the second watch)
Come and wipe your name off the slate.
(He lilts, wagging his head)
With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?

SECOND WATCH:
(Genially)
Ah, sure we were too.

CORNY KELLEHER:
(Winking)
Boys will be boys. I’ve a car round there.

SECOND WATCH: All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.

CORNY KELLEHER: I’ll see to that.

BLOOM:
(Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn)
Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you.
(He mumbles confidentially)
We don’t want any scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand.

FIRST WATCH: O. I understand, sir.

SECOND WATCH: That’s all right, sir.

FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I’d have to report it at the station.

BLOOM:
(Nods rapidly)
Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.

SECOND WATCH: It’s our duty.

CORNY KELLEHER: Good night, men.

THE WATCH:
(Saluting together)
Night, gentlemen.
(They move off with slow heavy tread)

BLOOM:
(Blows)
Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?...

CORNY KELLEHER:
(Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to the car brought up against the scaffolding)
Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet’s. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan’s car and down to nighttown.

BLOOM: I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...

CORNY KELLEHER:
(Laughs)
Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself.
(He laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye)
Thanks be to God we have it in the house, what, eh, do you follow me? Hah, hah, hah!

BLOOM:
(Tries to laugh)
He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don’t know him (poor fellow, he’s laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just making my way home...

(The horse neighs.)

THE HORSE: Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!

CORNY KELLEHER: Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen’s and I told him to pull up and got off to see.
(He laughs)
Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Will I give him a lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?