Page 869 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

Potato Preservative against Plague and
Pestilence, pray for us.

(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O’brien,
sings the chorus from Handel’s Messiah alleluia for the lord god
omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn.

Bloom becomes mute, shrunken, carbonised.)
ZOE: Talk away till you’re black in the face.
BLOOM: (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band,
dusty brogues, an emigrant’s red handkerchief bundle in his hand,
leading a black bogoak pig by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye)
Let me be going now, woman of the house, for by all the
goats in Connemara I’m after having the father and
mother of a bating. (With a tear in his eye) All insanity.
Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race.
To be or not to be. Life’s dream is o’er. End it peacefully.
They can live on. (He gazes far away mournfully) I am
ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The blinds drawn. A
letter. Then lie back to rest. (He breathes softly) No more. I
have lived. Fare. Farewell.
ZOE: (Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet) Honest? Till the
next time. (She sneers) Suppose you got up the wrong side
of the bed or came too quick with your best girl. O, I can
read your thoughts!

868 of 1305