Page 904 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

RICHIE GOULDING: (Bagweighted, passes the door)
Mocking is catch. Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s.
Liver and kidney.

THE FAN: (Tapping) All things end. Be mine. Now,
BLOOM: (Undecided) All now? I should not have
parted with my talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the
searocks, a peccadillo at my time of life. Every
phenomenon has a natural cause.
THE FAN: (Points downwards slowly) You may.
BLOOM: (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened
bootlace) We are observed.
THE FAN: (Points downwards quickly) You must.
BLOOM: (With desire, with reluctance) I can make a true
black knot. Learned when I served my time and worked
the mail order line for Kellett’s. Experienced hand. Every
knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before
today. Ah!
(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to
the edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern,
silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and
with gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.)
BLOOM: (Murmurs lovingly) To be a shoefitter in
Manfield’s was my love’s young dream, the darling joys of
sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength

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