Page 933 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

BLOOM: (Contemptuously) Clean your nailless middle
finger first, your bully’s cold spunk is dripping from your
cockscomb. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself.
BELLA: I know you, canvasser! Dead cod!

BLOOM: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!
BELLA: (Turns to the piano) Which of you was playing
the dead march from Saul?
ZOE: Me. Mind your cornflowers. (She darts to the
piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms) The cat’s
ramble through the slag. (She glances back) Eh? Who’s
making love to my sweeties? (She darts back to the table)
What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own.
(Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper.
Bloom approaches Zoe.)
BLOOM: (Gently) Give me back that potato, will you?
ZOE: Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing.
BLOOM: (With feeling) It is nothing, but still, a relic of
poor mamma.
ZOE:

Give a thing and take it back
God’ll ask you where is that
You’ll say you don’t know
God’ll send you down below.

932 of 1305