(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face worn and noseless, green with grave mould. Her hair is scant and lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.)THE CHOIR
Liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
Iubilantium te virginum...
(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)BUCK MULLIGAN She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi.
THE MOTHER (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) I was once the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.
STEPHEN (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? What bogey man's trick is this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch killed her dogsbody bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten butter fall from his eyes into the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi oinopa ponton.
THE MOTHER (Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes.) All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the world. You too. Time will come.
STEPHEN (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) They said I killed you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.
THE MOTHER (A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.) You sang that song to me. Love's bitter mystery.
STEPHEN (Eagerly.) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word known to all men.
THE MOTHER Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers? Prayer is all powerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline manual, and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN The ghoul! Hyena!
THE MOTHER I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brain work. Years and years I loved you, O my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.
ZOE (Fanning herself with the grate fan.) I'm melting!
FLORRY (Points to Stephen) Look! He's white.
BLOOM (Goes to the window to open it more.) Giddy.
THE MOTHER (With smouldering eyes.) Repent! O, the fire of hell!
STEPHEN (Panting.) The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones!
THE MOTHER (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen breath.) Beware! (She raises her blackened, withered right arm slowly towards Stephen's breast with outstretched fingers.) Beware! God's hand! (A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart.)STEPHEN (Strangled with rage.) Shite! (His features grow drawn and grey and old.)BLOOM (At the window.) What?
STEPHEN Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. Non serviam!
FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.)THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O divine Sacred Heart!
STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I'll bring you all to heel!
THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN Nothung!
(He hits his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)THE GASJET Pwfungg!
BLOOM Stop!
LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't run amok!
BELLA Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground and flees from the room past the whores at the door.)BELLA (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up.
BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) There. You were with him. The lamp's broken.
BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE He tore his coat.
BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for that? Ten Shillings. You're a witness.
BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you lifted enough off him? Didn't he...
BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A ten shilling house.
BLOOM (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the chimney's broken. Here is all he...
BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't!
BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY (With a glass of water enters.) Where is he?
BELLA Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You don't want a scandal.
BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races and paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I'll charge him. Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I know.
BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on.