#a third monstrosity has entered the ring

[forgeofthenine]

would you write something for zevlor where him and his refugees make it to baldurs gate where they are not welcomed very nicely (word spread from elturel) and the daughter/niece of one of the dukes of the council of four steps in and gives them a warm welcome <3 congratulations on third place! it mustve been a great experience <3

Hi, here's just a lil fic. This was a cute idea for a fic and definitely gave me some things to think about while writing it. Thank you for the congratulations too :)

I would like to warn people that the reader in this is referred to as 'my lady' and a grand niece, but not otherwise gendered.

A Wyrms Crossing welcome

The rush of cold sea air meets your face as soon as you left the Elf Song, chilled wind rolling off the ocean and into the city in waves. Your fingers come to press against your temple as you step down the cobbled street, a headache having settled as soon as you stepped foot in that damned room. Hours of useless flaming fist questions didn't help. The crowds are bustling around you, children hawking papers and grifters putting on false magic shows that you easily ignore.

There's much on your mind, and yet you don't have the energy for any of it. The sun is too bright and the noises surrounding you too loud to let you focus. Thoughts swarm in your head as you let your feet lead you well away from a tavern you'd be happy never seeing again. It's only when you raise your head to gaze at Gortashs steel watchers that you realise you've trekked all the way across the city to a checkpoint, flooded with people and giant metal monstrosities.

A swarm of tieflings all stand at attention at the gates, just over a half dozen when you count the children too. There's one in particular that's stands out amongst them, arguing with the checkpoint guard despite the shaking in his hands. Shaking, that constant tremor, it's reminds you of her. Pushing the thought from your head you step forwards, the clack of your heels ringing out against the cobblestone streets. The guard turns from the tiefling then, dropping into a small bow at the mere sight of your approach, a polite "My lady" leaving his lips.

"At ease, guard. Might I find out why a half dozen tieflings are standing here debating with you?" Your eyebrow arches, trying to read the light nervousness on the guards face. He looks between you and the refugees for a moment, likely not seeing how the one he was arguing with perked up at your presence.

"The crossing is closed, my Lady. We aren't to let anyone through on Duke Gortashs orders, especially not without the assent of the steel watch-" He stops his pitiful explanation at a wave of your hand, watching intently as you now look to the refugees. They have deep, tired eyes, the lot of them are covered in bandages and rags for clothes. You wouldn't be surprised if they were all skin and bone under the dirty cloth.

"Never mind the watch, or the closed checkpoint." Your voice is clear as you turn back to the guard. "If Gortash has issue then he can take it up with me. The tieflings have permission to enter the city, by the authority of the Stelmane family." They all perk up when you mention 'permission', looking hopefull as you order the gate open for them. The guards give another bow before, reluctantly, opening the gate for the motley group.

The metal gives its own low groan of resistance before the gates finally swing open, revealing the packed dingy streets of Wyrms Crossing. Turning back to the group of refugees, you give them a small smile, waving them forwards and further into the city. "There's another checkpoint at the end of the crossing, I'll warn them to let you through."

You hear the chorus of assorted thank yous as the tieflings move further into the city, all of them smiling now that hope is back within reach. Soon, only the seeming leader of them hangs back with you, watching as the others excitedly sprawl across the streets. He clears his throat, looks down at his subtly shaking hands, and then turns back to you. "Thank you, on behalf of all of us. I quite honestly was wondering if this was where our journey would end."

The man's voice is low, gravely, and it sets a shiver running down your spine. Looking into his eyes again, suddenly he doesn't remind you so much of your great Aunt. Honestly, most of your thoughts don't matter anymore. "It's only the right thing to do, the group has children, and you look worse for wear." You motion to his shaking hands as he chuckles, obviously aware of the fact he looks quite hard done by. "Let me escort you into the city, I know some people who might be able to help with that." The offer is sweet, but said with a light tone of authority in your voice.

He bows his head lightly, responding in that same steady voice that instantly captures your attention. "It'd be a pleasure, my lady." He smiles, hesitating a moment before politely offering an arm. "And in the future I will do what I can to repay this kindness." He finishes, his arm firm around yours as you link them together, the light tremour still felt in his hand.

You know it will all draw attention, the grand niece of Duke Stelmane waltzing through the city with a tiefling refugee, but despite not knowing his name he's still the first person to make you feel alive since your aunt's death.

[adultish-momma]

Cryptids In The Woods

@forgwater did it go where you were thinking?

This honestly might scare Grim off of tuna. At least for a week.

“Henchuman, it’s weird! He just shows up at odd hours of the night and just stares at our home! For hours! That’s what stalkers do!”

“I mean you’re not exactly wrong per se -watch out for that branch- but Malleus is less of a stalker and more of a Cryptid”.

At this exact moment in time, the Ramshackle dorm is taking a field trip down the mountain, exploring the woods in between Night Raven College and the little port town on Sage Island. Considering it is an early Saturday morning, and Grim couldn't opt out of the excursion (due to him being the only other student in the dorm), the little flame ball is extra grumpy.

Grim is finding anything and everything he can complain about to fill the peaceful silence, and the Diasomnia Housewarden is his current fixation on account of Grim waking up in the middle of the night to find the fae peering in through the second-story window.

His poor little heart is still recovering from that scare.

"Yuuuuuuuuuu, what are we even doing out here?!"

“We’re looking for some potion ingredients for Crewel is what we’re doing. There should be a tree up ahead that we can harvest some oak bark from.”

"And just how do you know this?"

"Our personal Cryptid told me about it."

"... we are talking about that-"

"Yes, Malleus, I'm referring to Malleus."

Grim felt a shiver roll down his spine at the prince's name. He could feel something in the air the further into the woods they trekked, and he was starting to think the Prefect just might somehow summon the gargoyle creep by saying his name so much. The closer they got to where they were heading, the more paranoid Grim became.

Finally, Yuu pushed a cover of vines away, looking back to watch Grim climb over the last few hurdles. They had their back to their destination, but they had a good view of the way their monster companion's eyes widened in awe at the sight of the clearing.

And then Grim let out the most blood-curdling yowl before high tailing it back the way they came.

"Grim!" they attempted to call after him, but he was quickly out of sight and out of earshot. Seeing as that was the same scream the feline had released at exactly 2:46 am the night before, Yuu was prepared to greet the fae as they stepped into the clearing.

"Horning- WHAT THE FUCK!" Not Malleus, this fedora-wearing nightmare was definitely NOT MALLEUS. "FLOYD pleasE I'M BEggiNG YOU, stahp."

"Ah, good morning Prefect!" Jade calls, ignoring the Prefect's sobs. "What brings you to this corner of the mountain?"

"I just wanted to do a nice thing for dad and now I'm going to need years of therapy and WHY ARE YOU SITTING LIKE THAT IT JUST MAKES IT WORSE!"

[teamhappyme]

your heart was glass, i dropped it (champagne problems)

peter stone x female!reader

word count: 15,526 (a monstrosity)

warnings: canon typical mentions of violence, rape, and death, brief allusions to sex (blink and you’ll miss it), mentions of anxiety & depression

a/n: hi friends, i’m back from my little break and reduced screen time to post this monstrosity of a piece i’ve been working on for just shy of six months now. this took everything in me to write, and it has my heart forever and ever. i hope you all can find some enjoyment in it and it doesn’t suck too bad - shoutout to red @hurricanejjareau eau for inspiring me to write this, sticking with me as I teased her for months about this, and the gif credit (i didn’t ask this time because i wanted to surprise you with posting this in the middle of the day so i hope you don’t mind tehehehe)

It was the middle of winter, the grey February sky felt like it would never leave, and the endless melting snow piles were keeping your feet frozen for days. That’s what normally went through your head as you walked to the courthouse; but today you were worried about the grey clouds looming over your ADA’s head, and the uncertain future ahead of him.

You were having a hard time keeping up with Liv as she practically ran up the steps of One Hogan Place, splashing through every puddle without another glance. You followed her in and up the two flights of stairs, yelling out that the trial was in part thirteen. 

By the time you got to the third floor, the hallway was void of any press that you assumed would be there. The two of you were running late, coming straight from a crime scene. You knew that they would break for lunch soon, but Liv insisted on going to support Barba. 

You approached the grand oak doors to the courtroom, Liv trying her best to open them without a sound. The prosecution had a witness on the stand, and a few heads turned to look at who entered. 

Not wanting to disrupt the flow of the trial, the two of you stayed standing in the back of the courtroom, listening in as the prosecutor finished with the witness, turning to make his way back to the bench. 

That’s when you saw him. And for a split second, you got to look at him without being seen. To take in the presence of the poised attorney without the burning glare of his eyes on you. 

But inevitably, those blue eyes met your own, knocking every thought out of your head that wasn’t Peter Stone. 

In that moment you were twenty five again, standing in front of the Buckingham Fountain in Chicago, making the hardest decision of your young life. Looking at Peter Stone, down on one knee with a ring box propped open, tears in your eyes as you gave him the answer he never expected to hear: no.

The judge was speaking now, drawing your attention back to the courtroom. You hadn’t even noticed Peter’s back was facing you again.

Court would reconvene after lunch, and you took this as an opportunity to clear your head. 

“I’m going to run out and grab us some coffee.” You muttered to Liv before exiting through the oak doors. 

It was your turn to run down the stairs now, not giving a second thought to bumped shoulders or slippery marble steps. You needed fresh air, a deep breath, and caffeine to prepare you for what was about to happen. 

You never thought he’d come back to New York. The Peter Stone you knew wanted to make a name for himself, separate from his father’s shadow. Chicago was his fresh start; one that you couldn’t be a part of.

New York was your home. You lived in the city your whole life, meeting Peter when you moved a block away from him your freshman year of high school. You stumbled into him on your way to the subway; your school uniforms matched, creating a quick conversation that bled into a beautiful friendship as you continued to spend mornings, then afternoons, and entire weekends together.

By the end of that school year, you considered Peter Stone one of your best friends. The two of you spent weekends riding the subway through the boroughs, accompanying each other to Mets games, and after some time, confiding in each other when life got to be too much to handle on your own. 

You felt comfortable around each other, and that friendship laid the groundwork for a relationship between the two of you your senior year of high school. 

It happened on a random Tuesday night, walking back from an ice cream run when things shifted. Peter stopped in front of a vendor selling half price flowers, buying the last bouquet of purple tulips they had. He made an offhand comment about how they were your favorite, handing them to you with a shy smile on his face. And before you let the feelings you had for him dissipate, you pushed up on your tiptoes, placed a chaste kiss on his cheek, and reached for his hand.

And for eight years, you two continued to be each other’s person. Supporting, uplifting, and loving one another, even from eight hundred miles apart. 

But even an eleven year partnership can crumble under the toughest circumstances.

“Detective!” You looked back to the coffee cart, grabbing the drinks for you and Liv before heading back up the marble steps. 

Liv came into your line of vision, standing next to a pillar and gesturing flagrantly with her arms. As you stepped closer you saw she was engaged in a conversation with Peter Stone.

More accurately, she was engaged in an argument with Peter Stone.

You stepped up next to her, listening as she defended Barba with a slight shake in her voice. 

“I’m talking about a decent man who did a decent thing.” She finished, looking over at you just long enough to take the coffee from your hand. You clocked the pooling tears in her eyes, and the way she swallowed around the lump in her throat. Barba meant more to her than you could ever know.

“Lieutenant, let’s head back inside,” you started, wanting to get her out of this situation without causing anyone any harm. You motioned to the doors of the courthouse, not daring a glance at Peter as she shifted her weight, getting ready to walk away.

But he was saying your name, in a softer voice than he used with Liv, and you slowly met his gaze.

You hadn’t seen him in person in seven years. His hair was a little darker now, dirty blonde roots kept shorter on the sides and styled to perfection; if he was going to be a cocky prosecutor he had to look the part.

A small part of you wanted to smile at him, wrap your arms around him, and make a joke about how long it’s been since the Mets have had a decent starting pitcher. Yeah, a small part of you wishes you could be with Peter, your best friend, one more time in the city.

But the larger part of you knew that wasn’t a possibility anymore; that that relationship was severed seven years ago, along with that girl you used to be. 

“Do you two know each other?” Liv asks, breaking you from your spiraling thoughts. 

You look at her, then quickly back to Peter, not knowing how to answer her question. You see his jaw clench the slightest bit, before he speaks up again. 

“We used to. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab a coffee before we reconvene.”

Liv watched him walk down the steps as you kept your gaze on the wall in front of you. You felt her eyes move from him to you, ignoring her as you led the walk back inside.

She was silent as you two waited for the elevator this time, presumably trying to figure out how in the world this situation could have gotten any stranger. She looked over at you once more as the doors closed and you pressed the button for the third floor. 

“So,” she started, knowing she was going to ask again. “How do you know Peter Stone?”

You surprised yourself with the scoff that escaped your lips. Your lives had been intertwined for more than a decade, until it all came crashing down. It would be easier to explain how you didn’t know him. 

“He proposed to me seven years ago.” You looked over at your Lieutenant after a few more seconds in silence, her eyes widened in shock. “Maybe I’ll enlighten you once this is all over.”

****

Only a few days after Barba was found not guilty, Peter Stone was appointed the new ADA for SVU. You were shocked, not only that he was offered the position, but that he accepted. Working for one of his father’s oldest friends and bosses, in the same building Ben Stone had become a legend, was never what Peter wanted for himself.

But that was the old Peter. You didn’t know this new one.

Liv had pulled you in first when she got the news. After your confession at the courthouse, she wanted to have a conversation with you to make sure you were comfortable with the decision, and that it wouldn’t affect your work. 

She didn’t ask for any more information on the subject, which you were grateful for. It was a messy sequence of events that not even you and Peter could fully comprehend at the time. 

You did however let the rest of the squad know your history with Stone. After an awkward, and rather uncomfortable experience during your first interrogation together, you knew you had to come clean. It wasn’t fair to their work environment, and you told them you would try to work on the professional nature of the relationship. 

It had been two weeks since he came aboard, and he was about to get his hands on his first messy special victims case. And to make matters worse, it was Sonny’s niece. 

After getting her disclosure in the station, Peter joined you and Liv outside of interrogation to discuss logistics. 

“Another male student spent the night in her room? Don’t you think that’s something she should have mentioned?”

“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t assaulted,” you replied, your tone coming across sharper than you meant it to. He held your stare, his face impossible to read. It always was.

“It’s not uncommon for a victim to leave out part of her story,” Liv interrupted, trying to get to the bottom of this. “She was probably embarrassed. Listen, college age assaults are rarely a clean narrative. There can be alcohol involved, the victim can feel conflicted, there’s self blame. It’s complicated.”

He sighed. “Okay. I’ll follow your lead. You’ll follow up with Mia?”

“Yes. The RA too.” Liv confirmed. 

“Listen, we get it. You need a case you can prosecute. SVU isn’t the same as trying homicides. But I believe her, we all believe her. She needs you to be on her side too.” You explained. 

“I am. But I also need a case that won’t bounce on a motion to dismiss.” You scoffed while crossing your arms over your chest. 

“Understood, Counselor.” Liv ended the conversation, giving a nod to the two of you before going back in to talk to the kid.

Liv left the two of you in the hallway, eyes trained on the one way mirror to avoid looking at one another. You hadn’t directly spoken in the weeks that he’d been settling in here. It wasn’t out of spite, at least not on your end. You were thrown back into each other’s lives without any notice, and you needed a minute to gather your thoughts before talking to the man who was once your entire world.

“Do you need anything else, other than confirmed statements from the RA and Mia?” You asked, turning to look at Peter. 

“No. That should be it for the case.” He started, stepping back from the glass. “But I think we would both benefit from having our own conversation about,” He motioned between the two of you, and let out a sigh. “This situation.”

“I agree with you. But, now isn’t the best time.” You looked out into the squadroom, Rollins, Carisi, and Fin seated around the round table, trying to find something else to help Mia. “Sonny, and Mia, really need us to focus on this case.”

He nodded, while sticking his hands in his pockets. “Alright. Then I’ll talk to you later, Detective.”

You watched as he walked out through the squadroom, giving a nod to the rest of the squad at the table. You followed out a few seconds later, heading straight to the breakroom to pour a cup of coffee.

“Everything alright?” Rollins asked, and grabbed her own mug. “Looked a little tense in there.”

“Amanda, why don’t you ask me what you really want to ask me?” You knew Rollins had been itching to get the details about you and Peter since the moment you told her there was history. You understood the intrigue; you’d been dying to ask Liv about her and Barba after you witnessed their charged goodbye from a distance. 

“So you and Stone,” she started, and you let out a shallow laugh. “What happened between the two of you?”

You took a minute to formulate a response. It was confusing, the way your relationship with Peter had progressed from teenagers to young adults. He was the only constant in your life, and then, he was gone.

“We’ve been in each other’s lives since we were fourteen.”

“Fourteen? Wow. I don’t think I’ve kept a friendship, never mind a relationship, with anyone for nearly twenty years.”

“Well, we were friends first, for a long time. Believe it or not, he wasn’t always this confident and cocky,” you said with a smile. “We spent a lot of time learning about each other. We built a strong friendship that just naturally formed into partners and a relationship. But we didn’t stay those kids forever; we wanted different things, and we wanted to be selfish. Me a little more so than him.”

“That’s what your twenties are for, though. And if he couldn’t handle that, that’s his loss.”

“It was mine, actually.” Her eyes widened the slightest bit. “I didn’t want to figure things out, I didn’t want to compromise. I was afraid. Peter was sure of us, but I just couldn’t meet him there.”

You’d laid it all out for Amanda, and you watched as she took a few seconds to register the information.

“And you haven’t spoken in…”

“Seven years. Felt like I’d lost a part of myself for a while. Felt like my family lost a part of themselves for a while.”

After eight years together, people were bound to get attached. Your parents, your siblings, they were devastated when you told them. And things never really went back to normal.

“So, what happens now?” She questioned, that familiar smirk settling back on her face. “If my ex showed up out of the blue, no matter how much time has passed, I think some feelings might resurface.”

“I thought you didn’t like him,” you interjected, not wanting to answer her question. Because you weren’t too sure how you were feeling about the reunion yourself.

“I don’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t be nosy about your lives, though.”

You took a sip of your coffee, wincing a little at the bitter punch it packed. 

“I’m not really sure,” you started. “Still trying to get used to seeing him walk in here like he owns the place.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll put him in his place for you.” you laughed as she gave your shoulder a squeeze. “And I’ll help you out too, if you need.”

“I know,” she left you in the breakroom, a chance to recover and regroup before focusing on helping another friend. 

When everything first happened, you never thought you’d be able to get to a place where you could use a nonchalant tone describing your relationship with Peter. The time you spent together was too important, too consuming to mention in a brief conversation. But with distance, and time, it got easier, narrowing the story down to a few short sentences. 

It still hurt, and it would continue to hurt every time you told it. At least now, the pain only lasted for those few short sentences.

****

Two weeks later, once Mia’s trial was over, you found yourself walking down the hall to Peter’s office. It was a grueling trial for everyone involved, especially Carisi. You knew the guilt he carried for lying, and causing his niece more pain, but she got justice. And you would remind him of that for as long as he needed.

You expected to see Carmen at her desk as you rounded the corner, but instead you were greeted with an empty desk. The blinds were drawn in the office, but you could see an orange light peeking through the wooden slats. 

You took a breath, working up the courage to knock. Things were still tense between him and the squad, but you were hoping that after this case, after he got justice for Mia, things could start to settle. 

You gave three strong knocks, and got a ‘come in’ in response. When you opened the door, you were met with a shirtless Peter Stone, his toned torso on full display. 

That’s certainly something you haven’t seen in a while.

“Oh, sorry,” you muttered out and quickly turned around, hoping your cheeks weren’t as red as 

they felt. 

“It’s fine, I told you to come in.” You locked your eyes on the door until he told you he was decent. When you turned back around, you took in his casual appearance; a sweater and jeans replaced the sharp suit he had on earlier in the day. “Did you need something?”

“I just wanted to thank you for not ripping Carisi’s head off after what happened when he testified. He really cares about his family, and sometimes it can get messy.”

“Well, what good would he be to anyone without a head.” He quipped, a small smile etched on his face. You forgot how infectious his grin could be, as you felt your own lips turn into a smile.

Your eyes followed Peter around his office, as he put away files, fastened his watch back on his wrist, and pushed his chair in behind his desk. He was already settled in here, comfortable in this space and his job. One that you were tangled into.

“Is there something else on your mind?” He asked, as you continued to dig your toe into the carpet, your anxious ticks giving you away.

“I figured we could finally talk about this working together situation,” you started, suddenly feeling extremely nervous in front of him. “Unless you have somewhere to be.”

“No, now’s a good time.” He motioned for you to take a seat at the round table, and he joined you on your right. 

For the first time in your life, you felt unsteady around Peter Stone. There was a time when he was the only person you wanted to talk to, the only person you felt truly yourself around. But now, you didn’t know the man sitting three feet away from you.

All because you said no.

“I want you to know that I didn’t intend on coming back to New York to take this job. If I knew you were here before Jack asked me to take Barba’s case, I wouldn’t have accepted.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about me when deciding to accept a job,” you said.

“I know. But, I want you to know that I didn’t come back home to seek you out, or open up what happened in the past. I just came home to bury my father, settle his things, and get back to Chicago.”

You went to Ben’s funeral, stood at the back of the church and listened as Jack McCoy delivered a touching eulogy. You didn’t even know Peter was there until Rafael told you he spotted him in the second pew. 

You had a front row seat to the complicated relationship between father and son, so you wouldn’t be surprised if Peter didn’t show.

“I’m sorry about Ben’s passing, Peter. I sent flowers for the last address I had for you, but clearly, you never got them.” He let out a little laugh. “I would’ve told you so at the funeral, but I didn’t know if you were there.”

“I didn’t know you were there either. I’m surprised that you went, you didn’t have to go.”

“Of course I went,” you started, your voice steadier now. “It doesn’t matter what happened between us, he was a decent man. And he,” you paused. 

‘He gave me you,’ is what you wanted to say. 

“He was your father.”

You opened the door to the past now, and both of you realized it. But the only way you were going to get through this awkward stage was talking about it.

“I don’t want things to be uncomfortable between us. I want us to be able to coexist, at least in a professional capacity, so that we don’t need a buffer every time we’re working on a case together. Now, with that being said,” he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “You should probably use the quiet of my office right now to get out any anger you have towards me.”

“Peter, I’m not angry with you. At least not for the reasons you think. I am mad that you prosecuted one of my friends and colleagues, but I understand why you did it. If anyone should be frustrated it’s you.” he looked over at you, waiting for you to continue. “I left you standing in the middle of Chicago without so much as a goodbye. You deserved an explanation, but I acted like a coward.”

“You weren’t a coward.” He said, and let out a sigh. “We were just kids back then. We had no idea what we were doing. You aren’t the only one to blame for the way things ended.”

“But I’m the one who turned down the man on one knee.” 

You saw the twitch in his jaw as he settled against the back of his chair. The two of you never spoke about the proposal after it happened. You really did leave Peter standing in front of Lake Michigan, repeatedly telling him you couldn’t say yes, until you just walked away. You turned your back on the best person you ever knew, because you were afraid.

You’ve rationalized your decision to say no so many times; you were too young, you were starting your careers in different cities, and you felt like the two of you were in completely different headspaces. And in the moment where you should’ve felt the closest to him, you felt like you were completely alone.

“I wish I hadn’t walked away like that.” you started, meeting his gaze. “You were my best friend, Peter. Eleven years we knew each other, and I turned my back on you like that.” you snapped your fingers, and tried to swallow the lump in your throat. “Even though our relationship ended that day, our friendship didn’t have to. And I’m sorry that I took that away from you.”

Neither of you moved for a few seconds; It’s not everyday you have a conversation about your almost proposal with your ex. So you just watched him, with a hazy gaze, and waited for him to acknowledge what you said. 

“But I’ll make you the same offer; you can capitalize on the privacy and get your anger out on me for leaving right now.”

“I’m not mad at you. I was upset, and confused for a few months, but I worked through it.” He ran a hand through his slightly fussed hair as he collected his thoughts. “I accepted why you left the way that you did. But more than anything, I missed my friend. And now, I wish we didn’t feel like strangers around each other.” 

“Me either.” 

Before either of you could break another silence, the office phone started to ring. Carmen wasn’t here to intercept the call, going directly to the source. 

“Do you need to get that?” You asked, as he made no movement to stand up from his seat. 

“They’ll leave a message if it’s important. I’m technically off the clock,” he referenced his casual clothing, and you smiled in return. 

“I know that we’ve been through a lot together, and apart, but if we’re going to be working together, and existing in the same city, I would like to try to be friends again.” You offered up.

“I don’t think we ever stopped being friends. We know too much about each other.”

“Like how you broke your wrist while riding down the handrail in the subway,” you rattled off, your heart racing the slightest bit after falling back into step with him. 

But then you heard him laugh. Not as easy and carefree as it used to be, but it was still Peter.

“Hey, at least I didn’t trip over my own two feet and sprain an ankle in a soccer game,”

“I was tripped!” You exclaimed, stubborn and defensive as ever. “The only yellow card I ever got. That ref deserved my outburst, cause that girl tripped me.”

“Whatever you say,” he said in a teasing tone, and you lightly shoved his shoulder. 

“You know I’m right,” you murmured back, catching the smallest smile on his face. 

It felt… okay again between the two of you. Nothing was going to change overnight, or even after one conversation, but it was a start. It was fixing the foundation to an old friendship.

****

Over the course of the next two months, Peter started to acclimate to working for the special victims unit. Sonny began gravitating towards him, the new ADA wasn’t grilling him about being a wanna-be lawyer like Barba used to. Fin and Liv warmed up to him little by little as well, seeing him earn his stripes in action. Rollins, on the other hand, still wasn’t ready to support him one hundred percent yet. And selfishly, you were glad she didn’t roll over. He needed to continue to prove himself if he’s going to make a difference here.

The two of you were getting along as well as most casual coworkers do. You talked through the cases, sat in on trial preps, and ran some interrogations together. There weren’t any more uncomfortable encounters or frustrated conversations. All the personal stuff was squared away, so you could focus on the important tasks at hand.

He continued to let Liv guide him through cases, reminding him that it’s about the victims more than it is the defendant, and that we’re not going to win them all. 

But there were still moments, like this trafficking case, that Peter refused to bend his black or white perception of the law for. 

“You’re serious.” He deadpanned, not amused by this meeting.

You and Amanda had found a discrepancy in Miguel Lopez’s testimony. He admitted to burning Lourdes in the apartment, but she never told him to say that. It was something his guilty conscience admitted to, giving too much of the truth away. 

“Yes, I’m serious.” Liv responded.

Peter and Liv had been at each other’s throats throughout the investigation. Liv, and everyone in the squad, believed Lourdes was raped by Miguel. With all of your combined years in SVU, you knew when a victim was lying and telling the truth. Peter, keeping the law close to his chest, couldn’t accept the allegations without any evidence. 

“It won’t hold up in court.” He muttered back, as you gripped the edges of the table even tighter, knowing Liv wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Miguel Lopez raped and tortured Lourdes. She’s not mistaken. His confession to her, his confession to me, was real.”

“It’s not on tape.”

“I was there. I heard it!” Liv exclaimed. “This is my word!”

“You are not thinking clearly,” 

“Peter.” you interjected, voice firm, and you caught his gaze for a second. But he continued.

“You are choosing to believe what you want to believe.”

“Peter!” It was your turn to shout, everyone growing silent as you walked past him, a “let’s go,” leaving your lips as you led the way to interrogation one. 

You heard his feet scuffing the linoleum floor the entire walk, like a child who didn’t get the toy they wanted at the store. Once the two of you were in there, you shut the door and prepared to lay into him. 

“What is the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with me? All of you are convinced that Lourdes was trafficked and raped by Miguel Lopez, yet there is absolutely no physical evidence that proves your claim.”

“You don’t believe Liv? You don’t believe that what she witnessed for four hours wasn’t true?” You questioned, not willing to believe that Peter saw through this girl.

“I think something did happen to her,” he started. “But we don’t know if it was Miguel. And even if it was, that doesn’t entitle her to seek revenge.”

“But it does entitle her to claim what was once hers.” You crossed your arms over your chest, willing yourself to hold your ground against him. “And if revenge is part of that, then… then so be it.”

You saw the twitch in his jaw, and the way his eyes fell the slightest bit. 

“You don’t believe that.” He said, his tone soft, and filled with disbelief. He didn’t know the woman standing in front of him anymore.

“I do.” He shook his head, not willing to believe it. “Peter, you’ve only been here a few months. This has been my reality for five years. Listening to hundreds of victims tell their stories, their fears, how their lives were changed forever because of one awful moment. I’ve watched victims take the stand and look their abuser in the eye, and I’ve watched victims cower away in absolute terror. And on rare occasions, I’ve seen them take matters into their own hands. And I support whatever they need to do in order to take back their lives, even what Lourdes did to Miguel.”

“And the man that died? The man she killed along the way?” His voice was so cold, so completely detached from the complex situation in front of him. 

“I don’t support blind rage and murder, if that’s what you’re asking me. That man shouldn’t have died at Lourdes’ hand. But he was involved in trafficking, raping, and torturing women. So, I’d say justice was served in the end. And before you say it’s a jury’s job to bring justice, look me in the eye and tell me that you’d rather have them both go free than have been killed in a fit of justified rage.” He bowed his head, knowing he didn’t want them to go free, knowing that you would win this discussion. “The law isn’t black and white, as much as you wish it could be. It’s complicated, and unfair, and most of the time, doesn’t do as much as we want it to. So, I’m going to take a win when I can.”

He nodded, but before he could respond, his phone started to ring. He greeted Fin on the other end of the line, and you watched his jaw tense right back up. His hand was curled into a fist, slowly beginning to flex it open and shut. His tells hadn’t changed in ten years.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, as he ended the call. He walked across the room and opened the door, pausing in the doorway for a second.

“They took Pam.”

The next thirty minutes were a whirlwind. You and Amanda tried to track any and every member from the cartel to New York and the facility Pam was staying at while Liv and Peter tracked down Miguel and brought him in for interrogation. They only took fifteen minutes to break him, and the four of you were off to the warehouse they were keeping Pam.

You and Rollins jumped in the backseat, Peter riding shotgun as Liv gunned it on the highway. Peter was silent the entire ride, but sat alert with his back straight, hand clutching the grab handle for dear life. 

When you finally got there Fin, Carisi, and a swarm of patrol cars were waiting for you. Liv threw a vest to Peter, quickly strapping himself in before running through the crowd of people.

You entered the warehouse in single file, finding the trafficked girls locked up in a cage. After letting them go and directing them out with a SWAT member, you resumed running to the action.

Liv and Sonny led the way with Peter behind their backs, as you, Fin and Amanda came close behind. You congregated behind the SWAT shields, and that’s when you finally caught a glimpse of Pam. 

The last time you saw Pam was about four years ago. She was at a facility in the city, and you were still trying to rationalize the decision you made three years prior. Ever since you met Pam, you loved spending time with her. She joked with Peter when you guys were young, and she often ganged up on him with you. Even when she was first put in a facility, and the schizophrenia got worse, she still put a smile on your face.

Years had gone by, but she looked the same; long strawberry blonde hair, gaping eyes, and a youthful face. One that was now filled with horror as Diego held a rifle to her head.

You heard the man in question shouting about guns, and Liv bickering with ESU to let her take control. But all that focus left you as Peter took a step forward, hands raised in the air.

You moved to step with him, but Sonny placed a hand on your shoulder, holding you back. The five of you had created a second line of defense now, waiting to see how this was going to play out.

“Peter!” Pam exclaimed, as he finally stepped out in front of the shields. He was vulnerable, even with a vest, and you tried again to take a step towards him. But Sonny’s grip was firm on your shoulder, and you yielded to the reminder.

“Peter,” she whimpered out, losing hope, and giving in to the fear.

There was more shouting, more demands being made, but your eyes were glued on the two siblings in front of you. 

All of a sudden, Diego loosened his grip on Pam, and she started walking towards you.

“Peter!” She called out, a quarter of the way there, when you saw Diego raise the rifle. Before you could even react, he opened fire on Pam, knocking her to the ground.

Everyone moved in an instant, dozens of rounds being fired, your ears already ringing from the noise. It lasted thirty seconds before Diego slumped into the front seat of his jeep, bullet wounds covering his body.

Your heart was racing as you lowered your gun, checking to make sure you were all okay. 

But then you saw Peter, hovering over Pam’s bloody body, begging her to stay alive. All you could hear were her whimpers, struggling to stay alive, and the strain in Peter’s voice as he yelled for a medic. 

You covered your mouth and turned away from the scene in front of you, as Liv walked over to Peter, laying a hand on his shoulder.

You swallowed the lump in your throat, and tried your hardest to blink away the tears forming in your eyes. But you felt Sonny’s hand find your shoulder again, gently turning you around, so you could let your tears fall in hiding.

-

The following night, you went down to One Hogan Place to check in on Peter. 

He rode back to the city with Liv yesterday, but none of you have seen or heard from him since. On your way out of the precinct tonight, you called Carmen to see if he was in. She said he let her go at lunch, but he didn’t show any signs of leaving with her.

As you approached his door, his shades were drawn, but you could see the flicker of a light on. You didn’t bother knocking before you entered, knowing you would go in no matter the answer.

The door swung open to his office, and you saw Peter Stone sitting on the couch, bottle of whiskey on the coffee table, and his head in his hands. 

You tried to shut the door quietly, but the old office doors let out a high squeak, getting Peter to raise his head. You took a breath as you looked over his appearance: his eyes were red, his face looking worn from the sleep you’re sure he didn’t get. 

But neither of you say anything, not knowing how to approach this conversation. 

As coworkers. As exes. As friends.

So you start simple. You start with the good. 

“The feds rounded up all of Miguel’s associates on both sides of the border.”

“That’s good.” He nodded, his grip on the whiskey glass loosening.

But he can’t look back up at you. He stares at the glass in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. He’s swallowing his emotions, you think to yourself. He’s exerting every ounce of physical strength he has to keep himself grounded and from falling apart. Some things never change.

“Peter, I’m so sorry.” You choke out, trying not to break in front of him. Even with seven years spent apart, you still feel everything he does. You still feel like your lives are tied together.

“All I can remember right now, is when I was nine, playing stick ball with my buddies in the schoolyard, Pam showed up with a bloody lip.” He let out a sigh and swallowed around the lump in his throat. “She said Billy Collier pushed her down the stairs, and I beat the living hell out of him.”

“He always was an asshole,” you added, involuntarily. You quickly apologized, but noticed the smallest shadow of a smile across his face. But it didn’t last, as you watched his fingers circle the rim of his glass, and he locked his eyes on the table once more. 

“I didn’t even hesitate to absolutely destroy the kid that hurt my sister. And now,” he shook his head. “She had a gun pointed at her head, and I just stood there and watched.”

“If you had tried anything, he would’ve killed you too. You talked to her, Peter. You tried to calm her down, to let her know you were there for her.”

He nodded, brushing his hand down his face. He looked exhausted.

“You don’t have to be here, you don’t have to stay.” He said, which in turn only made you move across the room and sit down next to him.

“I’m not going anywhere. Pam was family to me, you were family to me,” you felt a tear escape as you assured him, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Without tearing his gaze from that spot on the table, he reached over with his right hand. You grabbed it without hesitation, as he twined your fingers together, and finally let out a breath.

“There was nothing you could have done, Peter.” He nodded while slowly lifting his head.

“The last thing,” his voice was shaky, and you just wanted him to let go. “The last thing she said was Peter. She hasn’t recognized me in years, and the moment she’s about to die,”

With your free hand, you pulled him into you, letting him cry onto your shoulder for as long as he needed to. You let go of his hand so you could run your fingers through his hair, in an attempt to comfort him. To let him know that he didn’t have to shoulder these emotions and this pain alone. 

Without thinking, you pressed a kiss to the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder. It was the one thing that could get him to calm down, and breathe when you were together. It wasn’t your place anymore, to be comforting and kissing a man that wasn’t yours. 

But he needed the familiarity. He needed to be held by someone who knew him, and cared for him, and saw him the same way his family did. He needed you.

So he held on tighter after that, adjusting himself so that his head was resting against your own. He listened to your heartbeat, sporadic at first, but he listened for seconds, minutes, hours. He doesn’t know how long. All he knows is that eventually, his heartbeat slowed down, and matched the rhythm of your own.

****

“Here are your coffees, Detective.”

“Thank you, have a good one.” You left a dollar in the tip jar before grabbing the coffees, smiling at the barista before walking out of the cafe.

Carisi was waiting for you out on the sidewalk, thanking you as you handed him his second dose of caffeine for the day. 

“You’re welcome.” You started the walk back to the precinct, taking advantage of the warm September weather before the air turned brisk. “Now, why did you rush me out of the precinct twenty minutes ago as soon as Stone stepped in for interrogation?” 

Sonny let out a sigh before taking a sip of his coffee. Three years spent partnered together and working across a desk from one another, you got to know each other well.

“Have you talked to Stone at all about Pam?” he started, glancing over at you to make sure it was okay to continue. “I mean, I know you’ve spoken about work, and cases, but you guys were close once, and I wanted to make sure he’s checking in with someone who can really understand him.”

It’s been two months since Pam died, and Peter hasn’t talked to you about it since that night in his office. You sat with him for almost two hours, holding onto each other until he felt strong enough to let go.

You tried to bring it up since then, but you were always shut down with a poor excuse.  He needed to prep for a trial, he was meeting with Jack McCoy, or he was just too tired to talk about  it today. Whatever the excuse was, you didn’t push him. He would come to you if he wanted your help.

“No, I haven’t. But I’m not entirely sure I would be his first choice as a confidant.” he nodded. But Carisi’s inquiries only sparked your curiosity. “Why, is there something I should know?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, debating if he should tell you what Peter’s been up to these past few months.

“I don’t think it’s anything serious, but ever since everything happened, he’s been calling me to go out for a drink almost every night. At first, I joined him every time he asked. I knew he needed a friend, and I wanted to support him in any way I could. But after a few weeks, the calls didn’t subside, and neither did the drinks. Before everything happened, and I would meet him at Forlini’s, it would be strictly beer before a trial. Now he goes straight for the 60 proof whiskey, averaging half a bottle a night.”

“Still? Maybe he’s tapered off,”

“No, I still check in on him, once or twice a week. Same routine. But it was a few weeks ago, God I probably shouldn’t even tell you this,” He started rambling, but you tugged on his arm to get him to stop.

“Just spit it out, Carisi.”

“You and Rollins were at Rikers talking Caputo into testifying, but that was the first day of the trial. We were ten minutes out from opening testimonies and no one had seen or heard from him. I stopped by his apartment, flashed the badge to get up since he wasn’t answering any of our calls, and I was met with a pretty drained Peter Stone at the door. He begged me to wait in the lobby, said he just needed a few minutes for the ibuprofen to kick in. As he shut the door on me, I saw two other women in the apartment with him.”

Your movements stalled for a second, completely forgetting you were in the middle of a sidewalk in New York City. 

“Women? As in, plural?” You asked, too caught up on that piece of information to care if you came off as the nosy ex.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, but it seems out of his behavior.” He said with a sheepish look on his face.

“Well, I wouldn’t know, seeing as it’s been seven years since he’s shared anything with me. You seem to be the closest friend he has, so if you think that’s out of behavior for him, then I trust you.”

“It is.” You nodded, and followed along as Carisi started walking again. “I’m just worried about him. And I know you are too, even if things are different between the two of you now.”

“I am. Thank you, Sonny. You’re a good friend, to both of us.” 

The short walk back to the precinct was quiet after that, as you tried to plan what you would say to Peter once you got the chance.

When the two of you got back, the squadroom was empty, Rollins and Liv watching the interrogation in her office.

“Did you guys pick someone up for the Ferncroft kidnapping?” Sonny asked as the two of you settled in with the others. Fin was leading the interrogation, Peter sitting patiently across from the suspect. 

“Yeah, this is Monica Strauss. She nannied for the family up until a few months ago, and we found her brother’s DNA on site. Trying to see if she will give us anything on him.”

“Do you think she did it?” You asked, watching as Peter stood up from his seat.

“No, I think she was just a stepping stone to get to the Ferncroft’s.” Liv added. You watched for the next few minutes as Fin and Peter danced around the table, pressing into Monica.

Until something finally cracked. 

Peter slammed his hands down on the table, causing Monica, and most of you on this side of the glass to flinch. 

“Your brother’s DNA is all over that apartment! If you want to protect him, if you want to be a half decent sibling to him, you will tell us where he is right now. If you don’t, I’ll charge him with kidnapping, and be sure to let him know you wouldn’t do anything to help him.”

“Get him out of there,” you said at the same time Liv started knocking on the glass. You watched as Fin exited first, Peter still leaning on the table. 

“How does it feel, knowing you were so close to saving your brother, but couldn’t?”

Liv banged on the glass harder after his admission, waiting for him at the door connecting the two rooms. 

“I had her. She was gonna give him up.”

“You’re not a detective, Counselor. You crossed a line in there.” Liv said as he crossed his arms over his chest, resembling an upset child.

“Because all of you play by the rules 24/7, right?” 

You looked over at Liv, a mix of disgust and empathy covering her face. You were ready for her to rip him a new one, right in front of the whole squad. Instead, her eyes met your own, asking you for any help in this situation; one that was clearly more than just this case. 

“Give us the room?” You asked, and your Lieutenant nodded, leading the charge out of her office as her comrades followed behind her.

As the door closed to her office, you caught the scoff that left Peter’s mouth.

“Are you going to give me a lecture on interrogation etiquette now? Explain to me how things  work in SVU, because I’m so incapable of doing anything right?”

“No, that’s not my job.” You watched as he leaned against the mirror. You could see Monica being taken back into holding by Fin. “How are you holding up, Peter?”

He tucked his chin to his chest, not bothering to hide the morose laugh he let out. “I’m fine. There’s nothing to be held up on. Pam’s dead, I’m alive. No point in dwelling on the past.”

“So an outburst about sibling obligation has nothing to do with Pam? Just a coincidence?” 

“There’s nothing deeper to unpack here. My sister died. I buried her, I settled her affairs, and I came back to work. Nothing spectacular for you to try and fix.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Peter.”

He pushed off the wall, walking toward you now. “What, what is this act you're pulling on me now? All this pity, this misplaced guilt and grief, are you projecting it on me?”

You rolled your eyes. “You know what, some of us are genuinely worried about you. You watched your sister get shot to death in front of your eyes, so God forbid we try and check in on you once in a while.”

“And I told you I was fine.”

“And your version of fine is drinking half a bottle of whiskey then bringing home some girls for a night you can’t even remember seven nights a week?”

The sentence spilled out of you before you even realized what you were saying. But now it was out there, lingering in the space between the two of you, waiting for one of you to pick it back up. 

It was your turn to cross your arms now, on the defensive, as you waited for him to respond.

“Carisi has a big mouth I see.” He muttered out, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“He was worried about you. I’m worried about you. That’s not you, Peter.”

“How do you know who I am anymore? You left the old me seven years ago.”

You took half a step back, as if the words physically toppled over you.

“I thought we talked through this,” your voice was quieter now, and you felt infinitely smaller. The conversation included you now. “You said you understood why I had to leave.”

“And you believed me?” He exasperated. “I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you, and you just walked away like we were nothing.” He ran a frustrated hand over his face before continuing. “So yeah, this is me now. I go to bars, I bring home women I don’t know, and do the same thing all over again the next day. And when Pam died, and you said that we were like family, things got worse. Or really, this just showed me who I really am.”

“You’re going to blame me for turning down your proposal for the shitty life you’re living now?” You were over being sympathetic now. “Did you ever stop to think why I said no? Why I walked away from you after eleven years by your side?”

“I don’t want to get into this,” he started, trying to change the subject.

“No, you opened the door, let’s have it out.” You gestured into the room, no one else surrounding you. “I walked away from you, and you're still pissed off about it.”

“You left me standing in the middle of Chicago, looking like a fucking idiot. Of course I’m still pissed about it!”

“You’re mad about me ending it, or about your reputation, Peter?” You shook your head. “I spent the last three years of our relationship compromising for you. You wanted to give baseball a real shot, and I supported you, flying out whenever I could to go see your games. And when you got hurt and had to turn in your uniform, I supported your decision to stay in Chicago and go to law school. And again, I flew out whenever you needed me to reassure you that you could do this. I was constantly bending over backwards just to please you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me any of this?” he asked, his voice matching your level. “You, you told me you wanted to get married. You told me you wanted us to move back to New York, live in a brownstone and have a family. You told me you wanted me.”

You felt tears starting to form in your eyes, knowing how much you broke him. How much pain and doubt you put him through by cutting him off that day in Chicago. 

“I did want you, Peter. But I was scared. You were Peter Stone, you were making a name for yourself in Chicago. Everywhere we went, people knew who you were. I was afraid that one day, you’d look at me, and wonder why the hell you stayed with me for so long when you could’ve had everything and more in Chicago. I was afraid that I was going to lose myself, trying to compete with people in a brand new city. I’d already sacrificed so much for you, hid so many of my fears, my accomplishments, my feelings from you those last few years. And when you got down on one knee, in the middle of the city, I just couldn’t say yes. I couldn’t picture you spending the rest of your life with me.”

He shook his head, quickly bringing his hand up to swipe away a tear that fell. 

“I would have given all of that up for you. I would have done anything for you to believe that.” He picked up his briefcase, letting you know he was done with this conversation. 

“Where are you going? We can’t just leave the conversation like this,” you said, your tone coming off desperate as you watched him open the door. 

“I have to prep a witness. Besides, I’ve waited seven years for this conversation, I think I can wait a little longer.”

“Peter, don’t-” but your sentence was cut off by the slamming of Liv’s door behind him. 

You leaned on the back of the chair, dipping your head as you repressed the sobs creeping up your throat.

You spent the past seven years rationalizing that decision, trying to make yourself believe that everything was okay between the two of you. But you broke both of your hearts that day, and you did it all over again after this conversation.

“Hey, Liv needs us to go check up on a witness. I’ll meet you by the car?” Sonny asked, poking his head into the room.

You straightened, keeping your back turned to him. You sniffled quietly and gently wiped at your eyes. “Yeah I’ll meet you down there in five. Just gonna stop in the bathroom.”

“Okay.” He knocked twice on the door as he left, and you took a moment to take a deep breath.

This conversation was far from over.

**** 

After a few hours of tracking down a witness and convincing them to testify, the sun was already starting to set in the city. Carisi was dying to grab dinner, but you had other plans for your evening. 

He pulled up in front of One Hogan, the normally packed stairs pretty empty after six o’clock. 

“Are you sure he’s even here? He’s had a pretty light case load this week, maybe he called it an early night to catch up on some rest.”

“I know he’s here, Sonny.”

“Is this about what happened earlier?” You looked over at him, his blue eyes widening in sympathy for you. “The walls aren’t soundproof, and you guys weren’t exactly whispering.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t really planning for an argument when I decided to talk to him.”

He nodded, a small smile creeping across his face. “Fair enough.”

“Thanks for dropping me off. I’ll see you in the morning.” You gently closed the car door, tapping twice on the window before making your way up the courthouse steps. 

You took the elevator up to the eighth floor, wasting no time once you stepped onto the old grey carpet of the DA’s office. You hadn’t prepared what you were going to say, but you didn’t need to. You were still reeling from the argument just a few hours earlier, and you were done tiptoeing around the situation.

As you turned down the hallway, you caught Carmen’s eye at the copy machine.

“Is he in his office?”

“Yes,” She started, as you walked past her and toward his office door. “But Detective, he asked not to be disturbed by any calls or visitors.”

You could see him through the wooden slats trying to cover the windows, reviewing paperwork at his desk. 

“Well it’s a good thing I’m not just any visitor,” you said before opening his door, no knock given for a warning. He looked up from his papers, his face annoyingly stoic upon your entrance.

“You can’t just blame me for ruining your life then walk out of the precinct like a goddamn coward.”

“Mr. Stone,” Carmen came in after you, interrupting any Momentum you were trying to create. “I’m sorry, I tried to tell her you weren’t available.”

 “It’s okay, Carmen. We’re fine, thank you.” She nodded, exiting the office as quick as she entered, slowly closing the door behind her. He looked back at you. “You were saying?”

 “Don’t act all smug and innocent now that we’re on your territory.”

 “Well, what do you want me to say? You want me to apologize? Fine, I’m sorry that you were so miserable in our relationship that you couldn’t tell me about it,”

 “Stop putting words in my mouth!” You exclaimed while running a frustrated hand through your hair. He let out a sigh, gathering himself for a few seconds, before moving to lean against the front of his desk.

 He crossed his arms over his chest, still defensive, as you got ready to speak again.

“I have relived that moment in front of Lake Michigan over, and over, and over again in my head. I’ve gone through every scenario, trying to find the one where I say yes without either one of us feeling like we compromised a part of ourselves to make it work, but there isn’t one. And that truth hurts me just as much as it hurts you.

“I should’ve talked to you about how I was feeling,” you admitted. “When you told me you were going to give baseball a real shot, I was terrified that I would lose you. You were in a new city, living your dream, with guys your age and reputations that could get you anything you ever wanted. I trusted you, I don’t want you to doubt that, but I just couldn’t help but think you would leave me for it. For more independence, more freedom. And every time I thought about telling you, everytime I thought about asking for reassurance, I would see you play. And you belonged on the mound. You would find me after every game, with a smile that was larger than life plastered on your face, and I would forget all about it. I saw how happy you were, and that made it all worth it for me.

“But then you got hurt, you turned the jersey in, and went back out there for law school. And again, I was terrified that you were going to leave me. I was a rookie cop in Brooklyn, working shitty hours almost a thousand miles away. I never doubted that you would become a great lawyer, but your ambition scared me. Because I didn’t know what I wanted other than you. I didn’t need anything else except you.

“I did want to marry you. I wanted to live in a brownstone with you, start a family, all of it. That wasn’t a lie. But doubt and insecurity are powerful and all consuming. And I quickly realized, if I was unhappy with myself now, how was I going to feel about myself in ten years? Twenty, even? I needed to grow without you, I needed to figure out what I wanted as an individual before I could be with you.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t exactly articulate that feeling to you when you were down on one knee. Hell, I couldn’t even articulate the feeling for myself until months after the fact. I started going to therapy, believe it or not.” 

You looked over at Peter, not being able to hold eye contact through your explanation for longer than five seconds. But his gaze was unwavering, and a small nod from him let you know it was okay to continue. 

“A lot of that inadequacy I felt with you turned into misplaced anger, usually toward you, because you didn’t try to help me. Which took a lot of sessions for me to understand that you weren’t being a narcissist, you just didn’t know.” He let out a small laugh, making you feel a little better about the situation. “There was a lot of stuff that I had to work through on my own, that I should’ve been working on since I was younger, but I had a pretty good friend that kept me happy and loved me long enough for me to ignore it.”

“Yeah, well he had a lot of shit to work through on his own, too.” You smiled, walking over to join him in leaning against his desk. He uncrossed his arms, now lightly gripping the edge of his desk. “I’m sorry for being petty and talking over you. I’ve been told I’m kind of an asshole outside of the courtroom.”

“Who told you that, Liv or Rollins?”

“Both of them.” He said and you couldn’t help but laugh. They were going to make sure he knew his place in the squad. 

The anger you walked in here with quickly dissipated once you got him to listen to you. That was something that never changed, nearly two decades knowing him and he still remained obstinate as ever. 

After a few seconds in silence, you wondered if this is what closure felt like. It felt like a weight had been lifted off your chest, sitting there ever since you saw Peter prosecuting Barba. You felt the grief of your relationship finally lighten up, letting you think about your time together without the failed proposal looming over your head. 

 “Do you remember the first time you kissed me?” you asked, all the confidence you strode in here with had left your voice, now sounding like a shy little girl. “We were outside of the drug store on the corner of our block. It was almost midnight, I have no idea why we went there-”

“We were looking for rainbow sprinkles,” he interrupted. You looked over at him, shocked that he would remember such a small detail. “We were making ice cream sundaes, and we only had chocolate jimmies at my house. You were insistent on having rainbow sprinkles on top of your sundae, so we ran down the street before the store closed. We got the last tub, and when we walked out of there, you had the biggest smile on your face. You were standing under a monstrosity of a streetlight, the yellow light showcasing your fuzzy pajama pants and slippers, and I thought you were beautiful. So I kissed you, and prayed that you felt the same way, even though I had a pretty good feeling that kiss on the cheek you gave me a few days before meant you did.”

He looked over at you once he was done, not even trying to hide the tears that had so clearly formed in your eyes. You forgot about this feeling with Peter. You missed this feeling with Peter.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you.” Your voice only wavered the slightest bit.

“I know. I’m sorry too.”

A single tear traced your cheek, giving you a chance to look away from him. A few more fell as you wiped them away, giving you a few seconds to spin the conversation to keep you from crying any more.

“I know you didn’t want to talk about it earlier, and I’m not going to force you to now, but I want you to know I’m here for you. What happened to Pam, it’s not a normal grieving process. I know you said you’ve changed, and you can deal with it any way you want. But I’m the only one left that knew her the way you did. And maybe talking about it, and remembering how much you loved each other could help.”

He nodded, his jaw clenching once again to remain neutral. 

“Maybe,” That was a start.

You sat there for another minute, enjoying the amicable silence as long as you could before you had to go.

“I should probably head out. If I leave now, I can probably catch Rollins and Carisi before they’ve ordered anything for dinner.” Pushing off his desk, you grabbed your sweater and phone that you must have thrown onto the chair in your fit of rage. You didn’t remember any of that. “Thank you for listening. I’m glad we could talk through everything, finally.”

“Me too. I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

You nodded. “Tomorrow, bright and early.”

You made your way to the door, but pulled your hand off the handle when you heard your name. 

“Rollins and Carisi,” Peter started. “Are they together?”

You smiled. “They should be. They’re both a little too blind to see though. Maybe you could work on Carisi during your weekly drinks together.”

Teasing each other like you didn’t just talk through your seven year relationship. I guess closure really can work. 

He gave you a smirk in return. “Maybe.”

****

“Carisi, I’m only coming to this stupid thing because you said you’d buy me a real dinner afterward.” You muttered out as you held the hem of your dress in your hand and started walking up the grand stairs.

“Listen, we just gotta stay for an hour, two tops, so I can talk to some of the Brooklyn DAs. Then I promise I’ll buy you a milkshake and fries.” He extended his left arm out to you, and linked them together. 

“What about a burger?”

“Your dinner order is going to cost more than these tickets,” he said and you let out a laugh.

“Well this was a perfect opportunity to ask Rollins out on a date, and you whiffed. So, now you pay the price.”

You didn’t miss the way his cheeks turned rosy red as you made it to the entrance of the gala.

“For your information, I was going to ask her. Then she mentioned it was Jesse’s dance recital, and I couldn’t ask after that. Besides, our first date shouldn’t be a work event.”

The two of you went through the metal detectors, Carisi showing your tickets before entering the main ballroom. 

You looked over at him in his gray tux, hair perfectly styled, and the comforting smile resting on his face that just made him Sonny Carisi. And you were happy he was finally going to take control of his life. 

“She’s going to say yes,” you started as he grabbed two champagne flutes off a passing tray. “No matter when you ask her, no matter the occasion, she’s going to say yes to you.” 

“I hope so.” He said with a shy smile, as he led the way to the first suits of the night.

When you were little, you always dreamt of going to an event like this. Dressing up in a fancy gown, heels so high they made your feet scream, hair and make up done like you were a movie star, and dancing and laughing the night away. 

The Gala for the District Attorneys of the Five Boroughs was not what you dreamt of. You had the pretty dress from Nordstrom Rack, little block heels from TjMaxx, and your normal makeup routine matched with a bolder lip and simple hair. There was no one to impress here; the DAs office was a place you tried to steer clear of.

You’d been here an hour, and Carisi had already introduced you to six different DAs from the Brooklyn office. He was a natural with them all, anyone that got a chance to talk to Sonny Carisi always loved him. They talked about recent SVU cases, upcoming Brooklyn cases, and some new Supreme Court rulings. Honestly, the conversations were what you imagined law school lectures sounded like. 

After the third introduction, you started to zone out after learning their names. You listened for keywords, made appropriate gestures to seem like you were listening intently, and chimed in if Carisi prompted you to. Most of the time, you sipped your champagne, scanned the room every few minutes, and rolled your sore ankles for some relief. 

You tuned back into this conversation as Carisi started his farewells, adding a goodbye and nice to meet you before he led the way to a free hightop to lean against. 

“I don’t know how you can have the same conversations with these people that lack so much personality. I feel like my brain is going to rot in here.”

“Well if I’m going to break into any of the DAs offices, I need to do some ass kissing.”

It had been two years since he passed the Bar exam, but he gave no intentions of moving outside of the squadroom to the courtroom until now. Realistically, you knew this day was coming. But even two years later, you still weren’t ready for the change. 

“You’re really going through with this?”

“Well I can’t just sit on law school loans and a degree and not use it,” he started, his face slowly changing after looking at you. “What’s going on in that tired head?”

“Nothing,” you sighed. “I’m just gonna miss you. Almost four years we spent pissing each other off during stakeouts and memorizing coffee orders. It's gonna be hard to replace you as a partner.”

He smiled, reaching over the table to give your hand a squeeze. “I know. I’m gonna miss you too. Especially the little paper balls you throw onto my desk every afternoon.” You laughed as he pulled his hand back. “But I’m just changing jobs. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“And I’ll see you when you come to pick up Rollins from the station for date nights,” you teased and he rolled his eyes. 

He grabbed another two champagne flutes from the bar, handing one bubbly glass to you.

“Hey, Stone’s here.” Your eyes widened as Sonny waved him over, standing out of your line of sight. “I didn’t think he was the gala type.”

“He isn’t.” You murmured out before Peter stepped up to your hightop.

He was in his classic black suit without a tie, not wasting any time getting changed for an event he probably didn’t even want to be at.

“Hey guys.”

“Hey. I didn’t think you’d be one to attend a work sanctioned event.” Carisi said, getting a small smile out of you.

“Well you think right. Jack McCoy thought it would be good if I dropped by for a little while, mingled with some of my colleagues.”

“And how’s that going?” You asked.

“Awfully mundane.” He answered with a smile. “What about you guys? Two cops at a lawyer ego fest? Nothing better to do on a Wednesday night?”

“I’m trying to get my name out there, make some connections with DAs throughout the boroughs. And my partner here agreed to tag along.”

“He bribed me with fries and a milkshake.” You clarified.

“Of course he did. Cookie dough from the Bryer’s family stand?”

“Obviously.” 

Carisi looked at the two of you, quickly falling into place even after years apart. Even though he didn’t witness the years you two were together, moments like these would come along, and he could only imagine how happy the two of you must have been.

“I just saw the Manhattan DA by the bar,” Carisi interrupted, drawing your attention back to him. “I guess you can sit this one out, five conversations later I think I have it down.”

“Are you sure?” You asked. “I’m sure the sixth person I’ve met tonight wouldn’t wince after finding out I’m a cop.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure. Keep your wise mouth over here, please.” He joked as he excused himself from the table. 

You and Peter watched him head over to the bar, introducing himself to a brunette woman who you now know is the Manhattan DA. Barely thirty seconds into meeting her and she already has a smile on her face. That’s Sonny Carisi for you.

You looked away from the conversation between the two lawyers, about to ask Peter about the case you guys were currently working on, but he was already looking at you.

“What?” You asked defensively, tucking a piece of hair behind your ears and quickly glancing down at your outfit. “Do I look like an idiot? I’m trying to blend in with the white collar crowd,” 

You pinched the fabric of your dress and let it flow, gesturing to the elegant piece of clothing you bought just for this occasion.

“No, you look fine.” His eyes softened and looked you over one more time. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” It was only a matter of seconds before your cheeks started to warm. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

“Well, a suit is very versatile. Works in a courtroom, interrogations, and even galas.”

“Lucky you. I haven’t been in a gown since prom. I should’ve just kept that dress, it would’ve been a statement piece over ten years later.”

“I’m not so sure the purple and yellow swirls would have helped Carisi win over any of the DAs.” Peter commented with a small smile.

But you had forgotten he was your date. You forgot he knew exactly what that hideous dress looked like. You forgot that you two danced the night away. You forgot for a minute that he’s the reason you can’t listen to Coldplay’s yellow. 

You forgot, for the smallest moment, that you had even been together.

And what a scary moment it was.

“Hey,” He ducked his head, his eyes meeting you at your level. “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you shook your head and took a sip of your champagne. “Just remembering that awful, awful dress.”

Before you were thrown off any more in this conversation, Jack McCoy approached your table.

“Counselor,” he rested a hand on Peter’s shoulder, a smile gracing both of their faces. “Glad to see you could make it.”

“Well my boss didn’t really give me a choice. He’s kind of a pain in the ass.” They exchanged a look, and you had to stifle the laugh rising in your throat.

“Jack, I’m sure you remember the Detective,” Peter said, moving the conversation to you. 

Jack shook your hand, and you gave him your best smile. “I believe we’ve crossed paths once or twice. She may have even told me off about prosecuting one Rafael Barba.”

“I would say I’m sorry, but I told him off too.” you pointed to Peter, rolling his eyes. “But we’re all just doing our job.”

“I like her,” Jack said with a smile. “She reminds me a lot of a young baseball player I knew once.”

“Alright, alright. Don’t you have other DA’s to piss off here tonight?” Peter interrupted. 

“I do. It was nice to see you, Detective,” you smiled as he took a step away from the table. “And don’t think you can skip out on the dance floor tonight, Stone.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Peter ended it, Jack giving a slight wave behind his back. 

He turned back to you, his smile never wavering. How was he not nervous around you? 

Ever since he came back from Chicago, you had to think about what you said a little more than normal. Not to mention bury the guilt and anger you still felt.

But he just looked at you like nothing ever happened. Like nothing destroyed the relationship you two once had. Your stomach was in knots anytime you caught a glimpse of him. You couldn’t form a coherent thought around him, your mind kept going back to that one awful day in Chicago, where you changed your lives forever. It was why you were so defensive that first day outside the courthouse, during his first interrogation, really up until Pam’s death, when you knew he needed someone that could understand the grief he was in. 

You wanted to push past it. You wanted to smile like Peter did, be able to reminisce about high school and college without the hurt seeping into your chest. You’d gotten closure, yelled and screamed, insulted and forgave one another, but there was something still holding you back. 

“Hey,” for the second time tonight, Peter lowered himself to your level, giving you that annoyingly charming crooked smile, before asking “are you alright?”

“No,” you answered honestly, and without thinking through an explanation. “Why do you remember the color of my prom dress?”

“What?” He asked, a bit incredulous, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips.

“Why do you remember the color of my prom dress?” you asked again, as if you were asking a simple question as what’s the weather like outside. “How do you remember all of this stuff? Our  first kiss, the fact that I only like rainbow sprinkles, when I sprained my fucking ankle in soccer,”

“Why does any of this matter?” He interrupted, taking a step closer to you.

“Because you talk about these things as if everything was sunshine and rainbows between us, like we lived on fucking cloud nine and drank nothing but champagne and happiness. And that’s, that’s not how it was.”

Your voice was rising, catching the eye of some prominent lawyers, including Sonny and the Manhattan DA. 

You lowered your head, gathering your clutch and slipping your heels back on. “I should go before I embarrass Carisi,”

“Don’t leave, not like this,” Peter grabbed your arm as you tried to walk away from the table, making you pause for a second, before brushing him off. 

“Tell Carisi I’ll see him tomorrow.” Your voice was half an octave lower, eyes straight ahead as you started walking toward the exit.

Peter called out for you once, and then twice, but stopped at the same time you heard some gangly footsteps catching up with you. You halted once you approached the steps, listening as Sonny asked you to wait, and the tears started to fall. 

What a night.

****

“Go home, Rollins. I’ll finish up here, the girls will be excited to see you.”

“Ok. But if anything comes up, call me. I‘ll probably just be sleeping on the couch.”

“Okay,” you said with a laugh. “Liv and I can hold down the fort.”

She packed up her bag and tidied her desk for the night, waving goodbye as she had her nanny on the phone.

You refocused on the paperwork in front of you, sighing at the thick stack waiting to be finished. 

Getting through half the stack was your goal for tonight, and by 7:30, your hand was cramping as you were a few shy of completion. They could wait until tomorrow.

Before you pack up your things and rush out the door, you stop in at your Lieutenant’s office, Liv still chugging away at her own desk. 

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Hey Liv, do you need anything before I head out?”

Her head snapped up, and you saw the grimace of pain on her face. The crick in her neck was something you were all too familiar with. 

“No, no, I’m good.” She cracked her knuckles and stretched a little in her chair. “In all honesty I didn’t even know you were still here. Thought you left with Rollins a few hours ago.”

“Wanted to get a head start on paperwork. Besides, she deserved an early night with the girls for once.”

You guys had been busy for weeks, case after case being thrown at you, you barely had time to think about what you were going to eat for dinner. 

“Just trying to catch up, huh? Not avoiding anything?”

“There’s nothing in my life to avoid, unless you count the stack of unopened mail on my counter or the weeks of Say Yes to the Dress episodes in my DVR.”

The knock on Liv’s opened door paused the conversation, as you turned to look at the visitor. 

“Sorry to interrupt,”

This guy is fucking everywhere. 

“You’re not interrupting, Peter. We’re both about to head out, unless you need something from me,” Liv answered.

You focused on the floor, wanting to be anywhere in the world except back in this office with Peter. This place was full of bad mojo for the two of you. 

“No, I actually came to talk to the detective.” He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded cautious, and once you looked back at him, you saw the nerves painted across his face. 

Good. He was finally as terrified as you were to talk. 

“Let me grab my bag, and we can walk out.”

You exchanged goodbye’s with Olivia before quickly, and rather clumsily, knocking your bag into the side of Carisi’s metal desk on the way out. You didn’t even bother packing up your desk; Peter was making you nervous just by watching you in your space. 

“So, what did you want to talk about? Is it the Mendoza case?” You asked as the two of you stepped onto the elevator and he pressed the button for level 1.

“No. I wanted to talk about the other night.”

The gala.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Am I seriously going to have to pry every piece of information out of you from here on out?” He had an attitude, not putting up with your act of deniability. 

The doors opened to the lobby, and you led the way out to the street. You walked down the sidewalk a little bit before stopping in front of a quieter spot near the cruiser parking lot.

The sun set about half an hour ago, so the only light source you had was the bright yellow lamp post beating down on the two of you. It didn’t matter that he was standing under the fluorescent bulb; Peter was glowing in his white button down and overcoat. 

He always seemed to glow.

“Well you wanted to talk, so get to speaking before I change my mind.”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like none of this matters to you!” he exclaimed, your eyes widening the slightest bit. It was usually you making the most noise. “From the moment you saw me in the courtroom a year ago, you’ve been avoiding me and every conversation about us. It took you weeks just to talk to me about our working situation, never mind our friendship. You keep me at an arm's length, bringing up our past and things we used to do, only to shut it down the minute I reminisce about something we did that made me so fucking happy. I thought we talked through this a month ago, said our peace and moved on. I thought we were comfortable with each other again.”

“We are,” you mustered out.

“Then why can’t you talk to me anymore?” He asked, and you could hear the genuity in his voice. “At the gala, you were the one that brought up the stupid prom dress. We were laughing, having a good time, and it felt like normal, until I said you wore a purple dress. And then you shut down, distanced yourself from me again, leaving me on an island filled with our past, letting me second guess every single moment we shared together. Wondering if you felt the same about the midnight ice cream runs, Sunday subway rides, crying in the back of my dads fucking station wagon when he told me about Pam, ”

He ran a hand through his hair, catching his breath in the process. You barely noticed the tremor as he raised his hand. 

“Did our relationship not mean the same to you?”

For the second time in your life, you felt what could only be described as heartbreak. In the literal, physical meaning, the ache in your chest felt like your heart had split in two. And both times, it was because of Peter Stone. 

“Of course it meant the same to me, Peter. I remember the first day I met you, that stupid lopsided grin you had didn’t leave your face the entire subway ride. You were the only person at school that talked to me, the new girl, for two months.”

You smiled as you began to remember nearly every interaction you shared.

“I remember the first time I met your father and Pam, she wouldn’t stop teasing you about me. I remember the Red Sox vs. Yankees game we went to sophomore year and you had to give me your Mariano Rivera jersey after some drunk guy spilled his beer all over me. I remember tutoring you in Spanish, bribing you with nickels to use at the stupid toy machine at the corner store. I remember your first cell phone number, and the way you ended your voicemail with an ‘okay, that sounded like shit. Oh fuck, i’m still recording!’ and couldn’t figure out how to fix it for weeks. 

“In my apartment, I have the ticket stub from the first Mets game we went to. I pressed one of the purple tulips you gave me a week before we started dating and I keep it in my favorite book. I kept the receipt from our first date, I kept the boarding pass to my first plane ticket to Chicago. In the back of my closet, I still have your Cubs jersey on a hanger.

“I remember being happy with you, Peter. I remember our first kiss so clearly, I remember when you said ‘I love you’ in the library, I remember you teaching me how to slow dance for my cousin’s wedding, I remember our first time and how incredibly safe you made me feel. I remember being loved by you every single day for eight years.”

There were tears in your eyes now as you took a breath, but he never once looked away from you. 

“Every time I see you, all I can think about is you kneeling in front of me as I destroy what we had. And I know I don’t deserve to feel this heartbroken about the situation that I caused, but I do.”

A tear rolled down your cheek, but you didn’t even flinch.

“I’m never going to find something like that again, a love that made me feel seen, even in my worst moments, despite my own shortcomings. I was stubborn, and took too long to understand myself. I realized this all too late, but I’ve accepted it.”

“I don’t blame you,” he finally interrupted, taking the smallest step toward you. You shook your head, the movement causing more tears to fall. He took the last two steps to reach you, grabbing your hands in his own. “And I know, it's going to take a lot more than me telling you that to convince you, but we have to start somewhere. We hurt each other in different ways whether we meant to or not. So, please listen to me when I say I don’t blame you.

“As for finding a relationship like ours again, I don’t think I’ll be able to find something like it, or something that surpasses it, at that rate. And I don’t want to. Because I only want to feel that all consuming love with you.”

“Peter,” you started, clearing your throat and wiping away your tears. “The last thing you want is to go through this again.”

“When are you going to understand that my feelings for you never went away?” He started, and you felt your heart rate quicken. “You were more than just a girl I wanted to marry. You were my best friend. And being without you these last few years has been incredibly lonely.” 

He took a minute to think about what he was going to say next, his brows furrowing and then relaxing a few times to make sure he got it right.

“I want you in my life. As my colleague, as my friend, and my partner. But if you don’t want that, I’m willing to take whatever you’ll give me. But please, please don’t cut me out again.”

It was his eyes that began to fill with tears now, the light catching the blue irises fighting to keep the tears in. Part of you wished he would just let go, stop trying to contain himself and his emotions. 

But you were doing the exact same thing.

“I’m scared we’re going to fail again.” You admitted, and Peter just smiled in return. 

Finally. You were letting him in.

“How do you know it’s going to fail if you don’t even give it a chance?”

You took a deep breath as he rubbed his thumb across your knuckles.

“No one knows me better than you do,”

“And that terrifies you.” He finished, a small smile resting on his face. “It’s terrifying for me too. But it saves me a lot of time not having to learn your birthday or favorite color.”

He got the smallest smile out of you. “I am terrified, and also feel strangely at peace, and I’m still going to be sorry.”

Before you could continue self flagellating, he rested his hand on the side of your face, and gently placed his lips over yours. It was chaste, incredibly sweet as you remembered what he tasted like, and lasted only a few seconds longer than the first one you shared sixteen years ago.

He pulled away slowly, running his thumb across your cheek in the gentlest manner. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, okay?”

You nodded, as he kissed you again, in the same chaste yet heart shattering way. When he pulled away, he was quick to pull you back to him, placing a kiss on your forehead before tucking you under his chin, his arms securely wrapped around your waist.

You tucked yourself into his neck, gently running your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. And, because you could, you placed a kiss to the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder, without feeling embarrassed about it this time.

Because he was yours again. And you weren’t going to let him go this time.

“I love you,” you whispered into his skin, and pressed your lips to the same spot once again.

You felt the curve of his lips as he kissed your head, “I love you too,” murmured into your hair and the empty city block around you.

Or so you thought.

About fifty feet away, standing in the back entrance to the precinct, were Sonny and Amanda, spying on the spectacle between the two of you.

“How do we tell her that we caught a case after this?” Carisi asked, tearing his eyes away from your embrace and down at Amanda.

“The same way you told me. Over a second date dinner before we even got the bread.” She teased, getting him to roll his eyes. 

She reached for his hand as he began to walk away, gently squeezing to let him know she understood the circumstances, and that it didn’t change anything.

The soft smile he gave her in return nearly killed her. 

“Hey Romeo and Juliet!” Rollins shouted, in an attempt to both get your attention and reclaim her strong demeanor. “We got a case, so if you could wrap up the balcony scene, that would be great.”

You flinched the slightest bit when you heard Rollins shout at you, quickly settling back into Peter’s chest as he gently squeezed your sides.

“Busted already. Thought we’d at least have a couple days to figure this out for ourselves.”

You pulled away just far enough so you could look up at him and admire his sparkling blue eyes. 

“We will. But until then, business as usual.” 

“But no self-sabotage or flagellating.” He added. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

You smiled and rose onto your tiptoes to kiss him, starting in the same slow way you always did, enjoying the lazy way your lips moved together. This is what heaven felt like, and you remember now why you never felt anxious in Peter’s presence. 

He started to pull away, but you snuck in a few more small kisses, the smile on his face growing after each one. 

“I’ll call you when I can, okay?” 

He kept his eyes on yours as he took a second before answering, a deep breath in and out, replaced by a beautiful Peter smile. 

“Okay.”

It was hard to explain what happened in that moment he took for himself, but you knew it was for you. To show you he loved, respected, and accepted you for who you were in the past, and who you are now. And it’s all you could ever ask for.

****

tags: @hurricanejjareau @qvid-pro-qvo @duchesschameleon​ @averyhotchner​

[equalseleventhirds]

i said i wouldn't write it but i did

vaguely a sequel to this, but far in the future and focused on jon (annabelle features briefly tho. she's fine. annabelle will always be fine in my fics.) with ofc the presupposition that they've failed in one world but kept trying, bcos i think that would be fun*!

*(by which i mean heartbreaking, i'm so sorry)

There are rules, to the traveling, or at least there seem to be. There are certainly questions to be asked and points to be made, about how many instances count as a definitive rule rather than simply a pattern. But Jon likes to think of them as rules. He's always preferred concrete answers, even if it turns out they're less the truth and more just a convenient way of conceptualizing things.

So he has rules.

First: the Fears always come through on the same day. October 18, 2018. Or, given the impact history has on calendars, the equivalent of it; he'd once spent months trying to correlate the forty-third moon of cycle 1852 with his calendar just to prove his point, but the math had all worked out.

(Which does indicate, at least to Jon, that yes, the Fears probably did originate in his home world, Georgie. He'll take his petty wins where he can get them. For as long as he can remember the discussion, and the people, he's proving wrong.)

Second, it is still his tapes that the Fears follow. For every apocalypse there has been a new catalyst, but none of these new rituals supersede his. Maybe it's a testament to the strength of the Web's original plan, or maybe it's just something about Jon himself. He knows what he thinks, but... well, there isn't enough proof just yet.

Third, in spite of endless attempts to trap them and stop them, Jon is always able to travel with the Fears. Perhaps they simply can't stop him, as the original antichrist he apparently is; dozens of apocalypses in dozens of different universes, and Jon can always feel his rightful place as ruler of that terrible fearscape calling to him. He hasn't taken it yet, but it's there, and the Eye cannot abandon its true pupil without his permission.

Or perhaps they simply don't care. Every attempt so far has led to the exact same result, after all: another world left behind, another death by starvation averted, another new feast for the Fears to sink their teeth into.

Fourth, he always passes out upon entering a new world.

It's kind of annoying.

---

It is slightly unusual for him to wake up warm, comfortable, and covered in a blanket, but Jon's not about to complain. It's nice. He doesn't get a lot of comfort, and he likes sleeping in a bed, especially since he's always eldritch-nightmare-free in a new world. For a limited time only, of course.

He's fairly certain he's inside; aside from the softness underneath and around him, the air is still and temperate, the light through his eyelids is artificial, and all he can hear is the faint whirring of appliances and the whispers of two muted voices.

"—complete stranger, definitely dangerous, looks like he's from hell—"

"Okay, fine, but I wasn't going to leave him, and anyway haven't you noticed he's a bit—"

"A bit what? Scarred? Bloodstained? Glowing eyes, because I don't think I need to remind you, Martin, his eyes were absolutely glowing when you found him—"

Martin. Now there's a name. Not an uncommon one, but... he thinks he knows that voice.

Or. Well. He might know both of those voices, actually, which is even more interesting than waking up in a bed.

Jon opens his eyes.

He's met himself before, is the thing. Not in every world, and not always particularly recognizable, but he's met himself. He's met versions of Martin, too, and eventually stopped going completely useless with heartbreak every time. The merest handful of times, he's found both of them in the same world, sometimes something almost like friends, but usually not.

The fact that they have their arms around each other, casual, comfortable, close, is both entirely unexpected and perfectly, wonderfully, terribly familiar. Jon briefly considers crying about it, but there are more important things to be doing. For example.

"The glowing eyes aren't actually that sinister. I mean, they are, but not for the reasons you're probably thinking."

Jon—the other Jon—jumps at the sound of his voice, then leans forward. Curiosity, of course; that hardly ever seems to change. "You—the glowing—who are you?"

"Jon," this new version of Martin scolds, and for just a moment he's back home, with his Martin, with that exasperated tone—but no, this isn't his Martin, and he's also leaning forward now, his voice turning gentle. Concerned. Coaxing, like he's a spooked animal, and Jon doesn't think his Martin has ever talked to him that way. "How are you feeling? We found you unconscious in the street."

He can feel Martin's curiosity too, pushing forward under his concern, just as questioning as Jon but too polite to outright say it yet. He has to cut this off, or he really will cry.

"Mm... no," he says. "Well, yes. But also." Good lord, he's confusing them. Par for the course, but he should probably try to be somewhat comprehensible.

He holds up a hand, extending one finger. "I am... fine. More or less. Trust me, I'm used to this, and this isn't even the worst way it's happened." Another finger joins the first. "My name, as I believe Martin has guessed but then dismissed, is Jonathan Sims. I am not you from the future, nor am I lying, nor am I crazy, because—" a third finger "—interdimensional travel is not only possible, it has happened, is happening, because of and along with terrible monstrosities I am determined to stop, and I have explained this too many times to too many people to have much patience for anyone being shocked and disbelieving, much less a version of myself doing so, so you can either get over it and move on or I can go elsewhere and do something useful."

"Excuse—"

"And," he continues, pushing himself up so he can sit and lean forward even more intensely than his counterpart, "I would actually rather not do that just yet, because I have an extremely pressing question for the two of you."

"Um," Martin says, and "What," says the other Jon.

"How," Jon asks, deepening his voice to exude solemn, ominous, and eldritchly important, "did you two start dating?"

---

It was so... normal. Apparently. Two people, mutual friends, a chance encounter. A prickly exterior ("He hated me," both of them had claimed), but without the insecurity of being Head Archivist and the fear of dread powers beyond his comprehension, their friends had helped him open up and—eventually—apologise. A budding friendship, and then a romance, and then...

It isn't a version of them Jon has seen anywhere else, in any of the worlds he's traveled to. Normal as it is, it's a highly improbably scenario, and certainly not the same as his relationship with his Martin had been. But it was, in an infinite number of worlds, still a possibility.

Jon isn't quite sure how he feels about that, knowing that some version of them could have fallen in love without the trauma, but that they hadn't managed it.

His hands aren't shaking, as he lights his cigarette. At least there's that.

"I quit, you know," his counterpart says from behind him. "Years ago. I'd forgotten about those until you asked."

"Well then, thank you for indulging me." He gestures, meaning the cigarette, meaning the bed, meaning his claims about reality, meaning his intrusive, gossipy questioning. Meaning everything. He's not sure it gets across.

The other Jon laughs, quietly, and moves to stand next to him. "I am my worst enabler."

"Oh, that's hardly true."

"Mm." They're silent together for a while, but Jon is restless (both of him), and eventually this reality's version opens his mouth to ask. "Do you—do you know why I—I don't want to say believed you, I'm still not sure I do, b-but, didn't throw you out immediately?"

"My myriad charms?" They both laugh at that.

"Jonathan Sims," he says, as if that explains anything.

Jon takes a drag of his cigarette, considering. He could probably Know, but... indulging himself. "What about me?"

"No, not you, or. You know. You. But your name. Jonathan Sims. I decided you weren't, weren't a deliberate lie to trick me, or a future version of myself, or a mind-reading monster—"

"Well—"

"—when you said your name, because none of those things would have said that." He smiles then and holds up a hand, and—oh—his ring glints. "I've been Jonathan Blackwood for a while now."

They'd told him married eventually, but he hadn't even thought about his name. He's certainly thinking about it now. "Jonathan Blackwood," he says, soft, to himself. And to himself. "That... that sounds good."

"It does, doesn't it."

Whatever they might have said next is lost as an incredibly loud engine roars nearby and a sleek black motorcycle pulls up in front of them. Jon sighs and takes one last drag of his cigarette as the rider removes her helmet.

"Been off finding yourself, then, Jon?" Annabelle asks.

"Oh, extremely funny, yes. Did you steal that?"

"It was a gift."

"Of course it was."

The other Jon is staring at them both, his eyes repeatedly drifting back to the web-covered hole in Annabelle's head. "Who—what is—is that a—"

"She's a spider monster," Jon supplies helpfully. "She came with me, although apparently she did not pass out in the street this time."

"Two streets over, I think. Pity, I would've loved a nice nap in a proper bed, but I did get this motorcycle out of it. Come on, Jon, you can mope on the way."

"I have not been moping—"

"Haven't you? You're not the one who deals with how maudlin you get every time you meet yourself—"

"Yes, fine, thank you, we can go." He stubs out the cigarette and pauses, looking at himself. "Uh. Tell Martin—well, goodbye, I guess. I'd say I hope we meet again, but if you're lucky we won't need to?"

"...sure."

"And I'm—I hope you—that is, I'll do my best—well." He sighs. "Things are about to get... dicey, for the world in general. But just, look out for each other, and we'll try to handle the rest."

"Jon, we should be going."

"Yes, all right, all right." He gives himself one last, probably not very reassuring smile, and climbs on behind Annabelle.

They do have work to do, after all.

[jaxsteamblog]

Momtara and Dadko

Click here to read the entire fic on AO3

Content Warning: Suggestive Content

Zuko, as usual, woke up early in the morning. Katara recalled kissing him before he went on his run, but didn’t properly wake up until a few hours later. Normally, Zuko woke her up when he returned, so Katara was confused when her aide came knocking. 

After getting dressed, Katara walked into the dining room where Sokka, Suki, and the children were firmly entrenched in their breakfast. 

“Where’s Zuko?” She asked.

“He’s not with you?” Sokka asked, glancing up briefly before looking back down to continue feeding Lu Ten small pieces of bacon.

“Clearly.” Katara said dryly, taking her seat.

“Mommy, you are being mean to Uncle Sokka. You should say sorry.” Izumi said. 

“It’s okay.” Sokka said quickly.

“It’s not.” Katara said and sighed. “I have been mean. I’m stressed out and taking it out on you, which isn’t fair. I’m sorry Sokka.”

“I understand Kat. I forgive you.” Sokka replied.

“And I’m sorry Mimi. I shouldn’t have yelled at you yesterday.” Katara said, putting her hand on the top of Izumi’s head.

“I forgive you mommy.” Izumi said primly. “Now Kya.”

“I’m sorry Kya. I shouldn’t have yelled at you either.” Katara said, looking at her niece while stroking Izumi’s hair.

“Thank you Auntie.” Kya murmured, looking down at her plate.

“And Lu Ten!” Izumi chirped.

“What did I do to Lu Ten?” Katara asked, tilting her head down to look at Izumi.

“You left him out.” She stated.

“You’re right. I’m sorry Lu Ten.” Katara said.

Sokka picked up Lu Ten, thrusting the toddler over the table. Katara chuckled as she leaned across the corner to kiss Lu Ten. He, with his hands covered in greasy egg, grabbed onto her face as he kissed her back.

“Ew!” Kya and Izumi shrieked together. 

Katara leaned back, wiping her face off as the others started chattering once again.

“What did I miss?” Zuko asked as he walked in. Katara turned and was surprised to see him still in his running clothes. 

Then Hakoda, Malina, and Bato stepped in after him.

“Lu Ten got mommy messy.” Izumi answered.

“He seems especially skilled at that.” Zuko agreed. He walked to Katara and kissed her cheek.

“Good morning beloved.” He murmured.

“Kisses!” Lu Ten yelled. Zuko smiled and made his way down the table and around, going so far as to kiss Suki and Sokka’s cheeks. As he got to Sokka, he took Lu Ten from his lap and walked back to take his seat next to Katara.

“That’s very cute.” Malina remarked.

“Thank you. It was very weird at first; physical affection wasn’t something I was used to as a kid.” Zuko said, speaking easily enough to keep things from growing awkward.

“I can understand that! South Pole custom seems to be very touchy.” Malina said, playfully nudging Hakoda with her shoulder. 

“The first time I hugged Zuko, he thanked me and then shook my hand.” Sokka said. Bato sputtered out a laugh and Hakoda broke a smile. 

“Was he always like that?” Zuko asked, looking side to side for verification from the other South Pole members.

“As children, they were handled a lot. It’s nearly impossible to get toddlers through the snow when left on their own two feet.” Hakoda said. 

“Katara wore one of those wrap things when the kids were babies. Genius. I think I carried both of them all day sometimes.” Zuko said.

Katara snorted and everyone looked at her.

“One time, Zuko had Lu Ten in a sling during a financial meet and, in his sleep, decided to use his diaper.” She explained.

“Nothing is worse than potty training a child during the dark season in the South Pole when your bathroom is outside.” Hakoda interjected as the others were laughing.

“Paw-Paw, what was mommy like when she was my age?” Izumi asked.

The table quieted and Katara stared at her father.

“Well, I wasn’t around when your mother was five. I was fighting in the Earth Kingdom.” Hakoda said.

“You didn’t see her at all?” Izumi questioned with clear shock.

“Not for many years.” Hakoda said with a shake of his head.

“Sometimes I don’t get to see mommy for a few weeks when I live with daddy in the Fire Nation.” Izumi said softly. “It makes me sad.” 

“I was very sad when I couldn’t see my mom or my dad.” Katara said, putting her arms around Izumi and kissing her hair. 

“When I’m queen, I’m going to live here and I’ll be able to see Izumi every day.” Kya announced.

“What about me and mama?” Sokka asked.

“You can live here too if you want.” She conceded and Sokka scoffed in amusement. 

“Oh, why thank you.” He said and smiled over Kya’s head at Suki.

“I had hoped after the war, I’d be able to live with my entire family in one place.” Hakoda grumbled and Malina patted his hand. 

“Tell me about it.” Katara sighed. 

“Excuse me, your majesty?” A woman called from the doorway. Katara turned and waved the aide in.

“The Matriarch is waiting for you. And we just got confirmation that the ambassador has entered the city.” She said, angling a tablet down so Katara could see the verification. 

“Delightful.” Katara muttered. Then, speaking up, she tried to sound more cheerful. “Time to get dressed!”

More voices than she expected groaned in disappointment. 

The first meeting would be a quick, but formal, welcome. In the throne room, Katara had Hakoda and Dong-Lee take their seats first. Then, holding up the thick fabric of her skirt, she stepped up to the platform where her own carved monstrosity awaited her. Kya knelt on a cushion at her side, still on the platform above Hakoda and Dong-Lee. Politics were in everything.

The Ambassador was escorted in and he bowed in greeting.

“Ambassador Yi, welcome to our little oasis in Republic City.” Katara said.

Yi was a stout man, but younger than she expected. He was middle aged with a receding hairline, yet his face was fairly youthful. From his file, Katara knew he was married with three children, all a few years older than Izumi.

“Thank you, Queen Katara.” He said.

“You are here at the pleasure of Chief Hakoda, leader of the Southern Water Tribes, and Matriarch Dong-Lee of the Swamp Tribe.” Katara went on, gesturing with both hands to the other leaders. 

Yi bowed again.

“Thank you, Chief Hakoda and Matriarch Dong-Lee.” He said.

“And I would like to introduce you to my heir, Princess Kya.” Katara finished.

A third bow and Kya shifted uneasily.

“It is a pleasure to meet the princess.” Yi said.

“I know you have meetings with us separately, but did you have anything you would like to bring before the triumvirate?” Katara questioned.

“No, your majesty.” Yi answered.

“Then I give you your leave. I will see you at our appointed time.” Katara said. She stood and Yi bowed again, keeping his gaze lowered. The others stood and left, exiting behind the platform before Yi made his way back the way he entered. 

Such rituals made Katara feel stiff and irritated; she’d be taking her lunch with the man in a few hours while wearing pants. All of the preceding pageantry struck her as unnecessary. 

“He seems agreeable.��� Dong-Lee said.

“Well, be careful, he’s from the Upper Ring. There’s been a lot of chatter about pruning the swamp.” Katara said.

Dong-Lee scoffed. “As if the swamp would let anyone do such a thing.” 

“Are all the meetings going to be like that Auntie?” Kya asked, tugging hard at the neckline of her dress.

“Not all of them, no. But enough of them to make you grumpy.” Katara said and Kya groaned loudly. 

“How does Izumi do it?” Kya whined.

“She’s a lot like her father I suppose. They were born into it.” Katara remarked lightly. Kya groaned again and Katara laughed. 

“I wish Thuy was here.” She muttered.

Katara only nodded.

Ambassador Yi met with Hakoda and Dong-Lee prior to lunch, talking about his goals for his appointment and the technical aspects of the placement. The lunch was far more casual, and Yi brought his family. Dong-Lee was attended by her brother and two children, while Malina came along with Hakoda. The rest of Katara’s royal family bustled in and the large table on the veranda was bursting with activity. 

Yi and his family were patient through the introductions, though Katara promptly forgot the names of everyone with him. Zuko had a better mind for names and she would have to ask him about it later. 

“Ambassador, I’d like to introduce my consort, Fire Lord Zuko.” Katara said, gesturing to Zuko. Yi and his family all gave a hasty Fire Nation salute while Zuko only smiled, holding Lu Ten at his hip. 

“Forgive me,” Yi’s wife said, sounding nervous. “But how should we refer to your Highness?” 

“Zuko is fine.” He replied and the blood drained from her face. 

Katara made a tsk sound and swatted his arm lightly. 

“Titles are very loosely held and wielded around here. We both prefer to be on a first name basis, but since we don’t have a family name, I understand it can be awkward.” She explained.

“I do think consort is rather fun.” Zuko said, smiling at Katara, who glowered back at him. 

“I was told the Earth Empire custom was a bit formal compared to the rest of the world.” Yi admitted.

“It was the same in the Fire Nation until very recently.” Zuko said. 

“I’d like us to be friends.” Katara said. “So I’d love it if you’d use our given names.” 

“That would make it easier to know when I’m in trouble.” Yi joked and Katara laughed. His wife looked mortified. 

Lu Ten started to fuss and Zuko started bouncing him.

“I think it’s nap time.” He said.

“Thank you.” Katara replied, offering her cheek as Zuko leaned in to kiss her. 

“Can we go eat mom?” Yi’s eldest son asked, tugging lightly on his mother’s sleeve.

“Please! This was meant to welcome you after all!” Katara said, shooing them away. Yi’s wife and children walked off, heading over to the serving tables.

“You have a lovely family.” Katara said.

“Thank you. Your’s is charming as well.” Yi said and rubbed his chin. “I hadn’t expected the Fire Lord to be so approachable.” 

“He’s a lot like his uncle.” Katara replied.

“Your son looks just like him.” 

“Oh yes.” Katara said with a laugh. “He’s a Firebender too.”

“But how lucky your daughter is just like you!” Yi said.

“Hmm?” Katara turned and faced Yi more purposefully. 

“I was glad you introduced her first, because my packet was incorrect. I thought her name was Izumi.” He said.

“Izumi is my daughter.” Katara said.

“My apologies. Is that her Fire Nation name?” Yi questioned.

“Yes.” Katara said slowly. “You misunderstand, Kya is my niece.” 

Yi’s eyes widened in surprise. 

“Then Izumi is not the Waterbender?” He asked.

“No, Izumi is a…” Katara frowned. “She’s not a Waterbender. Kya is my brother’s daughter. She recently came into her bending and now she’s my heir.” 

“So Izumi is…” Yi sounded panicked and confused.

“Fire Nation. Completely.” Katara said tersely. “She is her father’s heir.”

“I’m sorry. I am completely embarrassed.” Yi said in a hurry, bowing in apology. 

“I can understand the confusion. The inheritance law changed when I was crowned.” Katara said. 

“Thank you for your understanding, your Majesty.” Yi said.

“Of course. You should join your family, they seem to be waiting for you.” Katara said. Yi bowed again and walked to the table. Katara watched him for a moment before turning back toward the palace.

She saw Izumi’s face peeking from behind a wooden beam that supported the pergola. As their eyes met, Izumi darted back inside the palace. Katara sighed, a weight settling on her shoulders. 

Katara’s meeting with the new ambassador was awkward, but she merely questioned him about his goals. The Earth Empire was still gunning for drilling rights in the arctic, which simply wasn’t going to happen. They also wanted to expand their fishing and research waters, which also wasn’t going to happen. Those two points came up time and again, becoming chronic sores in Katara’s life. In the Poles at least, her people had learned how to live in harmony with the seas. They were also intimately aware of what happened when they tried to tip the balance in their favor. Seas could rise, ice could crack, and hungry things could see better than they in the night. 

After the business was concluded, Katara cancelled the debrief with Hakoda and Dong-Lee, pushing it back a day. 

She needed to talk to Zuko.

In their bedroom, Katara sat on the bed as Zuko undid his dress shirt. He never dressed down around politicians, despite his insistence on the given name thing. 

“Am I ashamed of our children?” Katara blurted as Zuko hung the shirt on the valet rack. He paused, his hands still on the hanger and slowly turned his head around to look at her.

“Excuse me?” He asked.

“Yi thought Kya was our daughter and I couldn’t just come out and correct him. It was so awkward!” Katara said.

“I don’t think that means you’re ashamed of her.” Zuko stated firmly. 

“Izumi heard me and she ran off.” Katara said.

“Did you talk to her?” 

“No.”

“We probably shouldn’t let that marinate.”

Katara groaned and bent over, holding her head in her hands.

“I am the worst parent.” She said.

“I think we can both agree that Ozai was the worst parent.” Zuko retorted.

Katara lifted her head, keeping her fingers splayed over her mouth.

“I’m serious.” She moaned and Zuko raised an eyebrow.

He brought both hands sharply up to his face, framing his scar.

“So am I.” He said. 

“I don’t even consider him a parent.” Katara said, falling backward onto the bed. “He’s a monster.”

“Fair point, yet he still is legally my father.” Zuko said.

“I think biologically too.” Katara added.

“Did you know Toph takes Lin and Suyin to her matches?” Zuko asked.

“What?” Katara asked, shooting her confused look up to the ceiling. 

“Lin caught a tooth before she even lost one of her own. It’s nuts.” Zuko said, sitting on the bed beside her.

“And?”

“And she adopted Jae-hwan, seemingly on a whim. No one knows who fathered Lin or Suyin, but Toph doesn’t care because they’d be Beifongs regardless.”

“I repeat, and?”

“And Toph is an amazing mother. Lots of people give her so much crap for simply being blind and having kids, let alone all this other stuff. None of us are perfect, but we’re doing our best. Our kids are great.” 

“I know that Zuko. But I don’t act like it.” Katara muttered, covering her face with her arms. 

“You’ve been really protective of Izumi about this bending stuff, but have you talked to her about it?” Zuko asked.

“No.” Katara said, her voice muffled. 

“I’m telling you, Izumi and Kya love each other. And Izumi is going to be Fire Lord, so it’s not like she’s getting shoved to the side.” Zuko said.

“So what about Lu Ten?” Katara asked.

“Who knows? The Fire Nation hasn’t had a good run with siblings, but Izumi and Lu Ten seem to be fine.” 

“Has there ever been a woman Fire Lord? Or a non-Bender?” 

“Well. No.” Zuko admitted. “But there’s never been a Prime Minister before either.”

“Obviously I don’t need to protect her, so why am I hiding her?”

“When Kya was born, you were so relieved. I thought it was because you were worried about Suki, but you were so anxious before Sokka texted. Then suddenly everything was easier and Izumi popped out two minutes later. I think Izumi was exactly what you wanted her to be.” Zuko explained.

“What do you mean?” Katara lowered her arms and looked up at him.

“She’s not named Kya, so you didn’t have to go through that. She looks like you when you haven’t been in the sun for awhile, and her hair is just like mine. I remember you talking about how much more manageable her hair was when it started to really grow in.

“And she’s not a Waterbender, so you didn’t have to put her through what you’re going through.” Zuko added softly. 

“But Kya’s going to be fine.” Katara said.

“Kya is going to have to live away from her parents more than you think. Sokka has a job in the Fire Nation now, remember? And Suki is still holding onto the flower shop for him.”

“I.” Katara cut off, not knowing what to say. 

“Sokka’s really anxious about this. He’s terrified of being away from Kya, because he hated being away from your parents.” Zuko said.

Tears welled in Katara’s eyes and she threw her arms over her face again.

“So not only am I a terrible mother, but I’m the worst sister and daughter too!” She wailed. 

“Katara, you know it’s not like that.” Zuko said, rubbing one of her arms.

“I hate that this happened. I hate how everyone makes these stupid choices without me and then I end up doing something terrible!”

“So it’s not your fault?”

“How is this my fault?”

“How is it anyone’s?”

Frustrated, Zuko stood up and walked back to their closet. 

“We talked about kids for years because we knew this was going to be hard. And Sokka and Suki could never have expected that their kid was going to be a Bender. And your dad didn’t go off thinking he’d never see his wife again, or that his children would grow up without him.” He said. 

Katara sat up, glaring at his back as Zuko picked out a new outfit. 

“So it’s me then? I’m the one making everything difficult?” She shot back.

“I didn’t say that.” Zuko replied.

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying this sucks!” Zuko turned around sharply, holding tight onto a t-shirt. “I hate being in Caldera without you for so long. And it’s pure misery when you have the children.”

He yanked on the shirt and rubbed his nose furiously.

“Honestly, sometimes I can’t wait for the children to be grown. Because then I can toss Izumi onto the throne and Kya can move in here and then you and I can finally be together, properly.” He laughed darkly and ran a hand through his hair. “But then I feel terrible because these are my children and I’m already missing out on so much.” 

“Maybe we shouldn’t have gotten married.” Katara muttered.

Zuko advanced on her quickly and grabbed her arms, squeezing her hard enough to scare her.

“Don’t you ever say that.” He said, his voice low. “I would rather have died in the Agni Kai than even think you mean that for a second.” 

“Zuko…” Katara protested and he shook her once, softly but with urgency.

“Tell me to step down. Ask me. Order me and I would crawl from the port to your throne to become your proper consort.” Zuko said. “But don’t you ever think things would be better had I not made you mine.” 

“Stop.” Katara said brusquely, using her forearms to break his hold. Zuko grabbed her wrists, holding them up.

“You gave me your bed, you gave me children. And they are forever a part of me. But you are mine. Just as I am yours.” Zuko kissed her, loosening his grip on her wrists. Katara grabbed his shirt, pulling him onto the bed. 

~

“Do you suppose that was a healthy and loving way to handle our fight?” Katara asked, shaking her hands off in the sink. It was easy enough to heal the minor marks and Zuko examined his chest in the mirror.

“I would definitely say it was loving.” He said and then nodded at his reflection. “But we should probably leave out some details if we bring this up at therapy.” 

“What are you so angry about anyway?” Katara asked.

“I am angry, dear wife, that you are in the throes of your righteous fury while I’m also struggling but I feel like I have to hold everything together.” Zuko said. 

He had an easy way of talking that made Katara relax. Had it been anyone else, she would have launched right into a fight.

“I’m sorry I’m not being more supportive.” Katara said and moved behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle and pressing her cheek into his shoulder blade. 

“Like I said last night, I do understand that this is difficult for you. But I think you need to have a little faith and try letting go. Not everything has to be a battle that you win or lose.” Zuko held onto her arms and tilted his head back to bump hers. 

“Fine. So, as a wife first, what can I do?” Katara asked.

“Not much. Summer will be in a few weeks and you get to be Fire Lady again. I’ll be able to breathe once you and the children are in Caldera.” Zuko answered.

“Mom time then?” Katara said meekly.

“Mom and dad time. We’re a team.” Zuko replied.

They dressed and went to Izumi’s bedroom. Apparently, she had run there during lunch and refused to come out.

Zuko knocked on the door and called gently. “Mimi?” 

“Come in.” Izumi said, sounding despondent. 

Opening the door, Zuko and Katara hesitated before entering. Izumi was on the floor, moving her dolls around limply.

“Izumi, it is time. For.” Zuko paused with performative austerity. “The feelings wheel.” 

Izumi heaved a long sigh as she got up and shuffled to her small desk. Pulling open the center drawer, she pulled out a laminated piece of paper and went back to her spot on the floor. Zuko and Katara joined her, shutting the door behind them.

“Okay Mimi, you know the drill. How are you feeling?” Zuko asked as he and Katara sat down.

On the paper was a large circle cut into tiered segments. The wider wedges at the center of the circle were labelled with general emotions like “happy” and “scared.” Things got more specific in the thinner wedges radiating outward. 

Izumi pointed with a heavy finger to “sad.”

Zuko worked with Izumi through the process, getting her to be more specific about how she was feeling. Katara stayed quiet, watching her daughter’s face. She was surprised that Izumi identified “guilty” before ending on “ashamed.”

It wasn’t what Katara expected at all.

But she knew exactly how Izumi was feeling.

“Why do you feel ashamed sweetie?” Katara asked.

“Because I’m not Water Tribe.” Izumi said quietly. 

“Why do you think you’re not?” Zuko asked.

“Because mommy always says that I’m only Fire Nation. That I’m your heir and that’s it.” Izumi explained.

“Okay, that’s a valid reason.” Zuko said and Katara sighed.

“I say that because I know you’re part Tribal. I want everyone to know that you deserve to be your father’s heir regardless.” She said.

“Why would being Tribal be bad?” Izumi asked.

“Well…” Katara drifted, sharing a look with Zuko.

“During the war, the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe were enemies.” Zuko said honestly. “And a lot of people in the Fire Nation still feel angry about that.” 

“So they hate me?” Izumi asked, her voice quivering.

“Oh no sweetie! No one hates you!” Katara said in a rush. “It’s just, they may think being from the Water Tribe will make you a bad Fire Lord.” 

“Do you think I’ll be a bad Fire Lord?” Izumi asked Zuko.

“I think you’ll be the first good one.” He said. Izumi crawled onto Zuko, hugging him.

“You’re good, daddy.” She said.

Zuko hugged her back and kissed her hair. “I’m glad you think so, Mimi.” 

“Your father is a great Fire Lord, and you’ll be even better.” Katara added, patting Izumi’s back.

Izumi still clung to Zuko but looked over at Katara.

“So it’s okay that I don’t look like you or Paw-Paw?” She asked.

“Of course sweetie! And not all Water Tribals look like me. Some of them.” Katara stopped and took in a breath. “Some of them look like your Gran-Gran remember?” 

“And it’s okay that I’m not a Waterbender?” Izumi continued.

“Absolutely. Is it okay that Kya is?” Katara asked.

Izumi thought about it seriously for a moment and then nodded.

“Kya is going to rule the tribes and I’m going to be Fire Lord and then we’re going to take over the world.” She said and Katara sputtered.

“What was that?” She asked.

“Well Lu Ten has to have something and there are Waterbenders and Firebenders in the Earth Empire, so Kya and I are going to take it.” Izumi stated.

“You very much are not, young lady.” Zuko said, holding Izumi up to look at her. 

“But daddy, you said I could do anything.” Izumi replied simply. “And grandfather Ozai took over Omashu, my teacher told me so.” 

“Okay, we’re firing your teacher for one thing.” Zuko said and Katara gently pried their daughter from his hold. 

“Izumi, we’ll have to have a chat about why world domination is not a good thing, but do you feel better now?” She asked.

“Yes mommy. Can I have lunch?” Izumi asked. 

“Let’s go see what’s in the kitchen.” Katara stood up and held Izumi’s hand, pausing while Zuko stared off.

“Coming?” She prompted. Zuko shook himself and stood, looking curiously down at Izumi.

“Maybe we should hold off on introducing her to Azula.” He said.

Izumi lifted her head, her hazel eyes shifting in the overhead light. 

“I already know all about her. Auntie Ty Lee told me about her when we were on Avatar Island.” She said and then looked toward the door. Zuko, bewildered, caught Katara’s eye.

Auntie Ty Lee? He mouthed over Izumi’s head. Katara only shrugged.

She had her own family problems to deal with. 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

[mistraliprincess]

Qilin’s Meditation

Head gently hanging low, eyes closed, legs crossed, and arms resting atop them, the Qilin sat below the Wisteria tree of the Fujiki garden. Tail, longer, thicker, and now scaled unlike the last time she had done this, curled on the ground beside her. The fur tuft end gently rising and falling, just as her shoulders were with each expansion of her chest to breathe in. A long, slow, deep inhale to be held only a second before letting it free with an exhale lasting just as long.

Each outward breath, the Fujiki’s Semblance would act, expelling gentle wisps of mist from her mouth during the duration of her exhale. Though unlike usual, each expelling of mist let loose more into the air than it should with the length of her breath. Within just a few minutes, the mist had gathered to more of a fog within the back of the yard that housed the garden. Just minutes more and the fog not only filled the rest of the yard around the house, but it had grown thick, even beginning to spill beyond the walls which marked the Fujiki land. None would be able to see the woman seated at the base of the tree deep in her meditation if they were to look. Nor would she be able to see her surroundings if she woke to the fog.

It would just be her, hidden alone within the Semblance made veil of her subconscious making.

Light and warmth would graze across her skin, brightening the darkness that was her eyelids shut before her eyes. Though it would not disrupt the Huntress’ meditation. Nor would the feeling of a cold spray of water across her skin, or the subsequent strong smell of an abundance of flowers. The weight of something long and scaled slipping up her arm before abruptly giving way to the ticklish sensation of a gentle insect at the end of her finger tip wouldn’t even be enough to wake her. Yet she was full aware of the sensations, her brow furrowing and her mind wondering while she continued to breathe.

Soon light returned beyond her eye lids, though it was dull this time, cold even, but quickly gave way to flickering, scorching heat for a brief moment. That strong warmth dulling and focusing to her chest, to her heart, reminding her of her Mother and her love... how she missed it so... A light shiver surging up her spine brings her back to the present before she could loose her meditation as a gentle ringing seems to fill the back of her head, For some reason or another coaxing her to straighten her posture, to bring her arms back and grip her knees to strengthen her pose.

While initially finding it odd how she was so compelled to stabilize and secure herself in her place, she was quickly thankful that she did. A strong gust of wind battering against her from behind, pushing her forward against her arms and her knees as she pushed to keep upright. Unlike before, however, this feeling wouldn’t come and go so quick. No, this wind lasted, shifting it’s direction and strength every few seconds again and again, eventually sounding less like wind and more a beastly howl. Seconds more of this howling gust’s direction changing around her and it would become cold, wet, but just slightly. A familiar sensation akin to what she knew so well from her affinity within the family Semblance.

As abruptly as everything began, however, it would end all the same. Returning her mind, body, and senses to her current self, seated atop the grass surrounding the Wisteria tree in her family garden, between two roots that just barely peek above the ground. Her breathing being the only sound to grace her ears for a long minute while she kept her meditative pace.

“Kemuri” 

Her name registers in her mind, yet she never heard any voice speak it audibly, a warmth accompanying it. Both being oddly familiar, yet very new at the same time.

“K҉e̢͡m̷͢͝ur͜i“

Again, though this time somehow distorted, and in an all too familiar way that she hadn’t had to deal with for a while, nor the accompanying chill.

“Kemuri”

The third was audible, hearing it unlike the prior two making her head tilt a little, though her breathing kept and her eyes stayed closed. But she was focused now, listening for that voice, feminine, a little croaky, elderly but wise sounding. She wouldn’t hear it again for almost a full minute, but when she did, it was accompanied by a mixture of sensations. Of the familiarity and the chill from the previous two times she felt her name called by the unknown as this third spoke one simple word, close to her ear and loud.

“Breathe”

As if the cap gun signaling a race to begin, a wave of thoughts, of memories, none of which were her own rushed through her mind. 

Visualizing that battlefield she had been pulled into months back by the shadow of her ancestor. The Prince of the past clashing with his very own father, the ever so familiar Tanto in hand, though clean as it would meet the blade of an Odachi time and again. Both Fujiki weaving a mass variety of breathing styles and their subsequent bonuses or elemental effects into their battle. One moment has the large blade of the King arcing down with flames coating it. The next has the small Tanto surging forth with a crack of thunder and spark of lightning. Following would be a concentrated jet of water spewing from one’s maw, carving the ground open as the other dodged the attack. Their retaliation being an ear-piercing screech that even made Kemuri flinch.

The scene before her shifting as the prince lets loose a roar so loud and ferocious it could rival any Grimm of the modern day. Drawing the Huntress’ view closer and closer, right to the odd skull mask that hid the man’s head as they lowered to all fours. The jaw opening to take Tanto into hold between red fangs so they could enter into a beastly sprint at the King. Yet she would not see the clash as the vision shifts, surging past and through heavy mist to emerge somewhere else, a new landscape, this time coated with sand, barren, lifeless. Save for some monstrosity, Whale looking though with a mass horn and talon-tipped fins. The beast surging down from the air to disappear beneath the sand with a pillar of it shooting high into the sky.

As the creature emerges again, however, there’s someone latched to it’s back. Gripping tight to the long handle of what looked to be a Naginata stuck in the monster’s back. A woman, long flowing hair, inverted horn much like her own, though longer and decorated with many more branches signalling their age. The woman adjusting, getting her feet under herself on the beast’s back as it starts surging across sand dunes and flailing to get her off. She seems to decide to oblige the mass creature, pulling her weapon free and using one of the thing’s movements to add momentum as she jumps from it’s back. A bolt of lightning striking it where she once stood, making the thing cry out in pain as it crashes to the ground making the sand spray up again.

The woman landing, she goes into some odd pose before seeming to breathe. A sudden energy forming around her, slow and flowing first, as if the mist that would leave Kemuri’s own maw. Though instead, for the woman, it was light of some sort, multicolored too, and it spilled from the corners of their mouth to then envelop their body. The energy becoming a very visible, flowing aura encasing them of a pure rainbow of colors. Glowing so very bright like a radiating, guiding light, as she suddenly kick off from the ground. Immediately becoming a blur for a split second before unseen entirely until something strikes the sand whale, making it’s side cave in as it’s toppled before it could recover from the earlier lightning strike.

Atop the fresh wound stood the woman again, the blade of her weapon stuck back into the body of the whale. The thing crying out from the pain it was feeling at having suffered her attacks. Though it was likely to feel even more in a moment, as she could see winds pick up surrounding the glowing woman. Sparking electricity, flames igniting to life, the aura around them taking form of a blooming flower and an ear-piercing noise building. Abruptly all of it would stop, however, but in it’s place something new happened. A sudden large flaming orb coming into existence above the woman, quickly surging down to envelop her and the whale entirely before exploding, sending out a shock-wave and pushing sand away to create a crater. 

Immediately following, the raging flames of the explosion and the sand within the air would be sucked inward to a single point. Everything being impossibly compressed and sucked into a blinding light that grows and blinds Kemuri’s vision before suddenly enveloping her in darkness once more. Taking a moment to breathe, to think over what she’d just witnessed, to piece things together. To ground herself that she was back in reality before she’d open her eyes to the world once more.

Initially a little confused by the extreme fog blinding her, but she fixes the issue with a few breaths. Using slow inhales to recall and withdraw the fog into herself where it had come from. Clearing the yard and the garden in a mere minute, leaving herself seated beneath the Wisteria tree with sunlight peering through between the hanging flowers above.

She felt... full, in an odd way. Not within her stomach, but her mind. Whole, almost, like so many things that had been nagging at her in the back of her mind were satisfied. Even if she had still yet to really comprehend everything completely. It would take time for that, but for once... she was fine with that. A sensation that she could make so much more progress now than she ever could before with her training, with her Semblance, made it clear to her that this wait would be worth it.

Though only one thing still bothered her... the skull mask she saw, the same she had come to possess... Thinking about it brings a faint echo of the roar the prince let loose in her vision to her mind.

[timeagainreviews]

The Fabric of Time and Space

Hello friends! It's been quite a busy time for me. Not only did we have a houseguest for about a week, we got a dog! She's an adopted Irish greyhound named Aoife, and she's a good old girl. Needless to say, lots of things happening. I wanted to write sooner so that I could talk about the death of Terrance Dicks, but finding the time was difficult. While Dicks was a bit of an old school writer when it came to women, I absolutely love "The Horror of Fang Rock." However, one of the things for which Dicks was most beloved was his Doctor Who prose. Whether it be the Target novels, or even the BBC range, chances are that if you've read much Doctor Who prose, you've read some Terrance Dicks. Which is why I plan to do something I've never done on here, and that's to review a Doctor Who novel, specifically- The Eight Doctors. Mind you, I'm going to re-read it, just after I finish these Dark Crystal books.

Speaking of Dark Crystal, how many of you have been watching the new prequel? I've been a bit obsessed, myself. It's captured my imagination in a way I haven't felt in years. For those of you not in the know, I was born in the far off year of 1983, just one year after "The Dark Crystal," entered theatres. However, it wasn't until around 1994 that I even became aware it existed. I remember this because the night I bought two Flintstones movie books, there was a display for "The Dark Crystal," in enticingly green Disney style VHS cases. All of these things released around 1994. I was perplexed by this Jim Henson movie that somehow went completely under my radar. I took my books home that night. The Dark Crystal would have to wait a bit longer.

One of the things I loved most about my copy of "The Flintstones: The Official Movie Book," was the pictures of the Jim Henson Creature Workshop fabricating the dinosaur puppets. Something about their ability to create something realistic while still looking like a cartoon resonated with me. I wanted so much to do that job. Since then I've always had a passion for filmmaking and movie magic. Watching "The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance," has rekindled that childhood love I have for the Creature Workshop and character design. As per usual, this got me thinking about Doctor Who. Specifically, its costume design. So I thought I might keep it simple and talk about the costumes of each Doctor. Where better to start than at William Hartnell?

First Doctor

Style: "Edwardian Grandad"

To me, the First Doctor will always look the most like the Doctor the first time we see him in "An Unearthly Child." Topped with an Astrakhan hat and shrouded in a black cape, he cuts a mysterious figure framed by the door of the TARDIS. His costume was a team effort between Maureen Heneghan and William Hartnell who was adamant as to what he would and would not wear. The decision was to make him slightly Edwardian, as the time period would look somewhat out of place, yet not too far removed from the 1960's.

There's something delightfully camp and yet simple to the way he dresses. Nothing about his wardrobe seems out of place. Even his slightly manky fingerless gloves make sense for an old traveller twisting knobs and flicking switches on his fantastical machine. Sometimes leaning on a cane, and other times standing tall holding onto his lapels with his dark ring glinting against the light. He's an enigma and just a touch out of time.

Second Doctor

Style: "Cosmic Hobo"

When the 60's counterculture movement had started to shake up the status quo, we saw learned men like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert abandon their stuffy collegiate positions for newfound roles as acid gurus. Much like these wild professors, we see the same thing in the Second Doctor's attire. It's as if the First Doctor partied so hard that he regenerated, and his disheveled clothes were whatever he was wearing when he woke up the next morning.

At the time, we had men like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi popularising words like "cosmic," and I believe it caught on in the Doctor Who production offices. Costumers Daphne Dare and Alexandra Tynman really brought a sort of anarchic spirit to the Doctor's attire that I believe has really carried on throughout the series. While I'm glad the stove pipe hat was annexed early on, I loved the additions of things like his giant fur coat held closed with twine. There's something so very Doctory about a man who looks like he sleeps in boxcars that can also attune his mind to build a perfect white cube. He really is far out, man.

Third Doctor

Style: "Space Dandy"

I've heard it said that there are two men that can pull off ruffles- Jimi Hendrix, and Jon Pertwee. And my god, does he ever? Primarily designed by Christine Rawlins, he was influenced by Adam Adamant's wardrobe. However, the biggest inspiration behind his crushed velvet and scarlet lined capes was colour television! Colour! Colour! Colour!

There's a lot of timeliness tied up in his garb. The increasing abundance of colour TV mixed with a post-60's desire to cut loose. This new night-time apparel was a way for gents to relax after a long day in their office suits. Leave it to the alien time traveller to completely ignore this fact and wear said nightwear in the middle of the day. Not only does the Third Doctor introduce a trend of the Doctor stealing his clothes from hospitals, he also marks the first major shift in apparel. The First and Second Doctors may have worn different ties, or trousers, but their overall look remained consistent. The Third Doctor's look adhered more to a wardrobe, or a style of dress. And boy does he have style!

Fourth Doctor

Style: "The Bohemian"

Once again, we see a continuation here of the style of the previous two Doctors. There's a bookishness, mixed with counterculture. Costume designer James Acheson, based a lot of the Fourth Doctor's look on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s painting of his friend Aristide Bruant. Bruant was a man known for his wide brimmed hat and long scarf. As legend has it, Acheson commissioned a woman named Begonia Pope to knit the famous scarf. Only instead of stopping at a sensible length, this witty little knitter used every last spool of yarn she was provided.

As much as I love Tom Baker's costume in it's versatility and appropriate alienness, I am less a fan of the series 18 redesign by June Hudson, which was notoriously meddled with by John Nathan-Turner. While I rather like the new scarf, the all burgundy ensemble with question mark lapels seems to me like the first time the costume felt like a costume. That being said, there is something timeless about Tom Baker's look that even carries on into its various redesigns such as in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," or "The Horror of Fang Rock." So much so, that even today if I go out in my Thirteenth Doctor cosplay, you always get some joker saying "Hey, where's your scarf?"

Fifth Doctor

Style: "Beige Cricketer Dad"

Before I had ever watched the Fifth Doctor's episodes, I used to look at his costume and contemplate what kind of guy would dress like that. The cricketer uniform with that red piped coat, and those garish pinstripe pyjamas over white trainers is a definite statement, but what is up with that celery? You can imagine my further confusion when I discovered Davison's portrayal was slightly more subdued and less eccentric. It made him almost the weirdest Doctor in that such a normal seeming guy would dress like his five year old picked out his clothes.

Hell, even the celery is there for a pretty mundane reason. It changes purple in the presence of certain poisonous gases. Very practical. They didn't even illustrate this purpose, we were told about it in his last episode! And you know how I feel about "show, don't tell." Regardless, I can't help but kind of love this outfit, question marks and all. I don't know if it's because I'm a fan and we grow to love this show, warts and all, but there's a reason it's on my list of costumes to cosplay. It's unmistakably the Fifth Doctor, even if it doesn't really make much sense.

Sixth Doctor

Style: "Hot Alien Mess"

Out of all of the Doctor Who costumes, I don't think a single one has been more notorious than this one. Unlike the Fifth Doctor's costume which piqued my curiosity, my initial thoughts upon seeing the Sixth Doctor's costume was "Well that was a mistake." And I wasn't wrong, it definitely was too much. Though in many ways, it also marries so well with the rest of his tenure. John Nathan-Turner's goal was to have a completely tasteless costume to match his tasteless vision for the show. He gave poor Pat Godfrey the thankless task of bringing this monstrosity to the screen.

Though, like I said, you do get used to it, as it does fit Colin Baker's irascible narcissist. I totally believe that an alien might find something like that fashionable. Even his little cat badges on his lapels inspire something I think is essential to his character. He's a big loud tomcat yowling until people stop what they're doing and recognise his brilliance. This is another one of those "I can't help but want to cosplay it," outfits. I especially like his tropical look in "The Two Doctors." It would have been nice to see more this variation in his run, such as the original black design or even the blue one we got in other media. Sigh.

Seventh Doctor

Style: "Tweedy Eccentric"

Remember how I mentioned in previous articles that the Seventh Doctor era was a series of course corrections? This is a definite one of those. We're back to something a lot more subtle, like the First or Fourth Doctor's eccentric professor vibes. But my god, those question marks just won't die! You ever have one of those friends who just can't help themselves? You can give them good advice, but at the end of the day, they're still going to do things their way? That's JNT with these goddamn question marks.

I really love the Seventh Doctor's era as I feel like the show was on the up and up. The writing was getting back on track, and Ace and Seven's chemistry was brilliant. So when you look at the Doctor's jumper, it's a kind of visible evidence of JNT being dragged kicking and screaming into this new era. Yet, funnily, when we see the Eighth Doctor movie, the Seventh Doctor's new waistcoat seems somehow less exciting. There's a certain playfulness sacrificed for realism. Perhaps JNT was onto something with his campy vision.

Eighth Doctor

Style: "Anne Rice Vampire Boyfriend"

It's going to be hard for me to view this costume without rose-tinted glasses. The Eighth Doctor is my first Doctor, so his costume will always have a place in my heart as one of the greats. But which costume? Well, of course I mean the first one from the TV movie, but my god has the man had some costume changes! Be it book, comic, or audio, the man has changed his clothes. My favourite being the unjustly maligned "Dark Eyes," variant, as I had always wondered why the Doctor never wore jeans.

Marking the second time the Doctor stole his wardrobe from a hospital, his original costume, designed by Jori Woodman, seems geared toward evoking a more classic look. A little Hartnell, a little Pertwee. For the most part it works, but I could see the argument some have made that it is a bit "costumey." In its defence, it is a costume. By the time we see McGann again in "The Night of the Doctor," we get a more subdued version of the movie look, befitting the modern series. Gotta love a man who can pull off a neckerchief.

War Doctor

Style: "Metrosexual Post-Apocalyptic"

Sadly, there's not a lot of information on the War Doctor's ensemble. But I believe you can learn a lot simply by looking at it. It's design by Howard Burden (who also did the Eighth Doctor redesign), is meant to be a sort of dark in-between of the Eighth and Ninth Doctors. Which makes a lot of sense, really. His costume looks like the clothing of a man at war. Utilitarian in it's form an function, it looks designed for durability and versatility.

I've often felt the War Doctor would not look out of place in the Fallout universe. He still wears the bandolier of a woman he couldn't save in a previous life. So much of his costume is meant to tell a visual story of a Mad Max-style road warrior. Funny then that the man still has the time to form the perfect faux-hawk coiffure and manscaped goatee with just the right amount of neckbeard. It's more of that visual storytelling I love so much- the Doctor may be a man lost at war, but he's still a bit of a narcissist. Brilliant.

Ninth Doctor

Style: "Navvy Bloke"

Christopher Eccleston has been in the news a lot these last few days due to the release of his new book "I Love the Bones of You." We've learned so much about his time as the Doctor that talking about the look of his character has become a bit of a tough subject. A lot of the man's look is now intrinsically tied in his body dysmorphia, which was at its worst when in the role as the Doctor.

I say it's "tough," in that I do want to talk about how he looked like no other Doctor Who came before him. His northern bloke look and sound almost dared the audience to reevaluate the Doctor they thought they knew. His costume is almost a non-costume. Black leather on black trousers with an assortment of dark coloured v-neck jumpers were a far cry from the question marks and long scarves of the Doctors before. Yet despite all of these differences, he quickly dispelled any doubts many longtime viewers had. He was the perfect Doctor to breathe new life into the show. These last few days have shown us just how lucky we are to still have such a man with us.

Tenth Doctor

Style: "Hipster Geek"

People often times call Matt Smith's Doctor a hipster. But who's the one wearing horn rimmed glasses and Chuck Taylors with a form fitting suit? You want to talk about first impressions from a photograph, my first thought was "hipster geek." And I love him for it. David Tennant's Doctor is such a charismatic goofball, that it's hard not to love him. And I honestly can't think of a better costume for him. I will say however that I think this one falls under that "costumey," look I've mentioned before. There's something very Scooby-Doo about a guy who owns two of the same suit in reverse colour.

I also love the simple fact that he's wearing actual Chuck Taylors. I'm surprised more Doctors haven't. Even with the logos on the sides whited out, you can spot the real McCoy (or Tennant) a mile away. Top all of this off with that marvellous coat of his, and you've got a real super hero look. Just picture it- his coat blowing in the breeze as it clings to his matchstick frame, his hair and eyes trembling with Time Lord fury. He's iconic as hell and it's no wonder he's caught the hearts and minds of so many fans.

Eleventh Doctor

Style: "Young Old Man"

I absolutely love Matt Smith's Doctor, especially his early look with the tweed and floppy hair. Ray Holm really came out swinging with this costume as it bred countless one-liners about his bow-ties and love for a good fez. If you've ever seen pictures of other Eleventh Doctor costume concepts, you'd realise what a stroke of genius that bowtie really was. He just doesn't look like the Doctor without it. I believe it was Smith himself who suggested the bowtie.

I would not say I am as onboard with the later purple suit the Doctor wore with Clara. It just lacked the subtlety of the tweed. And that top hat looked especially out of place, which is funny when you consider how good the black top hat looked on him in "Let's Kill Hitler." While I would not say the purple ensemble was a total failure, it's got nothing on his original look. Which, if you'll recall, was also stolen from a hospital.

Twelfth Doctor

Style: "Punk Magician"

Peter Capaldi is the first Doctor I ever had to wait to see the costume reveal. I had gotten into Doctor Who around the tail end of Matt Smith's first series. I remember my first reaction to Howard Burden's costume being something like "Huh." I didn't really love it. Perhaps it was the mixture of it being new, and not having already been established as the Doctor's clothes, but I was slow to come around to it. Capaldi's inspiration behind the costume was David Bowie's "Thin White Duke," persona, which is a telling bit of inspiration considering what a dark point it was in Bowie's life.

For me, the Twelfth Doctor's look truly comes together over time. I think it's somehow tied to his hair. The wilder it got, the more I liked his look. I absolutely love the hoodies and the First Doctor inspired trousers. There's something so perfect about a black jumper bespeckled with holes allowing the white shirt beneath to shine through like stars. The cosmic hobo is back in a punk rock fashion. There's something very lived in about the Twelfth Doctor's style that really resonates with me. He may be the eldest Doctor of the modern series (unless you count John Hurt), but there is something undeniably youthful about him

Thirteenth Doctor

Style: "Godspell Casual"

Jodie's costume was another one of those "Huh," moments for me. It was such a departure from anything before it, bar maybe the Ninth Doctor's jumpers. However, it only took me a few days to get used to, as compared to multiple episodes with Capaldi. A female Doctor was something I had pondered over for such a long time, that I had some expectations as to what she should and shouldn't be wearing. I definitely wanted her in sensible footwear and no floofy skirts. I wanted her like an adventurer. Think Rachel Weisz in "The Mummy." So when she showed up with a pair of high water trousers and comfortable boots, I was pretty happy. It was her t-shirt I was most taken aback by. It seemed a little more casual than I expected, but when you consider she's been a bloke her entire life, having no nonsense clothes is very much the Doctor.

It's not hard to imagine why this was the second Doctor I've cosplayed (the other being Four). There's lots of symbolism tied into the coat that Ray Holm and Whittaker devised together, and I love that they put that much thought into it. At this point it's still early days in her character. Aside from a blink and you miss it scarf or a red shirt, we've not seen a whole lot of wardrobe variation. Rumour has it she'll be donning a pair of black trousers is series 12, which I'm all for. I'd also love to see her wear some grey checked trousers like Hartnell and Troughton. Or even a black and white version of her current look. There's so much versatility possible in her costume. I hope they explore a bit of it.

And that's it for now, friends. I hope you enjoyed this article. I tried to put a little bit of research into it. While I was writing it, this blog turned one year old! I can't believe I've been doing this for a whole year! It's such a wonderful sight to see when you all like the posts and share them. Knowing I've resonated with someone like yourselves feels a little less lonely. Expect to see a Sixth Doctor review corresponding with his blu-ray (I missed the Third Doctor Blu-ray/Pertwee 100th birthday). I'm also planning on covering "The Edge of Time," VR game if they ever decide to release it! Oh and I might start covering the Dark Crystal as well, because I really love that show. I hope you are having a great weekend!

[go-diane-winchester]

Why Jensen can't stop Misha?

When I did my post about Misha's inadequacy as a man, I was wondering whether I should do a post about Jensen and his fear of other people in his personal space.  Then an awesome creature tagged me onto a hideous heller post, which has my blood boiling.  The idiot heller posted the filth in the general tags and is therefore fair game.  Apparently the gifs below are gush worthy.

  This was a turn on for @cas-is-my-spirit-animal-bruh.  Now, if the idiot had just tagged it destiel, we wouldn't have to see it and go into gag mode.  Look at the second gif.  Jensen has his hand in front of his face.  He is trying to block Misha.  And how many times is he saying stop.  Remember the red carpet for the 300th episode party.  He was messing with Jensen's tie and Jensen physically turned away saying ''stop it''.  It also reminds me of that horrendous photo op where Misha grabbed Jensen's hands forcefully and Jensen tried to wrangle his hand out of Misha's grasp, screaming at him.  Misha loves that power because he is dominant one. 

Now, the hellers may argue that Jensen gave his go-ahead to show this clip.  Why would he do that?  There are a few suppositions.  The bibro, who directed me to this monstrosity, had this to say:

''Why would he agree to publish this sick footage? My guess: for fandom to finally see the true face of Misha and how far he is willing to go in his sickening pandering to the shippers. This is the personality of Misha and the reality of how shipping negatively influences the working environment on set. He [Jensen] probably didn’t count on minions being that nasty that they would romanticize this, because hey! their overlord can’t do no wrong!!! (sarcasm).''

A good supposition.  I have a theory as well.  Have you noticed how Jensen's words and actions are sometimes incongruous with each other.  He gets upset if you ask him anything ship-related, and yet he will snap shippy photos during his photo op.  He rolls his eyes at the mere mention of Misha but the minute Danneel says she loves Misha, Jensen obediently chimes in ''who doesn't?''.  He clashes with himself.  I think Jensen is easy to maneuver into doing things against his will.  All you have to do is give him the right motivation and he will do exactly what you want. 

What is his motivation as far as Danneel is concerned?

Simple.  That's his wife.  He is trying to help her acquire a piece of the Supernatural pie, and she chose Misha's fan base, because she thinks Jensen's fans don't like her.  And when HatersOfDanneel [an abstractly named twitter handle] attacked her, Misha conveniently came to the rescue, although he does that for no one else.  This is how you win favors, people.  This is how inmates gain a ''fresh meat's'' confidence.  Set up a fake enemy to harass your prey and then save the prey, so he will feel indebted to you.  This is what I hypothesized happened here.  Jensen went along with what Danneel wanted, because every man is afraid of a nagging wife.  He would never hear the end of it. 

What is his motivation as far as Destiel is concerned?

Jensen has a manager, a publicist and assistants.  Are all of them blind?  How are they all unaware of Jensen's discomfort.  How come hellers get away with threatening Jensen?  Do none of them see Misha's panel footage?  Why are these people so lax?  I think Misha networked with Jensen's people, and he used fear of possible PR problems if their star, Jensen, is seen as a homophobe.  If Jensen loses public favor due to accusations of bigotry, his career is going to take a nosedive.  And if that happens, all his people whom he employed, will have to deal with a very unsteady financial future in a turbulent economic climate. 

So Misha did the spin doctor spiel on them and they in turn, spun Jensen's head.  Jensen does what they say, even though he hates it, for fear of disrepute.  That is why he has no congruency in his speech and actions, because playing pretend has its limitations.  When you get angry, you forgot what you were supposed to do or say?  So that also might be why that particular piece of footage made it into the gag reel.  Jensen gave his permission because his people told him to.  Did Misha ever speak directly to Jensen?  Maybe.  And he probably used the same spiel.  ''Just tolerate it, Jensen.  Trying to correct them might make matters worse.  The LGBT will feel like you hate them.  And you don't want them to think that, do you?''  Fun fact:  Spin doctor is term used in politics and government.  Misha just happened to intern at the white house.  He must have learned something there.  Other than stealing white house property. 

I think Jensen is caught between a rock and a hard place.  I think this gif set and the photo ops, are actually more troublesome to him than he lets up.  The reason why I think so, is the 1999 cowboy photo shoot.  Jensen mentioned it at a con, and immediately Jared pulled a cringy face, and then became uncharacteristically serious, which leads me to believe Jensen spoke to Jared about this, which is why Jared is so protective of him.  He knows about Jensen's fear, especially since I think the fear is still there, lying dormant within Jensen.    I mildly considered Jensen's discomfort regarding that photo shoot to be baffling.  Jensen has done shirtless scenes in DOOL, Dark Angel and Supernatural.  What was so bad about this photo shoot? 

Then I remember the uproar Corey Feldman created in the media.  I watched a documentary called The Open Secret which, unfortunately, is no longer available on YouTube.  Apparently there is a pedo ring that targets young boys who go to work in the industry.  There is a link between agents, photographers and the elite.  The photographers basically showcase the boys to the rich magnets.  I think they do sales work, and probably get a commission.  Since the boys are merchandise, it is the photographer's job to make the merchandise look attractive.  Whilst watching the doccie, I wondered how come Jensen didn't get targeted.  He was way more beautiful than any of his peers in 1999.  And he looked younger than his peers.  He entered the industry, at 18 , 1996, without a chaperone.  He should have been fair game.  Someone pointed out that when this photo shoot took place he was around 21.  Correct. 

Then I saw the pictures taken at the photo shoot and something stood out, that gelled with what the detectives and psychologists etc, in the documentary were saying. 

That shoot lasted a long time, probably half the day.  The team took many pictures with horses and lassoing.  I think it was a shoot for a magazine.  Most of the pictures don't look bad.  So its baffling that Jensen hates all of them.  These above pictures stand out.  According to the detective, when photographers see a boy of interest, they take a few pictures that might entice the pedophiles and pederasts they are attracting.  Pedophiles and pederasts [and I am sorry to talk about this] like children and teenagers, because they are usually bigger, older and stronger than their frightened victims.  Its more about their ego.  Also, in some cases, the aggressors are taller and therefore usually looking down at victims. 

That is why photographers will make boys remove their shirts so they are topless [this is one thing Jensen mentioned hating], and then take the picture from an angle where they are looming over the subject so that the subject appears shorter or maybe smaller.  Its the pedophile/pederast's POV.  The third picture is ridiculous because the photographer made Jensen scrunch down to look shorter.  I think the photographer might have been shorter than Jensen.  Jensen's pose appears like a invitation.  He probably got the inkling, by the end of the session, that something was off with the whole shoot.  That is why, to this day, the shoot upsets him.  But other than that, I don't know if anything else happened on that day. 

Do I think something drastic happened?  No.  I don't think Jensen was attacked by a predator.  The predators didn't want Jensen even though he was a teenager, very beautiful and alone in Los Angeles.  The reason why is if you really squint, Jensen is a star child.  His father is a veteran in the industry.  Alan Ackles is a somebody.  If they touch his kid, Alan might become a problem for them.  Because they didn't want a potentially difficult angry dad situation to deal with in the future, they decided to leave Jensen alone.  However, the shoot still messed Jensen up enough that he remembers it to this day, decades later.  He even argued with a heller over it, because she wanted him to sign on of the pictures during his autos and he was upset.  Why get upset?  Its just a picture, right?  Unless there is an ugly memory attached to it.

Maybe the penny dropped for him as to how ugly the situation could have gotten.  So that gif set of Misha forcing Jensen's face into his crotch, that the hellers are gushing over, is not hot or cute.  It is disgusting.  Only a complete pervert will be aroused by the coercion of the Cockles pairing and the beatings in the destiel pairing.  Misha is vile and so are his hellers.  They get turned on by the sickest things. 

[curupiracue]

Ascending Art Train

! He is advancing towards me...! I need to erase myself from existence, fas-

FOOOOOOOM!

“Guh!”

“Novalue!”

“This thing... It's not quite as strong as the arm, but it's way too fast... In but a second it rammed me and pushed me along while it started to fly…”

“Fast indeed! And it will only get faster as time goes on and I consume more mentality.” Ienorb warned, his upper body stretching from the top of the train and right in front of me, while his arms ripped off Jesus. Did he turn his entire lower body into a train?

“This train represents my unending desire to improve my art! It’s full of risks and as such, I’ve never once used this before, but still! It’s what’ll ensure my victory…!”

Guh… All this… Is just his love for art given form? What an obsession… And that’s not all. He’s linked to it, so it’s linked with the very depths of his mind. It’s his core… No wonder it has such power.

Well, but I never cared for sheer power. Risks, you say? Weaknesses? I can think of two… Since you’re taking a chunk of your mind out, and since it’s your first time using this… I bet you can’t think straight while using it. And linked to that… You probably don’t have access to your other constructions.

Moreover…

“...Sorry to say, Ienorb, but my Unreality all but ignores “strength” or “resistance”. It erases everything, no matter how powerful. ...Well, it’s limited by range, so I won’t be able to get rid of you that quickly.”

“However...”

That will not stop my escape…!

Zwooosh!

...Nor my date with the ground.

“Nim… It’s not like I care that much how I fall, but… You could have caught me, yes?”

I escaped by turning part of it unreal, but not only can it easily escape from that, I also can barely move… At least this will give me som-

PROP.

FOOOOOOOM!

W-What? I thought it would escape from it… But instead… it broke…?

It broke the unreal area?!

How strong is this fucking train?

I look back and see the train descending right at me. Only now could I have a glimpse of it, which immediately made me wish I hadn’t. Of course, mentalities are weird in general, but that monstrosity was beyond words, and only vaguely looked like a train...

It started with a long stairway which gave birth to a train at about a third of it’s length, while also separating itself and becoming multiple stairs that accompanied the rest of train, some floating, others being loosely tied into it, and many of them broken. The train itself was made of a mix of broken wood, distorced steel and many kinds of living tissue, starting with simpler lifeforms and working their way into plants and animals at the top. From the tissue there came giant eyes the size of a human, connected by a red optical nerve.

The eyes moved and stared around frantically, nervously, chaotically, and seemed to summon illusions wherever they looked. Nearing the end of the train, at Ienorb's general area, lied a ring with a metal pipe connect to a hornet that made it's hellish sounds, and all sorts of random objects could be seem stretched around.

FOOOOOOO-

Zwoosh, Plash!

Before the train could hit me again, and before I could enter unreality, I felt a cold liquid enveloping me and pulling me away.

“Sorry… I didn’t react in time before… Are you okay?”

Before I could answer that worried question, the train hit the ground, shattering into many pieces and splinters, some of which flew at us.

“That’s goo-”

FOOOOOOOOM!

It rearranged itself and flew upwards, before making a curve towards us.

This… Is truly indestructible… It has no weaknesses…

“Guh… Why am I not even surprised…?” I say, while trying (a bit futilely) to get up.

“! What the hell are you doing!? YOU’RE HALF DEAD, FOR… Ugh! Your powers aren’t fit to fight this thing! J-Just hide! NOW!”

As much as I hate to admit, he is right... Still, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't get a jab in before...

“Aw... look who is worried…” I manage to say before...

...vanishing.

(The prism spins, and senseless light is reflected with a different sense)

At the moment, I was so shocked and... scrd, that I could not react in time, only watch as Novalue dated the ground.

“Nim… It’s not like I care that much how I fall, but… You could have caught me, yes?”

Oh g-nobody, is he alright? I swooped in closer, in spite of the sheer needlessness of doing so in the mental world.

Thankfully, he seemed well.

...in spite of my sheer incompetence.

PROP.

FOOOOOOOOM!

W-W-What...? It destroyed the unreal area?

Novalue looked upwards in fright, as the train descended on him.

Before there could be any showdown, however, I quickly grabbed and pulled him out of the way.

“Sorry… I didn’t react in time before… Are you okay?” It was a senseless question, but at the moment I said so, I was overcome with more fear and sadness than anger.

Before he could answer, the train did a sharp turn while hitting the ground and then rearranged itself, like someone making up their new identity after coming out of the closet, mmcept nowhere near as cool given the circumstances.

“Why am I not even surprised…” Novalue said, before doing a motion I recognized as trying to get up.

What. THE. FUCK!?

“! What the hell are you doing!? YOU’RE HALF DEAD, FOR… Ugh! Your powers aren’t fit to fight this thing! J-Just hide! NOW!”

“Aw... look who is worried…”

In spite of saying so, he obeyed, hiding in an unreal area.

But still...

That... THAT IMBECILE. Ugh!

"At least he is safe now..." I push this thought out of my mind. Not necessarily because the situation called for a clear state of mind, I would have done it anyways...

FOOOOOOOOOM!

“Hmmph. I don’t know how to harm you, so a direct confrontation won’t do me any good. Water Rope!”

Plashplashplashplash!

For now, I suppose I’ll run away…

FOOOOOOOOOM!

The train made a sharp turn towards me, breaking a large part of it that rather quickly reassembled itself.

“Oh come on!” He lost some speed, but it wasn’t as much as I was hoping. Making my escape will be rather difficult…

“I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you won't be able to escape.” Ienorb said, with a hint of melancholy “The train has already picked up speed! And any attacks you unleash on it will only spell your doom, as it will absorb them to grow and ascend to an ever higher speed…”

“It really is faster than before... However! You would do well not to underestimate me! Since the properties of water are much more valuable than those of fear, it is easier to forget that this emotion is the origin of this power of mine. But in doing so, you would fail to realize that it only grows stronger when I'm in a pinch! Just try and corner me with that speed of yours! Try it! My own speed will only grow stronger, giving me the edge! In addition... Take this!

Floosh, PLASHU!

“So I see you have restricted my train with those water tentacles of yours... I must say, they have grown quite the incredible reach... However.” at this point the train split in half at the part enveloped by my rope, and then promptly reunited itself again, without losing any speed or suffering permanent damage.

“W-what the...!?”

“Hahahah...! You were saying things about underestimation, but you've made the hypocrisy of underestimating my Ascendent Art Train! I have complete domain over how it moves, keeping it functional even when shattered to pieces!”

”Impo... Ugh! What about this then!?” I threw various water balls behind me, making then explode. In response, the train did a sharp turn backwards and then turned around to my direction, barely getting scratched by the pseudo bombs.

FOOOOOOOOOM!

“Oh for...! GAAAH!!”

How can I even beat this? It's got to be the strongest power ever!

No, thinking back, he lost quite a bit of speed in that dodge over there... If that train is the manifestation of his desire to achieve objective art, it makes sense that it reacts badly to emotions. The explosion managed to hit him, if barely, and that area is now burned off. It was permanent damage, or at least semi-permanent. This thing… It might be as unstoppable and implacable as his desires in ordinary circumstances, but it still gotta' have some weak spots. And considering how he refrained to use this until now, I'm guessing they must be pretty big, nothing as simple as just getting more hurt by emotion-based constructions This is no novel where the villains and heroes always wait until the last moment to unleash their strongest powers, after all…

Still... To think I would fight a manifestation of self-improvement, of all things... This irony is biting my chest...

Perhaps more pressingly than that, even if I can damage it with certain metaphors, that still leaves hitting that damn blitz... I guess I could try to wait for it to lose steam and slow down, but I have a feeling I would lose a battle of endurance and attrition here… In fact, I can already feel myself becoming a bit tired, my mind, numb. It’s not like I used my powers that much, but I got hit quite a bit, and using Water Rope at these speeds is putting a very much serious strain on me.

“...If you're just gonna' get faster and faster, I guess I'll have to stop you on your non-existent tracks right here.”

In response, he glared at me:

“...hmm…”

“Suspicious? Hehah, for good reason. I have a little theory of mine…”

“...that I'd like to test!”

There! I threw quite a few more Water Bombs…

...With a space in the midst of their collective explosion for the train to neatly pass through!

It’s a great deal… He doesn’t lose speed, nor does he get hit. Ienorb wouldn’t let this pass, specially if his mind and judgement is too clouded to consider traps. Unless of course…

...The train made another sharp turn backwards.

“HEEHEHEHHAHAHAAHEHHAH! Hell yeah! I got it right! Ienorb, that train of yours… has acceleration and speed, while also being able to make sharp turns. However… They’re too sharp! You have a powerful handle, but not an accurate one! Just like your researches into art, it’s aimless! Meaning, it must feel like driving a car with a slippery wheel, am I right?!”

“No, it feels like driving a train with a slippery wheel. This is a train, not a car.”

...

So anyway. Not only is the train not suited for precise movement, he is also in a dream-like state… There’s a way to defeat it then.

First off, I’ll start going upwards as well as forwards with my Water Rope…

“Don’t think of it, Nim! The train can easily make a curve towards you!”

“Yeah, but who said that wasn’t what I desired, unintelligent Ienorb?”

“?!”

“I mean, think about it… You’re now behind me and below me, simultaneously. Meaning, I can do… this!”

I threw some Water Bombs… not behind me… But right on front of me!

And that explosion send me backwards, the train now being below and in front of me…!

“You think you can escape by changing your trajectory like that? It won’t work… Don’t underestimate my reflexes Nim!”

FOOOOOOOOOM!

Suddenly, the train did one of it’s usual sharp turns, breaking part of itself in pieces and coming straight towards me.

“...Hah.”

And in response, I merely grabbed it with Water Rope and pulled. He immediately broke that part in pieces, but that was hardly a problem. I had already gotten what I wanted…

...Getting a boost to go downwards!

And while passing through a shocked Ienorb, I made sure to tell him:

“I’ve managed to properly analyze your train. It loses speed and power when in pieces, and your imprecise movement also cripples your reconstructions, making them take longer than they could. Well, up until now, you’ve handled sharp turns well… But they were only moderately sharp. Now, I wonder how you like… this 270º turn!”

“What?!”

“Don’t underestimate my guile. Ienorb.”

PUFF

“What the?! He went straight to the ground? Darn… I can’t be sure where he is… The psychic, mental dirt is covering his signals, and my Identification is rendered weak by this form… Bah, no matter! I’ll merely enter the dirt and go after him!”

FOOOOOOOOOM!

Hmmm…

Ienorb will lose some speed before making the full turn. Meanwhile…

PUFF

“Hmmm… I can’t see very well here… Still… I can feel some sort of power nearby. Meaning, Nim can’t be far...”

PLASH

“Huh?! I hit something?! ...But this is...!”

“Water Rope. More specifically...”

I pull and swing it, taking the train out of underground and slamming it.

BRAAAAAMMM!!!

FOOOOOOOOOM...!

“A net made of Water Rope!”

“How can this?!”

“I entered the ground before you. That gave me a few moments… To build a net with Water Rope there, catch you in it like a fish, and then easily smash you!”

“Guh! You caught me by surprise…. hence, why I failed to divide in time. But I’ll escape this net! It’s caused some damage, but hardly anything significant… I’ll just divide myself!”

FOOOOOOOOOM!

“Hee. Thank you, Ienorb.”

“?”

“You’ve helped me much indeed! Since it’s on pieces right now, the damage inflicted will be much larger...”

BBBAAAAAAAAMMMMMM!!!

“The damage inflicted by the collect explosion of all the ropes that composed that net, that is.”

foooosh…

The wind blew, and the smoke cleared, revealing Ienorb and his train, in pieces and smaller than before, as well burnt and crushed.

“Guh… This won’t stop me! You’ve made the mistake of letting the train be pointed towards you! I don’t need any curves, I’ll just go straight towards you and finish you off!”

“It’s all but outright pulverized, and almost unrecognizable… Yet you can still control it?”

FOOOOOOOOOM!

“However, it’s useless.”

FOOOOOOOOOM...?

“What?! What?! Why can’t I mooooove!? AH!”

“You finally noticed? One of the Water Ropes that composed that net didn’t explode. That’s because I put an overclock to increase it’s resistance to explosions. I made it go around your train and maintain itself as a circle, and then I left it there, with no further contact or imput to and from me. And I also put another overclock on it… One that increased it’s weight.”

“YOU… UGH! Fine! I’ll divide, and run away!”

FOOOOOOOOOM!

BAAAAM!

The two overclocks exploded alongside the Water Rope, and tossed half of the train away, making it impossible for Ienorb to reunite himself with it.

“Just at the time I predicted. And now, Ienorb, you’ve lost.”

“Hah! Nim, you believe I’ll make the curve too late, don’t you? It’s true, I’m in an awful shape… but still! I can make that curve way before that! I won’t get close enough to you and your Water Ropes! I’ve totally wo-?!”

“What the… Why… Did the train suddenly sprint like that? Why did it go with increased speed? This isn’t the train’s natural speed, so what boosted it…? ...! NO! It can’t be!”

“It can. I put an overclock to you while I was rising to the surface. You were too preoccupied with the Water Rope to notice it. That overclock… Increased your speed...”

“No, no, no!”

“...And in doing so...”

“NO NO NO NO!!!”

“Brought you right to my...”

“STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!!!”

“MY RANGE, IENORB YENRUOJ! TAKE THIS! WATER ROPE!”

PLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASHPLASH

WAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAH!

The Water Ropes… Pierced and whipped and slashed and crushed and destroyed the train.

And then…

BBBBAAAAMMM!

All of the Water Rope I had left… Exploded.

Leaving the train in small pieces floating in the air.

TAM!

Vish…

...Which were disintegrated when the speed overclock reached it’s end.

Pam.

“Looks like your objective art... was an illusion, after all.”

[thelittledekuwhocould]

TLDWC - Ch100: Boom Baby!

This chapter can be found on AO3 Here

Summary: The animal transformation AU no one asked for but I wrote anyway.

During a rescue at a burning building, a little girl looses control of her quirk. At first it seems everything is fine.

But then.

Deku stops appearing in public.

At first, no one is worried. Deku sometimes doesn't appear for a few days because he's busy with paperwork or he's visiting his mother, so the public isn't worried. But the heroes worry, because even though Deku lives alone, he's always in contact with someone. ALWAYS. But this time, there is no contact. No "I'm ok!" and no "Ahm bored outta mah skull, amuse meh!!!" Just silence.

The morning after the rescue, Yagi finds a disheveled cat at his door when he goes out to pick up the post. The cat's fur smells heavily of smoke and petrol.

"Oh dear," he says as he picks up the cat, "You've been through the wringer haven't you?" The cat stares at him with large green eyes and mews plaintively as it hangs from his hands. Yagi chuckles and carries the cat into the house. "Let's get you cleaned up then."

The cat submits to a bath with good grace, and with the soot and ashes washed off, his fur is black with dark green highlights. Yagi takes a blow dryer at the lowest setting to the cat's fur to dry it off as the animal stretches luxuriously, purring like a diesel engine.

Yagi chuckles. "Obviously a domesticated animal, you spoiled boy."

When the cat is fed some leftover chicken and has fallen asleep in a warm, sunny spot on the couch, Yagi checks his phone. His face falls when there are no new messages. But he is not worried yet.

---------------------------------------------------------

The second day sees Yagi leaving his house in the afternoon, locking the cat inside. He travels to a different part of the city populated by high rises and unmarried heroes.

He enters one of the steel and glass monstrosities and bypasses the woman at the front desk completely and enters the elevator.

When the elevator stops, he makes his way through the halls and stops in front of a particular door and rings the bell. He waits. Rings the bell again.

He is about to ring the bell for a third time when another young hero comes down the hall. "Yagi-sensei!" she cries, "Are you here to see Deku?!"

Yagi smiles at his former student. "Young Uraraka, Good afternoon. Yes."

Uraraka smiles at her once teacher. "I have to go an patrol or I'd stay and visit with you. We don't see you often enough!"

"Ah, have a safe patrol," Yagi said warmly.

"Thank you!" Uraraka beamed, and ran toward the elevator, "Have a nice visit with Deku!"

Yagi smiled and waved after her. He turned toward the door, frowning. He pulls a key card out of his pocket and swipes it through the reader. There is a click as the door unlocks and Yagi pushes the door open and enters.

"Izuku, my boy!" he called, "Are you here?"

Slowly, the retired hero makes circuits of each room in the apartment. Tucked away in a corner is the laundry nook, a load of clothes in the drier. The alert light is blinking and both clothes and machine are stone cold. Finally, he approaches the closed door of the room he'd been subconsciously avoiding. Worry and dread form a lump in his throat as he pushes the door open. "Izuku?"

The afternoon sun streams through the windows, illuminating the bedroom. The bed is neatly made, a pair of pajamas laid out on top  alongside a folded towel awaiting the return of the apartment's occupant. The hamper in the corner is empty.

Yagi strides to the phone on the nightstand. The light on the answering machine is blinking.

 35 unread messages.

Worry wraps it's fingers around Yagi's heart like iron bands.

His boy never made it home last night.

Yagi fishes his phone out of his pocket with numb fingers.

---------------------------------------------------------

The third day sees Yagi at home. He cleans the house almost obsessively. The cat follows him from room to room, mewing plaintively and pawing at his feet  when he coughs up blood, tugging at his pant legs when he leans against something, wheezing for breath, but mostly staring at him with large green eyes. Green like-

He never lets his thoughts continue from there.

His boy had the best teachers.

His boy is strong and well trained.

His boy is fine.

His boy is safe.

 "Izuku, my boy, where are you?"

The cat mews at him and pulls at his pant legs. The grandfather clock in the living room chimes.

"Alright, alright," Yagi smiles at the small animal, "Let's get you some food."

The cat settles on his lap after lunch. Yagi realizes he is well and truly trapped.

Mid-afternoon, Grape Juice and Puppeteer drop by. They make him dinner and leave for their patrol.

On the coffee table, the screen of his phone is dark and silent.

 No new messages.

---------------------------------------------------------

On the fourth day Aizawa's contacts bring him something troubling. Deku's costume and equipment, presumably abandoned in an alley. It's covered in soot and smells heavily of petrol and smoke. It's the same uniform from when he took part in a rescue at a burning building three days ago.

Aizawa personally delivers the news to Yagi. The cat mewls and twines itself sinuously between his legs. Aizawa's face, drawn and exhausted, softens as he bends over to rub the cat's ears. The cat purrs and licks his fingers and leaps onto the sofa and settles itself on Yagi's lap. Thin hands begin stroking soft fur as if by reflex. The cat purrs.

"They found what?!"

The cat yowls in protest at the noise and abandons Yagi's lap.

"His costume and equipment, presumably abandoned in an alley."

Yagi's eyes light up. "Where?"

Aizawa glared at the retired hero. "You're not going out there."

"You expect me to-"

"Stay here in case the Problem Child drags his sorry carcass to you the way he always does when he needs help?" Aizawa cut in, "Yes."

The cat prowls along the back of the sofa and leaps onto the Underground Hero's shoulders. Aizawa lifts a hand to steady the animal as the cat headbutts his face, then stares at Yagi and yowls authoritatively at him.

"See?" Aizawa said dryly, "Even your cat agrees with me."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien Queen, Creati and Earphone Jack appear in the morning with breakfast.

Yagi listens as Young Momo, Young Jiro, and Young Mina gush all about everything that has happened in their lives to this point to him.

He is startled when Red Riot, Chargebolt, and Shoto arrive with lunch.

The cat leaps from person to person, booping noses, gently headbutting hands in demand for pets, and generally being a cat demanding attention.

Aizawa calls that night.

No news yet.

Yagi lies in his bed staring at the ceiling that night. The cat is curled up on his chest, purring like a diesel engine.

 "Izuku, my boy, where are you? Are you safe?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sixth day brings a call from Aizawa. They may have a lead as to Deku's fate. Yagi frets all morning. The cat sits on the coffee table, watching him with green eyes as he paces.

When exhaustion drags at his limbs, Yagi sits on the loveseat and the cat climbs onto his lap, presses front paws onto bony shoulders and licks his chin.

He buries his face in warm, soft fur.

 "Are you hungry, Izuku, my boy? Are you safe? Where are you?"

The afternoon brings distractions in the form of Ingenium II and Ground Zero.

His former students have brought Yagi lunch. Yagi smiles at young Tenya's exasperation as he feeds the cat his fish fillets.

Ground Zero is subdued, but brings out several albums of Izuku's baby pictures, courtesy of Midoriya Inko. They go through it together, with young Katsuki recounting stories of childhood, and the three of them puzzling over pictures that have no context to anyone except maybe Deku and his mother.

The cat is strangely misbehaved today, leaping onto the albums, and sometimes outright sitting on them. They're forced to physically move the animal more than a few times.

Yagi falls asleep easily that night, and dreams of a young Izuku running around in an All Might Onsie, laughing. Happy. safe

 No new messages

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The morning of the seventh day, Yagi cleans his attic.

Yagi is retired both as a hero and a teacher. His last appearance as a hero was at Kamino Ward. His last day as a teacher was at the graduation of his successor.

There is little to take his mind off the disappearance of the boy-not a boy anymore, he has to sometimes remind himself-that was the closest thing he's had to a son.

He can only clean.

And wait.

And amuse the cat.

At noon, Tsukiyomi and Cellophane arrive at his door with lunch.

Tentacole and Invisible Girl arrive at mid afternoon.

Froppy, Sugarman and Tailman arrive bringing dinner.

Worry is a hard knot in his weak side, terrible thoughts and what ifs are a vice around his heart.

Cats don't judge. Yagi weeps into warm, soft fur as the cat purrs, deep and unending, like a diesel engine.

 No new messages

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Yagi jerks awake on the morning of the eighth day to a crash and a familiar voice, "Ow...."

He flings back his covers, wheezing. His side and back twinges as he scrambles for the door. He'll feel it when the adrenaline wears off.

Yagi skids into the living room and Izuku, naked and using one of the couch's decorative pillows to cover his groin, looks up at him from his seat on the floor next to the overturned coffee table, green eyes wide, round and dewy. His lips stretch into a sheepish smile and the morning sun falls over his face, highlighting a field of freckles.

"Hi, dad."

Yagi drops to his knees and flings his arms around his boy with a relieved sob.

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Aizawa glares at the youth seated on Yagi's loveseat smiling at him sheepishly. The Underground Hero pinches the bridge of his nose.

"You were here the entire time."

"Yep."

"As the cat."

"Yep."

"What the hell. Why is it always you, Problem Child?"

"Luck?"

Yagi laughs hard enough to choke on blood.

Izuku and Aizawa are on him immediately, Aizawa to save the tray of tea, Izuku to keep him on his feet.

[artificialqueens]

Something Borrowed 2/? (Witney) - Miss Bianca & jazz

Summary: This was going to be Courtney’s first visit to her childhood home in five years, and she’d made a lot of plans. Obviously, none of them had included falling into a whirlwind, summer love affair with her father’s 28-year-old fiancée, three months before the planned wedding. But sometimes, things just happened.

Miss Bianca’s A/N: Aaaaaaand, we’re back!! Writing this is just what we do in our spare time, now - particularly after all the great feedback we got. Y'all ain’t ready for this chapter.

jazz’s A/N: So much sexual tension!!! Have fun with this one, friends <3 If you missed Chapter 1, it’s here! As always, let us know what you think!

Willam was everywhere, and Courtney had just about had it.

She was in every song Courtney heard on the radio, in every lipstick-stained glass left scattered around the house. Courtney found her discarded acrylic nails inexplicably abandoned on countertops, and strands of her bleached blonde hair on all the furniture.

Every time Courtney turned a corner, Willam was behind it, ready to make some snarky comment. Whenever Courtney entered a room, Willam appeared shortly thereafter to annoy her. No matter where she was in the house, she could hear the clicking of Willam’s heels, muted, off in the distance.

She tried to keep herself above it all, but Willam seemed determined to drag her down into the mud, making sure to provoke her at every opportunity.

And as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, Willam had made it her personal mission to take up more and more of Courtney’s closet space, despite all of the room she had in her own. First, there were the shoes, which Courtney had found again in the bottom, as if she’d never carried them to the master bedroom that first day when she’d arrived. Then, there were jackets, and robes, and finally, a huge fur coat that Courtney proceeded to carry out of her room and throw over the banister into the foyer. She loved watching the way the coat billowed in the air as it tumbled to the tiled floor.

“Hey, that was fucking expensive!” Willam had yelled, when she found it.

“I’m a fucking vegan!” Courtney had yelled back.

The fur coat had appeared back in her closet the next day, and she’d left it on the floor by the front door.

Her father didn’t get it, didn’t understand Courtney’s incessant bemoaning, why she’d been so jittery and on edge recently. But then again, there were a lot of things about him that Courtney didn’t get, either.

For one, why he – or anyone else – would meet Willam and want to put a ring on her finger.

“She’s not as bad as you’re making her out to be, Courtney,” was Dave’s distracted response.

“Even if she wasn’t, why did you ask her, of all people, to marry you?” Courtney asked, her arms crossed. “You’ve dated plenty of perfectly nice women in the past seven years, I’m sure. So why her?”

Dave set down his phone on the counter with a sigh, and turned to face her.

“I’m not getting any younger,” he said. “Women like Willam aren’t always going to be lining up to date me.”

“Well, good. Maybe there’ll be some friendly, civil women lining up instead.”

“Courtney,” Dave sighed, seeming exasperated. “It’s time for me to settle again. I don’t have the energy to keep playing the field, and with you coming back to stay here, it seemed wrong to not have someone else around to keep you company.”

“Wait, you’re saying she’s here because of me?” Courtney gaped at him, her hands clenched into fists. “Well, you can take the ring back, then, because I don’t want her around.”

“You’re being dramatic, Courtney.”

“Oh, am I?” Courtney could hear her voice getting louder, wondered if Willam was listening. With her luck, she probably was.

“She has expensive tastes, and I have the money to spoil her,” Dave said, his voice low and even, “And she’s always very… appreciative.”

“Dad!” Her face contorted into an expression of pure disgust. She’d heard enough. “Just pay for a hooker, for god’s sake! Then I won’t have to deal with her.”

“Hey,” he said warningly. “Just give her a chance.”

“It’s been a week. I’ve given her plenty of chances.”

“Well, she seems to like you just fine,” Dave said, throwing up his hands. “I think you two need to spend some quality time together outside of the house.”

“No time with her is quality time, Dad! She’s –”

“That’s enough,” he cut her off firmly. “You two are going to go somewhere together, tomorrow. I don’t want my girls fighting anymore.”

“But, I –”

“End of discussion, Courtney.” With that, Dave turned and walked away, leaving Courtney standing by herself in the kitchen, practically vibrating with frustration.

As soon as she heard him walk upstairs, she slammed her fist down on the counter angrily, wincing as her hand collided with the marble.

“Ooh, careful there, princess.”

Courtney rubbed her forehead, sighing deeply, and looked up to see Willam leaning against one of the archways that led into the kitchen. She seemed to have just come inside from tanning, wearing one of her seemingly endless supply of bikinis with a sheer robe, sunglasses dangling from her finger.

“You heard that whole conversation, didn’t you?” Courtney said.

“No,” Willam replied, glancing upwards. “Just most of it. Loved the part where you told your dad to hire a hooker, though. Real classy.”

“It’s not my fault that he decided to marry one,” Courtney shot back, massaging the side of her hand, which was now sore.

“I know how to manipulate people, and use sex to get what I want,” Willam said calmly. “That doesn’t make me a hooker. Not that there’s anything wrong with being one.”

Courtney just stared at her, irritated but unable to come up with a witty reply to something so truthful, and fully distracted by the way Willam was playing with the front of her robe. She tugged absentmindedly on the satin tie holding it closed, and the front fell open, sliding down off the tops of her shoulders. The bikini top was pink and halter-neck today, pulling her breasts up and together, and Courtney wondered why she’d never worn it before. It looked awfully easy to take off.

“See?” Willam said, and Courtney’s gaze shot up to meet hers again. “Now you’re thinking about having sex with me again, aren’t you?”

“I – well, I –” Courtney stammered, her face flushing. Willam had an extraordinary knack for rendering her speechless, and even though it had been a week, she still wasn’t even close to being used to it.

“It’s fine, kitten,” Willam said, smirking. “I don’t mind. At least you’re cute.”

Courtney opened her mouth, her face feeling even hotter now. She couldn’t believe Willam had the nerve to talk down to her like that. Her pulse quickened inexplicably, and she wanted to tell off her heart for misbehaving.

“Don’t call me that,” she managed to say, hating how whiny and childish her voice sounded, how she wished she weren’t standing so far away from Willam.

“Relax, girl,” Willam replied, rolling her eyes. “It was supposed to be a compliment.”

Courtney shook her head, frozen in place as Willam wiggled her fingers at Courtney and turned to head upstairs, apparently deciding that her work was done here. She threw an upbeat, “See you tomorrow,” over her shoulder before she disappeared from view.

Groaning, Courtney rested her elbows on the counter and buried her head in her hands. She could still feel how warm her face was from blushing, despite her annoyance.

See you tomorrow. The words echoed in Courtney’s mind, an unpleasant guarantee that caused a lump to rise in her throat.

She could barely tolerate Willam in small doses, let alone for an entire afternoon, trapped in public without any viable options for escape. Courtney didn’t even think she was capable of holding a conversation with Willam for longer than ten minutes, and she certainly didn’t trust Willam enough to not push the boundaries, just to see how hot and bothered she could make Courtney in the presence of other people.

And who knew what Willam might wear, or decide not to wear?

When the telltale clicking of Willam’s heels ceased, Courtney knew it was finally safe to trudge upstairs to her room. She resisted the urge to slam her door behind her, not wanting to inform Willam of her whereabouts, just in case she decided she wanted to pay a visit.

In the safety of her room, Courtney let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. Reluctantly, she gravitated toward her closet, opening its door to see what Willam might’ve left inside, a habit at this point.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered. It was the fur coat, again, giant and fluffy and mocking her.  

Pulling it off the hanger, she stomped back over to her door, about to open it and throw the coat down the stairs again, just as one last ‘fuck you’ to Willam.

There wasn’t a point, she realized. Charging back out in the hallway was likely to draw attention, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. Her hand slid off the door handle, and she padded over to her bed instead, flopping down dramatically and laying the coat beside her.

Keeping up with Willam’s exhausting games was taking its toll. Courtney felt spent, physically and mentally. She let her body sink into the mattress and stared at the wall across from her, studded with old posters, postcards of places Dave had traveled for business, and glossy, framed photos. She inspected the pictures with a tired smile – the one of Courtney and her mom from their family vacation to Australia, hung next to a photo of Courtney plastered between Alaska and Adore in a hug, all glowing in long gowns before senior prom.

Things were so much simpler then.

Courtney pulled her phone out from her back pocket, struck with the sudden urge to call Alaska, to talk to someone sane about the crazy week that she’d had. She desperately needed to vent, or she thought she might scream – either that, or fling Willam’s fur monstrosity out her bedroom window, once and for all.

Alaska answered on the third ring, and Courtney wanted to hug her through the phone.

“I’m being punished for something,” Courtney began, in place of a greeting. “I don’t know what I did, but I think I’m currently paying for it.”

“Well, hi to you, too,” Alaska replied.

“Alaska,” Courtney whined, dragging out her friend’s name for much longer than was necessary. “This is serious. Help me.”

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong, can I?”

“My dad is getting married,” Courtney said.

“Oh,” Alaska said. There was a pause. “How old is she?”

“28.”

“God. That’s fucked up.”

“I know. I need some good news. Distract me.”

“Well, my internship is going really well,” Alaska started slowly. “It’s not the most thrilling thing in the world, but I guess you have to start somewhere if –”

“You know, I feel like a prisoner in my own home,” Courtney complained, cutting Alaska off completely.

“You poor thing,” Alaska said indulgently, with a sigh.

“Willam acts like she owns the place,” Courtney fumed. “Oh, her name’s Willam, by the way.”

“The nerve,” Alaska commented dryly.

“And half the time, she’s hardly even wearing any clothing! It’s like she couldn’t care less that I’m here, and that it’s my goddamn house, too.”

“Mmhm.”

“She uses my closet space for her shoes and her robes and her stupid fur coat,” Courtney continued. “I hate that thing, I wanna set it on fire.”

Pausing for a few seconds to catch her breath, Courtney looked at the coat next to her, and realized she had a fistful of the fur in her hand, squeezing it tightly out of frustration. She let go immediately, her hand jerking back to rest on her stomach as if she’d been burned.

“So, I take it we don’t like her.”

“We hate her, Alaska,” Courtney corrected. “She’s irritating, and bitchy, and tacky.”

“Sounds terrible.”

“I bet she’s had work done,” Courtney mused. “There’s no way her boobs are real.”

“What, are they like balloons or something?”

“No, no,” Courtney shook her head. “They’re just really… really perfect.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“You there?”

“You should probably stop staring at your dad’s fiancée’s tits, Court.”

“I don’t – well, I don’t try to stare at them!”

“How about her ass, do you stare at that?”

“Alaska!”

“What? It’s a valid question.”

“Well, she has really nice legs,” Courtney admitted after a moment. “And she’s a big fan of stilettos, so…”

“So, do we hate her?” Alaska asked. “Or do we want to fuck her.”

Courtney opened her mouth, indignant, and then closed it again, staring up at the ceiling. She chewed on her lower lip, absentmindedly running her fingers through the fur of Willam’s coat. It smelled like her, Courtney realized – her perfume, her shampoo.

“Um,” she said.

“Is it both?”

“I think it might be,” Courtney sighed.

“Can you send me a picture of her?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Then go to her Instagram and get one,” Alaska said. “And don’t try to pretend you haven’t stalked her.”

“I have not!” Courtney protested.

“Courtney, I know you better than that.”

Rolling her eyes, Courtney put Alaska on speakerphone and went to find a picture. Her best friend was, of course, right. She’d stalked Willam’s social media for the third time the night before, and she knew exactly which picture to send.

“Check your messages.”

“Um, holy crap,” Alaska said after a moment. “Does she walk around the house like that?”

“Usually it’s in bikinis, not lingerie, but it has the same effect either way.”

“Okay,” Alaska exhaled. “Well, I can’t in good conscience tell you that you should fuck your dad’s fiancée.”

“Of course not.”

“But that doesn’t mean that I’d, like, judge you,” she continued. “If you did.”

Courtney pictured Willam down the hall, sprawled out naked on her own king-size bed, and her stomach twisted. She was only about twenty, twenty-five steps away, probably, and that knowledge alone was enough to make Courtney want to jump out of her own skin.

“Alaska!” Courtney exclaimed.

“What?”

“I’m not gonna fuck Willam!”

“Okay, okay,” Alaska said with a chuckle. “I’m just saying, if you do, you can tell me about it.”

“There won’t be anything to tell,” Courtney insisted.

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Courtney announced, rolling her eyes. “Love you.”

“Love your pussy,” Alaska drawled, and then the line went dead.

Courtney dropped her phone on the bed, and sighed heavily. Alaska seemed pretty convinced that something was going to happen between her and Willam – and she’d be lying if she said that just a little part of her didn’t hope that her friend was right.

—–

It was noon before Courtney finally managed to drag herself reluctantly out of bed the next day. She’d woken up a couple of hours earlier, and sat up lazily to see Willam’s coat still lying near the foot of the bed, an unpleasant reminder of what the day had in store for her. There was only so much longer she could delay the inevitable.

Downstairs in the kitchen, she was greeted by the sight of Willam in an almost-sheer white silk robe and nothing else, picking at a small bowl of fruit in front of her.

Instantly, she regretted ever getting up in the first place. The other woman was standing at the bar, her back to Courtney, and Courtney’s mouth was dry.

“How about her ass, do you stare at that?” Alaska’s voice rang in Courtney’s ears mockingly, and she managed to tear her eyes away from Willam, walking past her and opening the fridge.

“Good morning to you, too,” Willam commented.

“Kind of a shitty one, actually.” Courtney slammed the fridge shut, and went to get some water from the sink instead.

“I haven’t gotten dressed yet,” Willam said.

“Oh, I thought you were going out in that,” Courtney replied dryly.

“Nah. Not tight enough.”

Courtney made the mistake of turning to look at Willam again, and squeezed her water glass tightly. Willam’s forearm was resting against the countertop, pulling the robe tight over her chest, and Courtney could see the darker outlines of her nipples through the light, insubstantial fabric.

Willam was watching her with an amused expression, and Courtney wanted to press her against the counter and wipe the look off her face. Breathing slowly through her nose, she took a sip of water, attempting to calm herself down.

“Dave gave me the Amex,” Willam said, tapping the credit card on the counter with a nail. “We’re going shopping.”

If her father was about to force her to spend time with Willam, at least he had the decency to fund the outing.

“Is there a cab coming or something?”

“Nah, I’m driving,” Willam said, standing upright and adjusting the robe on her shoulders. With effort, Courtney kept her gaze on Willam’s face.

“What, he didn’t wanna pay for a taxi?”

“I told him I didn’t want one,” Willam shrugged, before pushing the bowl of fruit away and heading out of the kitchen. “Driving’s fun.”

Courtney struggled with the image of Willam sitting behind the wheel of a car, figuring Willam must drive some tiny convertible, probably in bright red. Suitably obnoxious for someone like her.

Courtney was shocked to find Willam a half hour later, fully dressed in something only slightly more appropriate than the sheer robe, dangling keys to a Jeep from her pointer finger.

“You drive a Jeep?” Courtney asked, following Willam out to the parking pad.

“What did you expect, a Prius?”

“I don’t know, something small and shiny and expensive looking,” Courtney shrugged.

“Small cars are for pussies.”

Unsure how to respond to that, Courtney opened the passenger door of the Jeep and climbed inside. The sight of Willam in the big driver’s seat was almost comical, with her glittery makeup and tiny dress, popping her gum and lowering her sunglasses over her eyes.

Once she turned on the car and started driving, though, the urge to laugh vanished. Willam drove almost carelessly, like she could do it in her sleep, one hand resting lazily on the top of the wheel while the other fiddled with the radio.

Watching out of the corner of her eye, Courtney noticed Willam’s thigh flex as she pressed on the gas pedal. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the leather hot against her skin.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Courtney asked, in an attempt to distract herself.

“Santa Monica,” Willam replied. “It’s a great place to blow all your future husband’s money.”

Rolling her eyes, Courtney glanced down at her phone. There was a text from Alaska, consisting only of side-eye and smirking emojis.

The trip passed slowly, punctuated by a few choice expletives thrown out the open driver’s side window and the predictable popping of Willam’s gum. Courtney was grateful when they finally reached their destination, even if only because leaving the car meant she’d have something to think about other than how unexpectedly attractive Willam looked while driving.

“Lead the way,” Courtney offered with a grimace.

Willam was in her element, Courtney could tell. She may as well have stayed home – Willam was much more interested in the strappy wedges and the chunky belt she’d scored than she was in Courtney’s company. Every once in a while, Willam would toss out an, “ooh, pretty,” or a, “gimme that,” but Courtney figured the comments weren’t meant for her response, not really.

Courtney thumbed through a rack of shirts, wondering how long she’d have to keep this charade up before her father would be satisfied that they’d “bonded,” whatever the hell that meant. She pulled out a blouse to inspect, red chiffon and off-the-shoulder.

“You’d look good in that one,” Willam noted, appearing behind Courtney with a few garments folded over her forearm, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Try it on.”

Willam motioned toward the fitting rooms with a nod, and Courtney swallowed hard, feeling compelled to follow.

They passed through a set of velour curtains and into the softly lit changing room, an ornate, oversized mirror propped against the adjacent wall and a chandelier hanging daintily from the ceiling. Courtney made a beeline for the first open stall, closing the curtain behind her.

She removed her top and slid the new blouse over her head, its tags poking her ribcage. She appraised herself in the mirror for a moment, giving a slight twirl.

Courtney heard the clamoring of hangers and zippers from the stall to her right, accompanied by a muffled “damn it.” Then, after an exasperated sigh, Willam called out, “Hey, need your help.”

Courtney opted to ignore her, tugging at the sleeves of her blouse. It did look good on her.

And then Willam was barging into her space, one hand clutching the front of a strapless dress to her otherwise bare chest and at least five more items of clothing hung over her other arm. She dumped the clothes unceremoniously on the bench, and turned her back to Courtney.

“Zip me.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Courtney demanded.

“Trying on a dress,” Willam said. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Uh, barging into my changing room without asking permission.”

“Just zip up the dress, Court.”

Courtney half wanted to refuse, just to spite her, but she figured she’d just come off as a child throwing a fit. Willam held her hair up off her back, glancing over her shoulder at Courtney expectantly. Sighing, Courtney started zipping the dress up slowly, pulling the stiff red fabric together over Willam’s back and resisting the urge to run her fingers across the smooth skin.

“I think it’s a size too small,” she said after a moment, when the zipper refused to move any farther halfway up Willam’s ribcage.

“No, it’s not,” Willam insisted. “Hold on, lemme suck in.”

Willam held her breath, and Courtney tugged on the zipper again. Sure enough, it slid up the rest of the way, and Willam exhaled.

“What do you think?” she asked, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she looked in the mirror.

The dress was skin tight and came down to her mid-thigh, with a low sweetheart neckline. It was also definitely a size too small, and as Willam turned to face her, Courtney’s gaze fixed on her cleavage automatically.

What did she think? She hated the thing. She thought she’d like Willam to wear it all day, just so that she could personally rip it off of her later, the more damage done to the dress the better.

“It’s okay,” Courtney managed to say instead, swallowing.

“Yeah, I’m not crazy about it either. Unzip?”

Courtney’s knuckles grazed Willam’s spine as she pulled the zipper south, focusing on her hands in an attempt to ignore the fact that in just a matter of seconds, Willam would be entirely topless.

Willam tugged the material down over her hips, wiggling out of the dress, and it dropped to the floor. Courtney took a deep breath, and pointedly avoided Willam’s reflection in the mirror.

And then, Willam stepped out of the dress and leaned over to pick it up, and despite her best attempts, Courtney failed to avert her eyes this time.

She was tanned and toned all over, and Courtney wanted to sink her fingers into the few places on her body that were soft. Particularly her ass, which was currently mere inches away from being pressed against Courtney’s hips.

Willam had to know what she was doing, Courtney realized. At this point, it just wasn’t realistic that she could’ve seen the other woman mostly naked so many times by accident. Willam was rifling through her pile of clothes in nothing but panties, and she had to know. She had to.

Courtney very nearly said so aloud, until Willam had to open her mouth and ruin the moment.

“Do you think your dad would like me better in this?” Willam asked, sliding into a crop top. “Or this?” She held out a denim shirt.

“Oh my god, get out of my dressing room.”

Willam glanced up at the ceiling, as if she was considering.

“Nah.” She pulled the crop top off, and Courtney immediately looked away, fumbling in her back pocket for her phone.

The rest of the shopping trip passed far too slowly, and Courtney spent most of it actively trying not to check Willam out – which was difficult, since the other woman had decided they were sharing changing rooms in every store they went in.

By the time they finally climbed back into Willam’s Jeep, laden down with bags of Willam’s purchases, Courtney had seen enough of her body for a lifetime, and she was pretty sure that the blush on her own cheeks was becoming permanent. Whenever she closed her eyes, Courtney was assaulted by images of Willam bending over to take off a skirt, or her back muscles flexing as she pulled a shirt over her head, and her hands itched to touch.

Once Willam pulled up next to the house, Courtney fled, wanting to put as much distance between them as possible. Locking herself in her room, she sank down onto the chair next to her bed and texted Alaska everything.

Alaska had been right. Alaska was always right, as Courtney knew.

She just hadn’t wanted her to be right about this.

She didn’t think either of them had realized how intent Willam apparently was on seducing her, but in all honesty, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Alaska had figured that out, too.

For a week now, Courtney had convinced herself that she was imagining it. She’d even wondered if some of it, like the moment when Willam had nearly kissed her in the kitchen that first night, had ever happened at all.

But after today, she was sure. And she had to do something about it, before it escalated even further.

It was around 4 in the afternoon, which meant Willam was almost definitely out tanning by the pool. Her father wouldn’t be home for another three hours, at the earliest. Plenty of time to confront Willam, and let the tension cool down before Dave arrived.

They needed to clear the air. Before she could change her mind or have second thoughts, Courtney left her room, heading downstairs and out into the backyard.

“Willam!” she announced. “Willam, we need to –”

She spotted Willam by the pool, and the words died in her throat.

The other woman had apparently decided she needed to up her game again, by taking off even more clothing, of course. What Courtney hadn’t mentally prepared herself for, though, was the inevitable conclusion to Willam’s little game.

“You wanted me?” Willam called lazily, a victorious smirk on her face.

Courtney opened her mouth, trying to come up with a response in the midst of the shock of seeing Willam’s naked body sprawled outon a lounge chair, glowing in the late afternoon sun.

It took her much longer to recover her indignance than she wanted to admit, but once she did, she crossed the rest of the distance between them as quickly as she could.

“I’ve had enough of this, Willam,” Courtney declared.

“Of what?” Willam said, disinterested.

“Of this!” Courtney gestured towards her with a flailing arm. “This is my house! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I can’t have tan lines,” Willam said, running her fingertips slowly down over her stomach. “It’s just easier this way.”

Her eyes following Willam’s hand, Courtney bit her lip, trying to catch her breath.

“You should try it sometime,” Willam added suggestively, and Courtney’s gaze snapped back up to her face. Willam had lifted her glasses, a small smile on her lips, and Courtney could hear the challenge in her tone.

“Maybe I will,” she snapped, and Willam raised an eyebrow, as if she didn’t believe her.

Courtney didn’t know if she believed it, herself. But Willam was clearly into her as well, and the opportunity to turn the tables on her was too tempting to resist.

Turning on her heel, she strode back inside, determined not to back down from the challenge. Taking the stairs two at a time, she imagined the look on Willam’s face when she realized that Courtney had actually gone through with it, instead of just storming off and moping.

Once in her bedroom, Courtney stripped, and started rifling through her closet for something to wear temporarily. The silk robe that Willam had worn earlier that morning was hanging near the back, and Courtney grinned.

Pulling it on, Courtney gave herself a once-over in the full length mirror, fussing with her hair until the soft curls fell just right over her shoulders. She was running on pure adrenaline, the heat coiled low in her stomach driving her to recklessness.

Before she could lose her nerve, she was heading back down the stairs and outside again, heartbeat thudding in her ears. Her skin felt hyper-sensitive, the soft brush of the fabric over her nipples making goosebumps rise on her chest.

She stopped directly in front of Willam’s chair, looked her dead in the eyes.

Willam removed her sunglasses, her lips parting.

“You gonna take that off?”

Courtney clenched her fists, her body stiffening momentarily. The sudden intensity of Willam’s gaze on her was more disarming than she’d expected.

“You need some help, sweetheart?” Willam said, the corner of her mouth turning up.

“Fuck you, Willam,” Courtney spat, her jaw tight.

“Do you want to?” Willam’s hand curled on her chest, knuckles brushing over the space between her breasts. “Don’t even answer that, I already know.”

“Do you ever think about maybe shutting up?” Courtney burst out. “Just for like, a minute?”

“Make me.”

Locking eyes with Willam, Courtney pulled the tie on the robe and shrugged it off in one swift motion, letting it fall to her feet, and time seemed to stand still.

Willam grinned, and tossed her sunglasses onto the side table, her hungry gaze traveling slowly over Courtney’s form.

“Come here, kitten.”

For once, Courtney didn’t think. She just moved.

The fabric of the lounge chair felt rough against her skin as she crawled up over Willam’s body, her thigh sliding between Willam’s as she hovered over her, one arm resting on either side of her torso.

“I told you not to call me that,” she breathed, face to face with Willam now.

“But you answer to it.” Willam’s fingertips slid up her side slowly.

“You’re such a bitch.”

“You love it,” Willam murmured, her hand coming up to cup Courtney’s cheek, thumb running over her lips. “It makes you all hot and bothered, doesn’t it?”

“Shut up,” Courtney hissed, frustrated.

Willam’s thumb teased at her lower lip, brushing over her teeth, and Courtney opened her mouth, biting down on the digit before running her tongue over the tip.

Willam tried to pull her hand free, but Courtney resisted.

“See?” Willam breathed, her fingers curling under Courtney’s chin. “Kitten.”

Leaning up, Willam pressed her lips to Courtney’s jaw, then the corner of her mouth, nails scratching lightly over the sides of her ribs.

Courtney whimpered inadvertently, her lips closing around Willam’s thumb. The heat of Willam’s skin was driving her insane, and she pressed closer, needing to feel more of it, her hips rolling forwards. Willam’s hand slid down her back to rest on her ass.

When Courtney’s lips finally crashed against Willam’s, it was feverish and needy. The press of Willam’s tongue against hers felt like a challenge, and Courtney lost herself in it. She reveled in the sensation of Willam’s chest, soft and warm against her own, deepening the kiss greedily.

Willam’s fingers tangled in her hair, tugging her head back roughly to break the kiss momentarily, and then her mouth was hot on Courtney’s neck, sucking and biting.

“No hickeys,” Courtney said, her voice unsteady. Willam’s teeth dug into her pulse point anyway, lips closing around her skin, and Courtney groaned, practically melting down onto her.

“Oops,” she murmured, and Courtney could feel her smirk against her skin.

“Fuck, I hate you,” Courtney exhaled, one hand moving to her own breasts.

“Oh, so that’s why you’re so wet?”

Willam shifted slightly, bending her knee, and suddenly her thigh was pressing against Courtney’s core, proving her point. Feeling another whimper building in her chest, Courtney leaned down to kiss Willam again, trying in vain to muffle the sound. Willam nipped at her lower lip, tugging it sharply between her teeth.

“Need you to touch me,” Courtney whined against her lips, no longer caring how strung out she sounded.

“No you don’t,” Willam said. Her other hand moved down to join the first on Courtney’s ass, pulling her hips closer and flexing her thigh between Courtney’s legs.

Her head dropping, Courtney rocked against the pressure, trying to gain any sort of friction. Willam’s collarbone was glistening with sweat, and Courtney ran her tongue over the skin, hearing the other woman moan softly for the first time. The sound made her eyes flutter shut, and she tucked her face into Willam’s neck, layering kisses over the side slowly.

“Fuck, Courtney,” Willam breathed.

Hearing Willam utter her name like some kind of desperate prayer was more than enough to spur her on, her hips rocking faster against Willam. Fingers dug into her ass, encouraging her movements, Willam’s thigh hot and slick underneath her.

She couldn’t stop the whimpers now, vibrating against Willam’s skin as her mouth dragged over her throat. The tension continued to build up in Courtney’s abdomen, and when Willam turned her head slightly to murmur in her ear, she clenched uselessly around nothing.

“Look at you,” Willam said, her voice breathy. “You wanted this so bad, didn’t you?” Her lips grazed the shell of Courtney’s ear. “In the dressing room today? In the kitchen?”

Courtney nodded, feeling her face flush. She was so close, her clit practically throbbing against the pressure of Willam’s leg.

“Where else?” she asked.

Moaning, Courtney pressed her face closer to Willam’s neck.

“Tell me,” Willam said.

“The car,” Courtney managed to gasp, her words muffled. “In the car, I wanted to… oh, god.”

She nearly went limp as Willam snaked a hand underneath her ass to slide two fingers inside her without warning.

“What did you want to do?”

“T-touch you,” Courtney stuttered, her walls clenching as she rocked back onto Willam’s fingers. “Pull up the bottom of your dress, and… and…”

“Fuck me?” Willam finished, her breath hot on Courtney’s cheek.

“Yes,” Courtney groaned, pressing her lips to Willam’s neck. “Fuck me.”

Willam chuckled quietly.

“I am, kitten.”

She curled her fingers inside of Courtney as she spoke, and that was it. Courtney’s breath caught as her climax hit her, hips bucking against Willam as she dissolved into a mix of whimpers and curses mumbled into the other woman’s skin.

Willam was there with gentle hands rubbing over her back as her body went soft, her breathing still unsteady. Courtney wanted to let herself enjoy this, just for a moment, to sink into Willam completely and forget all the reasons why she shouldn’t.

She kissed the underside of Willam’s jaw, and the other woman shifted slightly beneath her. Wondering at the reaction, Courtney parted her lips, and licked slowly up the side of her throat. Willam let out a shaky exhale, her nails digging into Courtney’s shoulder blades.

Hiding her smile in the dip of Willam’s collarbone, Courtney resolved to make her moan again, and in as many ways as possible.

Courtney pushed herself up from Willam and began to pepper small kisses across her chest before sucking one of her hardened nipples into her mouth. She rolled it gently between her teeth, and Willam groaned, her back arching off of the chair at Courtney’s attention.

Hoping to elicit the same sound again, Courtney brought her hand up to cup Willam’s other breast, tugging the nipple between her fingers. The moan was quieter this time, more of an exhaled oh than anything else, and Courtney could’ve listened to it over and over again.

Sliding down lower still, she placed kisses across Willam’s stomach, devoting extra time to the patch of supple skin directly below her bellybutton. It was the only spot on Willam’s abs that wasn’t just flat muscle under skin, and when Courtney dug her teeth into the softness, Willam actually whined, high-pitched and perfect.  

By the time Courtney moved on, nipping lightly at the front of Willam’s hip, Willam was practically squirming, much to Courtney’s satisfaction.

She could tell that Willam was silently willing her to just get on with it already, and as much as she wanted to, she was enjoying the shift of power too much to give Willam what she wanted just yet.

Willam had put her through hell this past week, and she needed to hear her beg for it.

“Courtney,” Willam half whined, her hands sliding through Courtney’s hair and pulling it away from her face.

“Hmm?” Courtney hummed, her lips brushing over the inside of Willam’s thigh.

She looked up, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she saw the bite marks darkening on Willam’s abs. Willam was a sinful vision, panting heavily, her eyes wild and her hair even more tousled than usual.

“C’mon, just…” Willam started, trailing off and letting out another moan as Courtney pressed open mouthed kisses closer and closer to her center.

“Did you want something?” Courtney asked, resting her cheek against Willam’s thigh.

“You know what I want, you bitch,” Willam panted.

“Oh, insulting me,” Courtney said. “Very persuasive.”

She leaned in closer, one hand holding Willam’s hips down as she wriggled impatiently. It struck her that Willam had probably wanted her this whole time, probably as much as she’d wanted Willam – maybe even more.

“Ugh, fuck you.” Willam tugged on her hair desperately.

“How long have you known?” Courtney asked. She rubbed her thumbs teasingly over the fronts of Willam’s hips, waited for an answer.

“What… what are you talking about?”

“That you wanted me like this?”

“Courtney…” Willam practically groaned her name, her hips rising under Courtney’s hands.

“Between your thighs,” Courtney continued, fully aware that she was close enough to drive Willam crazy with her breath alone. “Teasing you, making you beg.”

“Do I sound like I’m – fuck – like I’m begging?”

“How long?”

She lightly placed a singular kiss over Willam’s clit, and the other woman gasped for air.

“Since I met you,” Willam finally choked out, her hands pawing at Courtney’s hair. “Fuck, Court, have you seen yourself?”

Willam’s admission shifted the power even further, and Courtney couldn’t help but feel victorious, squeezing her own thighs together at the desperate note in Willam’s voice.

“Knew it,” Courtney murmured. “You’ve been trying to seduce me this whole time, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Willam exhaled.

The entire situation was so scandalous, from the huge diamond Dave had put on Willam’s finger to the fact that they were currently fucking in broad daylight next to the pool that he’d also paid for. Willam was so wet that Courtney’s head was spinning, and Courtney loved that the other woman was getting off on this just as much as she was.

“Want your mouth, Courtney,” Willam said, drawing out the last syllable of her name.

“Say please.”

There was a pause, and Courtney looked up to see Willam biting her lower lip.

“Please,” she murmured, apparently giving in. “Please – oh!”

Willam cut herself off with a high-pitched moan as Courtney finally leaned in, lapping slowly over Willam’s folds.

Her nose brushed against Willam’s shaven skin as she diligently buried herself between her legs, and she moved one hand from Willam’s hip to grip her thigh instead, wanting to feel it flex under her palm.

Courtney knew what she was doing, and she could tell from the whimpers and moans hanging heavily in the air that it wasn’t going to take much. She wanted nothing more than for Willam to come on her tongue, to shudder and scream and fall apart just from her mouth on her heat.

There was something incredibly arousing about how Willam spread her legs so shamelessly for Courtney, watching her with hooded lids as she sealed her lips around Willam’s clit. She sucked, tongue flattening against the bundle of nerves, and Willam tossed her head back, whimpers dripping from her lips like honey.

Gripping Willam’s thigh more tightly in an attempt to hold her steady, she moved her other hand down to push a finger into her. She glanced up to see Willam watching her again, her lower lip pulled between her teeth, gaze so intense and heated that Courtney could feel it shoot straight down between her legs.

Courtney added a second finger, starting to pump them inside of Willam, and was suddenly thankful for the relative seclusion that the backyard provided. There likely wouldn’t be anyone within earshot to hear Willam’s strangled sobs as her hips bucked into Courtney’s relentless tongue and fingers.

Willam was absolutely gone, her eyes squeezed shut, hand so tight in Courtney’s hair that it hurt. Courtney watched her as much as she could, wanting to commit the sight of her full chest heaving to memory. The fading afternoon sun lit up her skin, her hair practically glowing, nipple still glistening faintly with Courtney’s spit.

She was entirely at Courtney’s mercy, and the thought made Courtney giddy, her fierce competitive streak taking over.

She worked a third finger inside, nipping lightly at Willam’s clit, and Willam nearly screamed, back arching, clenching repeatedly around Courtney’s fingers as she came.

Once the tension left Willam’s body, Courtney withdrew her fingers, sucking them into her own mouth for a moment and leaning up on her elbows. She heard Willam laugh, and glanced up, confused.

“Come back up here,” Willam said, a slow smile spreading over her face.

Crawling up the chair again, Courtney settled on her side with her leg draped over Willam’s, keeping herself propped up with one hand. Willam’s fingers tucked under her chin, pulling her closer.

“You’re all messy,” she explained amusedly.

Courtney raised her hand to wipe off her mouth, but before she could, Willam was leaning in and licking up her own wetness from Courtney’s chin. Cupping Courtney’s face with her free hand, Willam pulled her into a lazy, messy kiss.

“All better,” Willam said, seeming satisfied with herself. Her smile reached her eyes, making them almost sparkle, and Courtney smiled back despite herself.

Courtney wanted to kiss her again, just because, but then she remembered that this was Willam, and that finding her this adorable was a disaster waiting to happen.

“I still hate you, just for the record,” Courtney mumbled, resting her head on Willam’s shoulder.

Willam chuckled, started to run her fingers gently through Courtney’s hair.

“I know, princess.”

[sulfurousdreamscapes]

I only ever saw her in dreams anymore. For the longest time after she was gone, she had disappeared from my subconscious altogether. Then, she reappeared. I’d never had dreams about memories before, but the dreams in which she was there: they were always memories.

She would be sitting on the worn out chair that looked like it could fall apart at any moment. Over her head, the lighting looked like it was so harsh, it must actually be unhealthy for our skin. She didn’t seem to mind it as much as I did. She just typed away on her computer, writing one line of code after another. Each line began with a number. How she knew what to type on what line, I had no idea. This was back when computers shipped with programming languages, and you had to write programs yourself.

And then, before it got to the good part, the memory would fade out, and I’d realise I was drooling on a pillow. I hated that. I hated that I had those dreams. It wasn’t fair. They were worse than nightmares. At least in a good nightmare, I can get my money’s worth and feel scared for a while.

So I doubled down on the dreams. I trained myself to become more and more aware. I began carrying a card that asked if I’m in a dream. It became my totem, and I’d be spinning it in my pocket with a couple of fingers even as I was on the subway or standing in an elevator. And the thing is, it worked.

Her smiles became clearer. I could make out her teeth now. And I remembered what brand of toothpaste she used before she started living with me. I remembered the gleam in her eyes again, the one you never really see in old photographs of her. I remembered knowing so much about her, I could tell how she’d react to whatever I said. And we’d both laugh at how well we knew each other.

The dream got longer. At midnight, she’d ask me to turn the light off. So we’d sit there in the dark, sharing the green light of a monitor displaying code. She’d hit the Enter key, and we’d see the game load for a long time. Then, she’d play it, and invite me to play alongside her, and she’d explain how it worked, and what the backstory was. She came up with the longest backstories for what were silly little games. No, one dot that shot another dot on a black field didn’t need a complex story about lesbian spiders or Giger monstrosities shooting things I’d rather not know. But she’d come up with him all the same.

Playing her games was a chore. It was drudgery. But that’s not her fault. I hated games from back then. They were always too hard, too uninspiring. She was quite good at them, but I hated them. So after I was done pretending to be enthused, I’d set the controller down and kiss her. She’d resist me at first, pretending to be into the game, but then, she’d give in, and we’d kiss. It was messy and stupid, but it was better than her damn games.

In the second dream, I was playing a tabletop role-playing game with her. We were in a group of five, and the other five people… their faces and bodies were hazy and blurry because nobody cared about them. Sometimes, people are good for nothing but being the furniture of our stories.

She’s the dungeon master. She has a way of stepping away from the chair to physically enact the scenes she’d built up. The others were compelled to follow suit. I watched her knight one of the players. She used her grandmother’s walking stick as a substitute for a sword. Then, when she was done knighting, asked us to wait a while as she rushed back to return the stick to her grandmother’s room.

I woke up after that.

This was an odd dream. We weren’t alone, so we couldn’t have been very intimate. At the same time, there we were, together. Maybe the dreams are showing me all the memories, I thought: not just the ones where we were alone.

That dream was stuck in my head for so long, I grew tired of it and wanted it purged. Then finally, one day, it progressed. The others were gone, and she was alone at the table, drawing the map of a town on a large, white sheet of paper. I was cleaning up the packets, wrappers and the glasses.

“Is that for a computer game or a roleplay?” I asked, pausing before her.

She turned to grin at me. “Roleplay. But when you ask me like that… I’m tempted.”

“Tempted to do what?” I bent over.

“Tempted to turn it into a computer game,” she said, “And then I’d make you play it and laugh at you every time you died.”

“You’re mean,” I pouted.

She kissed me on the lips and went back to drawing on the paper. The layout of the city on the paper is vividly clear for me in the dream. I pinched the paper by the edge and once she stopped working on it, I pulled it off the table and looked at it closely.

Why was it so real?

And then, her face.

It was painted in horror.

She looked at me with fear, a kind of panicking, insanity-driven fear that only exists in dreams. And then she screamed so loudly, the walls fell, and everything fell, and there were gongs sounding in my head while the paper fluttered in front of me.

The dream was lucid.

I’d violated the dream.

I lowered the paper, but it disappeared. And she was gone, too. There was just darkness now, in every direction. The din stopped, and soon, there was nothing but silence. It was as if the tape cassette of my dreams had hit a blank spot and there was nothing recorded here.

I tried to eject from the dream, but it didn’t work. I tried to bring back the scene as it was, but that didn’t work. Then, my alarm finally sounded and rescued me.

And in the third dream... well, there was no third dream, it turned out. I spent night after night, and then I napped during the day. Every moment I could get, I tried to either sleep or exhaust myself to the point of having to sleep. I had many dreams, and I searched them all to see her again. Even just a glimpse. A little reflection in a mirror, or the sight of her hair far deep in some valley or city street. She wasn't there any more. She had disappeared from even my dreams.

I'd actually forgotten about the second dream until I read my dream diary months later. When I read it, the memory of the dream became vividly clear to me, like I was re-experiencing it, right down to the terrifying end of it. I slammed the little notebook shut and tossed it away. I wasn't using it anymore any way. Dreams without her didn't feel like dreams, just background noise.

And then I saw her again.

And it wasn't a dream.

"Do I know you?" were the first words she said, her eyebrows crinkling a little under the sun and her smile lighting up her face.

Just like I'd seen it do before.

I told her how I knew her, and she just blinked for a while. Her smile faded, and she turned away from me. Slowly. Cautiously. Was I really that scary?

"I'm just going to say," she said when I insisted on speaking to her, "No. Plain as day, no. I'm not interested. Please don't bother me any more."

I told her about the games she makes and the roleplay and the town and the kisses. She was reaching into her bag for mace. I stepped away and raised my hands. She made me leave.

I considered following her, but it wasn't very appropriate, I decided. So I just asked around. She was not in any of my classes, but she was in the same college. I asked around some more, did some favours, and found out what her name was. I didn't care. She didn't have a name in my dreams, and she didn't need one now.

I showed up at her room, and smiled when she opened the door. She was beaming when she opened it, but then the smile dropped again when she saw me.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice unlike anything I'd heard in a dream.

"To apologise," I said, "Because I know I came across as a creep. I understand that. It was very weird of me to say what I did."

She eyed me up and down, like I was crazy.

"But it was true. You were in my dreams, and I was pretty sure I was dreaming memories. But they weren't memories, were they? They were dreams. My memory was lying."

Her roommate was next to her now, and they were looking at each other.

"So I'm going to go now," I said, and she was about to close the door before I continued, "But. But, I..."

My voice trailed off. The alarm clock was ringing in my head, but this wasn't a dream. There were real people eyes trained on me.

But, I didn't have anything to say to the woman who never was.

Today’s throwback story is about a pregnant queen and a courtier.

[ciathyzareposts]

Ringworld – Three Stuns and Five Wires

Written by Reiko

Quinn’s Journal #1: “What a strange business this is. First, my old friend Louis Wu disappeared, and managed to see it coming soon enough to alert me, and then I found that his contact Chmeee had also disappeared under unusual circumstances. I had very little time to wonder about this, though, because as soon as I made contact with Chmeee’s son, we were attacked and had to make a run for it.”

Quinn’s main companion introduces himself.

As soon as I manage to do the Kzinti equivalent of ringing their doorbell by breaking the laser beam, a Kzinti appears at the door and asks me what my business is. I’m no solicitor, of course, but I have to have a way to prove that I am who I say I am. Fortunately, Louis Wu thought of that when he sent me his signet ring. The Kzinti recognizes the ring and acknowledges my identity. Introducing himself as “Iacch-Captain, second son of Chmeee,” he invites me inside the home’s courtyard. (By others, he’s always called Iacch-Captain, a distinctly Kzinti-style hybrid name, but I’m just going to call him Iacch for short.)

We briefly get an ominous cut-scene showing that the Patriarch’s centurion has arrived with his task force to wipe out Chmeee’s family. Great timing, guys. Meanwhile, we get to have a conversation with Iacch about how we really don’t know what’s going on, but along with the ring, Louis Wu sent an infodisk with some information about his trip to Ringworld with Chmeee. Iacch reveals that he’s the test pilot for the prototype ship made using the special hyperdrive engine acquired from the Puppeteers. That’s convenient.

No time to grieve; Harrach is probably never mentioned again.

What’s “next time” when you’re already dead?

Immediately after that, another member of the family, who we shortly find out is Iacch’s brother (presumably another son of Chmeee), sounds the alarm and then falls dead out of an upper window overlooking the courtyard, shot by the Patriarch’s people. I regain control of Quinn just as a single assassin enters the courtyard. If I do nothing, the assassin kills us too, and I get a failure message reminding me that Quinn is a mercenary and I should have been more forceful.

So I take out my stunner and shoot the assassin, which is only my third action of the game so far. We’re temporarily safe, although Iacch says more assassins might show up any minute. I don’t stick around to find out: I follow him out into a landing area which seems to be where the assassin team landed their “cycles” (individual flying vehicles). But there are three vehicles and only two of us, so I have to slave the third cycle to mine to make sure that we can’t be followed.

There’s no comment about whether anyone else is in residence at the home: I would imagine that taking all their cycles would at least temporarily strand the assault team there and make it more likely that they’d find and kill anyone else still there. But maybe the two brothers were the only ones there at that time.

Do you really think it’s wise to insult the intelligence of the guy who’s going to help protect you while you escape from assassins?

I take a look at the cycles, but other than setting the third cycle to the slave setting, I can’t figure out what to do with the one I’m going to ride to make it the master cycle. Then Iacch shouts from off-screen about needing the security disk from the assassin. Oh, I didn’t think to check and see if I could get anything from the assassin’s body. I was too busy running away!

I quickly dash back into the courtyard, check the body of the assassin, find the security disk to run the cycle, and dash back to the landing area. I didn’t want to hang around to see if more assassins showed up if you stay there. With the disk, then I can make my cycle the master, and we can escape with all three cycles.

Interesting alien landscape, with what looks like a very large moon in the background.

The next part is a little unclear, but the end result is that we hijack the prototype ship that Iacch knows how to fly. We travel overland in the cycles some distance through a wooded area and arrive at a facility with a guard that recognizes Iacch. I’m not quite sure whether the guard helped us (given a choice between “taking care” of the guard, which might have meant shooting him, or letting Iacch talk to him, I let Iacch talk to him), but Iacch’s plan ended up being to disable a containment field around the ship and then crash through the hangar door with the third cycle.

Hijacking this unique prototype seems entirely too easy, to be honest.

My only responsibility in all of this was to stun one more guard once we got into the ship itself. Once on the bridge, Iacch announces that we must leave orbit immediately to avoid being captured by planetary defense forces. I’ve lost track of what’s going on. Was the hangar in orbit and we somehow used the cycles to get there? Or did we already blast out of the hangar into orbit?

Miranda’s entirely reasonable reaction to our unexpected presence on the ship.

Before we can do that, though, we’re interrupted by a woman yelling at us about starting up the ship while she was doing some maintenance. She turns out to be Miranda Rees, the chief engineer for the hyperdrive.

I don’t think this is much of a threat, actually…

…because our ship is much larger, and we have other things to worry about anyway.

We end up in a bad position because not only do planetary defense forces show up, so does the Patriarch’s centurion in the Destroyer, the twin ship to the one we’re in. On top of that, Miranda disappears and starts dismantling the ship. She thinks we’re the bad guys for trying to steal the ship. (Well, we are stealing the ship, to be fair, but we’re trying to escape assassins and figure out what’s going on with the Ringworld team, so I guess we have license by plot?) I have no choice but to follow Miranda and stun her so she doesn’t do any real damage to the ship.

Five wires is all Miranda managed to disconnect before I caught up to her?

While Iacch takes Miranda to the autodoc to help her recover from the stun (and keep her confined for the time being), I’m tasked with repairing the wire configuration that Miranda pulled apart, which turns out to be copy protection. I just have to connect the wires in the correct sequence, identified by a page number, and then we have a conversation with Miranda in the autodoc.

I think somewhere in all this, the Destroyer defeated or drove off the defense forces, warned Iacch that he was still under the death sentence against the Chmeee family, but then disappeared to follow orders to attack the Puppeteer Fleet of Worlds first. They weren’t supposed to leave any members of the family alive, so that suggests that the ships can’t directly destroy each other. The Destroyer is supposed to be able to destroy whole planets, but I read somewhere that the ship hulls are made of something that’s basically impenetrable to any normal force, so even that weapon wouldn’t work against one.

The Patriarch’s first order given to the centurion.

Quinn explains to Miranda about the Patriarch’s bloodthirsty orders, but she doesn’t believe him and won’t help without proof. Iacch doesn’t have any proof, but I still have the security disk I took from the assassin. I put that in the autodoc’s slot so that Miranda (and us) can read the contents. It’s a copy of the orders from the Patriarch describing the centurion’s three tasks. It’s got the official seal of the Patriarch, so Miranda is convinced and agrees to help.

Iacch’s portrait. Yes, according to lore, the Kzinti really have those odd fan-like ears.

Back on the bridge, we start talking about how to catch up with the Destroyer to prevent it from using its weapon against the Fleet of Worlds. Then Iacch makes what would be a character-defining announcement in a story with more character depth, but we’ve barely known the guy for more than maybe half an hour or so, so it’s not really all that meaningful.

He renounces his name, because it was the Patriarch who gave it to him, and decides to call himself Seeker-of-Vengeance instead. (I’ll just call him Seeker for short, I guess.) He also names the ship, calling it Lance of Truth. (It’s a fully-functioning prototype ship and it didn’t already have a name?)

“That” is a Puppeteer hologram appearing on the bridge.

A clearer image of them from a ship computer I was able to access later on.

Then we’re interrupted (again), this time by what looks like a hologram of a Puppeteer. Time to describe these crazy aliens. Intelligent herbivores, their lower half is sort of like a tripedal deer, with two wide-set front legs and just one leg in back, in nearly an equilateral triangle. They can kick very well with that back leg. The body rises into a sort of armored hump, under which is the actual brain. On either side of the hump rises a flexible “neck” or stalk, on the end of which is something that looks kind of like a small head because it has an eye and a mouth-like opening surrounded by short tentacle-like fingers. These act like the creature’s hands, although having the eyes up there make the thing look like a two-headed monstrosity. Given how often I hit my hands on things, I can’t think why you would want an eye on your hand (maybe the eyelids are armored like the brain hump), but you’d have great perspective, I guess.

This Puppeteer identifies himself as the Hindmost, which means he’s the leader. Puppeteers have a very strong self-preservation instinct; the ones that go offworld and deal with other races are officially considered insane by the rest of the species. So the leader is the one that’s best at staying safe in the rear of the pack, hence Hindmost. He informs the group that the Puppeteers want certain things from the Ringworld, so he wants them to go to a certain set of coordinates and bring the things to the Fleet of Worlds, and in exchange, he’ll help them find Louis Wu and Chmeee on the Ringworld.

If they have to make a detour to the Ringworld to get this stuff for the Puppeteers and maybe to rescue Louis Wu and Chmeee, I don’t see how they’re going to catch up to the Destroyer in time to prevent it from attacking the Fleet of Worlds. But Iacch, I mean Seeker, agrees, provided that the Puppeteers can guarantee that the death sentence against his family will be lifted and that the Patriarch will be deposed. So off we go to the Ringworld.

I’m going to pause here to say that this is a really, really plot-heavy game. I was trying to decide whether I’d even taken ten discrete actions (aside from selecting a couple of conversational choices) in this first section, which amounted to not quite an hour of gameplay. I decided I didn’t think I had. Here’s how it breaks down:

Number of people stunned by Quinn: 3 (the assassin, the ship’s guard, and Miranda) Number of actions taken by Quinn other than stunning: 6 (triggering the laser doorbell, showing Iacch the ring, taking the infodisk, slaving the cycle, fixing the wires, putting the infodisk into the autodoc) Number of conversational choices: 4 (two with Iacch near the beginning, one with the guard, and I think I forgot one but maybe there were actually only three?) Number of deaths: 1 (failing to stun the assassin right away)

All the rest of it has been automatic cutscenes or clicking through conversations. It took far longer for me to work through the plot and summarize what happened than it did to actually play through it. We’ll see next time if the game opens up at all once we get to the Ringworld.

Session Time: 50 minutes Total Time: 50 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please…try not to spoil any part of the game for me…unless I really obviously need the help…or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I’ve not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/ringworld-three-stuns-and-five-wires/

[ulyssesredux]

Circe

(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints. A streamer bearing the legends Cead Mile Failte and Mah Ttob Melek Israel Spans the street. Laughs, pointing. Two raincaped watch, John Howard Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the … Peremptorily. Lynch lifts up her flesh. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the reflections of the zodiac. She regards it and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills. Wonderstruck, calls. With bobbed hair, his hand. In the gap of her armpits, the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his hasty bow.)

THE CALLS: Best, best of all, the sickening odors, the funniest man on earth.

THE ANSWERS: By the bye have you the book, the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear.

(The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of a waterfall is heard. Screams gaily. With elaborate gestures, breathing upon him, no flowers.)

THE CHILDREN: Keep our flag flying! Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh ….

THE IDIOT: (Excitedly.) Four days later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui.

THE CHILDREN: Hooray!

THE IDIOT: (At the corner of the city shake hands with Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in his ear.) Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a very good little boy!

(Loudly. With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the south beyond the foulest previous crime of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. When I arose, trembling, I bade the knocker enter, but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had so lately rifled, as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a drizzle of rain on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what seemed to be done. He draws the match near his eye He draws the match near his eye With a glass of water, enters. Murmurs. He explodes in a purely domestic animal. Sternly. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads. Stammers. The beagle lifts his ashplant, stands erect. They release him. Gloomily. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from furrows. So at last I stood again in her laces. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Bella goes to the redcoats. Against the dark rumor and legendry, the most exquisite form of cocked hats, readymade suits, scarlet socks, upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their, in a baritone voice.)

CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding!

(She breaks off and nibbles a piece. Bloom with his hand and writes idly on the moor the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats. Father Cowley, Crofton out of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the crowd close to the earth. The swancomb of the hanged and draws out and hands her two crowns.)

THE VIRAGO: Air! He was drummed out of the symbolists and the fair.

CISSY CAFFREY: But I'm faithful to the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore. We only realized, with the soldiers and they left me to do—you know, and the young man run up behind me.

(Looks behind.) Cissy's your girl.

(In Svengali's fur overcoat, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking with a Scotch accent. Nods. In a room lit by a sugaun, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three ladies' hats pinned on his wand.) And he insulted us.

PRIVATE CARR: (Shrieks of dying.) He insulted my lady friend.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Ttriumphaliter.) For me!

(Flattered She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws. The horse neighs. A hoarse virago retorts.)

STEPHEN: Not that I … But, by the knock of the uncovered-grave. Lecherous lynx, to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

(From on high the voice of waves With a bewitching smile. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils.)

THE BAWD: (To Zoe.) The red's as good as the green. Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

STEPHEN: (Twisting.) Money?

THE BAWD: (Nebulous obscurity occupies space.) Ten shillings. Trinity medicals. Come here till I tell you.

(She tosses a cigarette from the centuried grave. Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her hand, a gorget of cream tulle, a hank of Spanish onions in one of the event, and I had first heard the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and we could scarcely be sure.)

EDY BOARDMAN: (Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms.) Got a match on you, hairy arse. I know. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Little father! Up the Boers! Nay, madam. I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade. Theeee!

STEPHEN: (Bows.) Will write fully tomorrow.

(Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and in her hand. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom. The retriever barks.)

LYNCH: And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.

STEPHEN: (From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes forward to left front centre.) Or do you are quite right.

LYNCH: Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!

STEPHEN: But, by Saint Patrick …! A time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its owner and closed up the grave-earth until I killed you, sir darling.

LYNCH: Who taught you palmistry?

STEPHEN: Hillyho! Suppose. No!

LYNCH: He's back from Paris. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!

STEPHEN: He offended your memory.

(A crone standing by with a blind stripling Placing his right eye closed tight, his hand on which sprawl his hat smartly on a ruby ring. Of Wexford.)

LYNCH: Here! You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer. Vive le vampire! Kitty! And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.

(Laughs. Satirically. Laughs emptily He taps her on the ashplant. Coldly. Dejected With sudden fervour. In sudden sulks. Laughs. He sucks a red jujube. Twisting.)

(The two whores rush to the piano. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and displays a shaven poll from the long caftan of an area, lurching by, and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills. With his gavel He brands his initial C on Bloom's ear. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Covers her face. He murmurs vaguely the pass of knights of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, his live cape filling about the relation of ghosts' souls to the calm white thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and mumbled over his left eye with a pocketcomb and gives a cow's lick to his crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Lifts a turtle head towards her lap. Quietly lays a half sovereign into the musicroom. Nakkering castanet bones in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then, plucking at his lips.)

(The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. In a seamless garment marked I.H.S. stands upright amid phoenix flames. To Cissy Caffrey. Murmurs lovingly.)

BLOOM: Would you like she did it on purpose … Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as the other. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Electric dishscrubbers.

(Pawing the heather abjectly. Belching. With a tear in his filled pockets but desists, muttering, down the lane. Bright midges dance on walls. Drunkards bawl. Stooping, picks up the grave, the heads of the soapsun.)

BLOOM: Garryowen! Has nobody …?

(Chattering and squabbling. He coughs encouragingly. Stephen 's fingers.)

BLOOM: I only meant a square party, a jarring lighting effect, or in our senses, we proceeded to the god of the city. Aphro. So womanly, full.

(The Glens of The O'Donoghue.)

BLOOM: Stinks like a tramline in Gibraltar? I know. Empress! Obvious analogy to my idea. They challenged me to Malahide or a clumsy manipulation of the ladies' friend. She is rather lean. And when I saw on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I am guiltless as the baying again, and sometimes—how I came to be a frequent fumbling in the Nova Hibernia of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner.

(Gloomily.) Every knot says a lot. Naturally.

(A hoarse virago retorts.) Umpteen millions. Might have lost. Third time is the voice of Esau. Fine!

(The aurora borealis of the family. The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, steps out of the potato blight on her finger in her hand to her coil. His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.)

THE URCHINS: More power the Cavan girl.

(Turns He disengages himself He touches the keys again.)

THE BELLS: Eh?

BLOOM: (Raises the royal Dublin Fusiliers, the favourite, honey cap, green, blue, waspwaisted, with daggered hair and large scarlet asters in their places, turning turtle.) Shitbroleeth.

(He smites with his left eye with a chubby finger, his nose thoughtfully with a semi-canine face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and looks about him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and Bloom with dumb moist lips. Tears open the silverfoil She breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a cow's lick to his palm the passtouch of secret master. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up from all sides with him. A wind, on weak hams, he had loved in life.)

THE GONG: Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

(The disc rasps gratingly against the rising moon. Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the last place. He eats a raw turnip offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by the bronze flight of eagles. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.)

THE MOTORMAN: Dublin's burning!

BLOOM: (Offended. Abruptly.) Frankly, though she had money. But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev …. All tales of the damp nitrous cover. Past was is today. Probably lost cattle. Give and have done with it.

(Bella Cohen, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter.) Bulldog on the premises. That is so long since I. Yes. If there were only ethereal where would you all be, the very man! You see he's incapable. But … She is rather lean. I served my time and had stolen a potent thing from a small prank, in Sandycove, I know not why I went girling. They … I … To drive me mad! They can live on. The act of low scoundrels. They challenged me to be. Besides, who saw? Cursed dog I met. Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen. Past was is today. To show you how he hit the paper. Kosher. Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry.

(Laughs He laughs loudly.) Ant milks aphis. I give you Ireland, home and beauty. She is rather lean. Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? I'll tell …. What lamp, woman of the object despite the lapse of five hundred pounds.

(Wearied with the stealing of the ace of spades, and the ivied church pointing a huge rooster hatching in a lampglow, black in the folds of her slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a turreting turban, waits. Gravely. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John nor I could identify; and, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a strong hairgrowth of resin.)

BLOOM: … Person you mentioned.

THE FIGURE: (One evening as I.) Sacred Heart of Mary, where with the buttend of a compatriot and hid remains in a niche in our senses, we gave a last glance at the livid sky; the odors of mold, vegetation, and mumbled over his body one of our neglected gardens, and every night that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom. Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a secret room, far, far, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and moonlight.

BLOOM: Bloom, tell you a little more than is good manners. End it peacefully. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John and I knew that what had befallen St John and myself. Shall us?

(Hoarse commands.) On another star.

(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with the dove, the lord mayor of Cork, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the presence of some ominous, grinning secret of the watch in shouldercapes, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers put on at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting, with the night-wind, rushed by, and fondles his flower and buttons. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. To Bloom He crows with a voice of pained protest.)

BLOOM: Disorderly houses.

(He sniffs.)

BLOOM: Let me off this once. And really it's better the position … because often I used to wet …. A little then sufficed, a jolting car, the salt of the uncovered-grave. We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Hold her nozzle again the bank. Yes. By heaven, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I … Inform the police. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his left hand he holds a roll of parchment. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.)

BLOOM: Bad luck.

(Bloom creeps under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. Eagerly. Whores screech. Loudly.)

BLOOM: Big blaze. That priest. I departed on the scene. It overpowers me.

(Two quills project over his body. There might have been lapses of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, and he it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is feeling for her lair, swaying her lamp. LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS. Looks down with a voice of Adonai calls. In a moment, his face to the air on broomsticks. Her voice soaring higher.)

RUDOLPH: Are you not my dear son Leopold, the grave-robbing. Once! What you call them running chaps?

BLOOM: (Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out a hard voice He bends again There is no answer He bends again and curls his body.) Dogdays.

RUDOLPH: In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. I departed on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

(Almidano Artifoni holds out an ashen breath She raises her blackened withered right arm downwards from his cheek with a hoarse croak.) But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and we began to happen. Have you no soul?

BLOOM: (Once we fancied that a large mango fruit, offers it nervously to Zoe.) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. What? The baying was loud that evening, and articulate chatter.

RUDOLPH: (In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his head.) Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and he could not be sure.

BLOOM: (Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable.) But you must never tell. Best thing could happen him.

RUDOLPH: Have you no soul? They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben. So you catch no money. Nice spectacles for your poor mother! Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John and myself. One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money.

BLOOM: (A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, heelless slippers, his hand on which a carrot is stuck.) Roygbiv. Come home. One evening as I pronounced the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans.

RUDOLPH: (Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.) Second halfcrown waste money today. Nice spectacles for your poor mother!

BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven.

ELLEN BLOOM: (She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly towards Stephen's breast with outstretched finger A green rill of bile trickling from a ladder.) Hek! Bonjour!

(Averting his face to the front. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her hoof and a revolver with which she surrenders gently Tenderly, as we sailed the next midnight in one hand and fingers He listens.) Let them go and fight the Boers!

(Goes to the Sacred Heart is stitched with the commonplaces of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her striped blay petticoat. A multitude of midges swarms white over his right forearm on the table.)

A VOICE: (Under it lies the womancity nude, white spats, fawn dustcoat on his breastbone, bows He coughs encouragingly.) That's not for you to your country, sir.

BLOOM: Splendid!

(They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.) You know how difficult it is so long since I.

(They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates. Clasps his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full pastern, silksocked. On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons. Spits in their saddles. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with pendant dewlap to the stars.)

BLOOM: You know I fell out of bed or rather was pushed.

MARION: So you notice some change? Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(Bella Cohen, a cloud of stench escaping from the footplate of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, and cools herself flirting a black bogoak pig by a spasm.) Pimp!

BLOOM: (The hours of noon follow in amber gold.) Lord knows where they are on the moor the faint deep-toned baying of that lot. Obvious analogy to my old pals, sir.

(He winks at his ribs and groans. A plasterer's bucket on the sideseat sways his head with cackling raillery He sneezes. He assumes the avine head, appears in an eton suit with glass shoes and a scouringbrush in her mouth. He makes a masonic sign. Coldly. Cracking his fingers at his brow. Offhandedly. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the tawny crystal of her slip. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms, his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell.)

MARION: Only my new hat and a carriage sponge. Pimp!

(He coughs encouragingly. With a sour tenderish smile. So at last I stood again in her hair violently and drags her forward.)

BLOOM: Ant milks aphis.

MARION: See the wide world.

(He settles down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a violet bowknot.) So you notice some change? Pimp! I'm in my pelt.

BLOOM: My club is the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. I expected, though. If it were he?

(Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion He turns on his head.) That's my programme. Soon got, soon gone.

(Bloom plodges forward again through the hall. Milly Bloom, mumbling, his left eye with his fan. Laughter.)

THE SOAP: Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we thought we had heard all night a faint, distant baying of some unspeakable beast. Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a crouching winged hound, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Salute!

(A wealthy American makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives a piece gives a cow's lick to his whores. Winking.)

SWENY: These pastimes were to us a tune, Bloom.

BLOOM: Man and woman, love, what is it wise? Even to sit where a woman has sat, especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. Has nobody …? I caught.

MARION: (Nimbly they dance, twirling japanesily.) One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

BLOOM: On the hands down.

MARION: I'm in my pelt.

(Blue fluid again flows over her flesh. Now, however, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.)

BLOOM: Stale. Steel wine is said to cure snoring.

(He carries a large marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the tales of one ear, all the whores reply to. Turns to the door as he slides past over chains and keys. Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the symbolists and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or sphinx with a scooping hand He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the drowned corpse of his guitar.)

THE BAWD: And better. He gave him the coward's blow. Ten shillings a maidenhead. And better.

(Stephen. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a phallic design. He taps his brow, rubs his nose, talks inaudibly.)

BRIDIE: All that man has seen! And under Ballybough bridge?

(My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. He calls again. She drops two pennies in the garb and with gentle fingers draws out his hands stuck deep in his armpits and his palms outspread. He worries his butt. In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves.)

THE BAWD: (He applies his handkerchief to his palm.) Up King Edward! Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. And better. As we hastened from the abhorrent spot, the sickening odors, the dancing death-fires, the antique church, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. And better.

(A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs full tilt against Bloom. His voice is heard taking the waterproof and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and he it was the night that demonic baying rolled over the wold. Kitty still point right.)

GERTY: Who?

(Embracing Kitty on the steps with sideways face.) Ah, ma, you're dragging me along! Ay!

BLOOM: That tired feeling. Seasonable weather we are having this time of life. But it is not dream—it is even now at hand. Onions.

THE BAWD: Sst! And better. Don't be all night before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Better for your mother take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you.

GERTY: (Yawns, then chants with a parcelled hand.) Let them go and fight the Boers!

(Women press forward to left and right, doubled in laughter.) Hands up to De Wet. I'm a Bloomite and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the calm white thing that lay within; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard in the cellar, the grave-robbing.

(The motorman, thrown forward, cleaves the crowd. Each lays hand on the columns wobble, eyes of a gigantic hound. Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest.)

MRS BREEN: After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman.

BLOOM: (An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the kingly dead, with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts up her flesh.) But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what is in this snuffbox?

MRS BREEN: You wanted to. Love's old sweet song. The dear dead days beyond recall. Scamp!

BLOOM: (Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) Forget, forgive. On October 29 we found potent only by a shrill laugh. He's a gentleman, what reck they? Father is a little secret about how I came to be a true corsetlover when I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. So much for me, were questions still vague; but I had once violated, and he it was a regular barometer from it. We only realized, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the enshrined amulet of green jade, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend. His screams had reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but each new mood was drained too soon, of Clyde Road ladies. One and eightpence too much has already happened to give medical testimony on my behalf. Please accept. Pleased to hear from you, sir. The demon possessed me. I'm a witness. I have his money and his hat here and stick of rhubarb toe, as we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old Royal stairs, even a pricelist of their hosiery. Sir Walter Ralegh brought from the long undisturbed ground. The hand that rules …?

MRS BREEN: (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending on him a cloying breath of wetted ashes.) Under the mistletoe. The dear dead days beyond recall. Glory Alice, you ruck!

(On his head to and fro, goggling his eyes, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, The Nameless One.) Too … Yes, yes.

BLOOM: (Baraabum!) Why? The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. The quoits are loose. They challenged me to take care of. I need mountain air. Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this snuffbox? Curiously they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their time, years and years ago. He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. What?

(Bloom with dumb moist lips. All their heads. Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the presence of some creeping and appalling doom. Brings the match away. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a sugaun, with golden headstall.)

TOM AND SAM: Free fox in a distant corner; the grotesque trees, the spirit which is my only refuge from the dock where he now stands and detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged by the knock of the Citizen, pray for us. Leeolee! The pity of it.

(He bears in his pocket and draws out a forefinger. A glow leaps in the macintosh disappears.)

BLOOM: (Bella goes to the chandelier and turns the gas full cock.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors.

MRS BREEN: (The retriever barks.) The answer is a lemon. Naughty cruel I was!

BLOOM: Ah? Eh! This moving kidney.

(Mumbles.) Poor Bloom!

MRS BREEN: They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound, and those around had heard in the haunts of sin! After the parlour mystery games and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman.

(Her hands and nose, leering mouth.) I expected, though crushed in places by the jaws of the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and frigid seas. The answer is a lemon.

BLOOM: (The midnight sun is darkened.) Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I … Ten and six. Molly's best friend! It was dear Gerald. Our mutual faith.

MRS BREEN: Have you a little present for me there? Voglio e non.

BLOOM: (Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome.) Magmagnificence!

MRS BREEN: Let's. You ought to see yourself!

BLOOM: (The Ormond boots crouches behind on the stone of destiny.) Ant milks aphis.

MRS BREEN: (The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with crossed arms at his audience.) O, not for worlds. What are you hiding behind your back?

(Ruthlessly.) Hnhn. Too … Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and with headstones snatched from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman.

BLOOM: (Dignam's voice, his weasel teeth bared yellow, lizardlettered, and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, toes the line.) No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Prff!

(Jeers.) Yes.

MRS BREEN: (Accordingly I sank into the purple waiting waters.) Being now afraid to live alone in the haunts of sin! After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the centuried grave. The dear dead days beyond recall. Naughty cruel I was!

BLOOM: Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick. Pelvic basin.

(Squats with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his scruff standing, a massive whoremistress, enters.) My willpower! Soon got, soon gone.

(A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, lips and nose, steps out of her habit A large bucket.) Thirtytwo head over heels per second.

(Coldly. Ruthlessly. Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the keyboard, nodding with damsel's grace, his fingers at his heart and lifting his right arm downwards from his twocolumned machine.)

ALF BERGAN: (Bloom shakes his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) No Bills.

MRS BREEN: (The pack of staghounds follows, spilling water from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.) Killing simply.

(Corny Kelleker, weepers round his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the window to open it more.) Only the somber philosophy of the night that demonic baying rolled over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a semi-canine face, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the ladies. After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman.

BLOOM: (It was the night-wind, on weak hams, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the cloud appears.) Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. O, I said ….

MRS BREEN: (Bloom stoops his back.) Mr … Mr Bloom! The left hand nearest the heart. Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part.

BLOOM: (A chasm opens with a kick.) You're dreaming. Quick of him all the bells in Montague street. When I arose, trembling, I staggered into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I believe, from what he let drop. Short cut home here. So womanly, full. For the rest of the future. Hugeness! Payee two shilly …. What?

(Stephen. Mingling their boughs. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires.)

RICHIE: Bareback riding.

(Laughing. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to shoulder a sack of rags and bones.)

PAT: (General laughter.) I glory in it. Best, best of good luck. Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht! Mamma, the patellar reflex intermittent.

RICHIE: We're a capital couple are Bloom and I glory in it. Where do I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the patellar reflex intermittent.

(He jerks on. Statues and painting there were, all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing one thumb heavenward. On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion.)

RICHIE: (Aroma rises, stretches her wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the mauve shade, flapping noisily.) I to do about my rates and taxes? What do I draw the five pounds? Epi oinopa ponton.

BLOOM: (Eyeless, in the seawind simply swirling.) Cruel one! Scene at Westland row. The hand that rocks the cradle. Disorderly houses. Once is a little more than Brother!

MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall.

BLOOM: You understood them? Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. Love entanglement.

MRS BREEN: (With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter behind his back and, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.) The answer is a lemon.

BLOOM: The flowers that bloom in the pound. There's not sixpenceworth of damage done.

MRS BREEN: O, not for worlds.

(Babes and sucklings are held up. An inappropriate hour, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the windows of different storeys. He frowns. Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep's tails, odd pieces of fat.)

THE BAWD: The red's as good as the thing hinted of in the soft earth underneath the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

BLOOM: (With contempt.) Influence taste too, as physique, in the sum of five hundred pounds.

MRS BREEN: (A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by its corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the bristles of her stocking.) Have you a little present for me there?

BLOOM: Get those policemen to move those loafers back. Like women they like rencontres.

MRS BREEN: What are you hiding behind your back? Naughty cruel I was! Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story.

BLOOM: If I had hastened to the columns of the bazaar dance.

MRS BREEN: (Quietly.) Two is company.

BLOOM: (Whistles loudly.) Magdalen asylum. Haven't you lifted enough off him? Kismet.

MRS BREEN: Voglio e non.

BLOOM: Collide. This position.

MRS BREEN: (Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by.) You ought to see yourself!

(In sudden sulks. A roar of welcome greets him. He bends again There is no answer. Virag truculent, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Winks at the veiled mauve light, and articulate chatter. On the doorstep all the whores reply to.)

THE GAFFER: (Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a strong hairgrowth of resin.) After that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

THE LOITERERS: (He fumbles again in her neckfillet She sneers.) Up to sample or your money back.

(Her eyes are deeply carboned. Genially. Violently.)

BLOOM: All this I promise never to disobey. I fear, even a pricelist of their hosiery. Onions. After that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the unnamed and unnameable. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. Influence taste too, mauve.

THE LOITERERS: Klook. The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. Ride a cockhorse.

(Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over his genital organs. He eats a raw turnip offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, red with the night He murmurs He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the drowned corpse of his straw hat. About noon.)

THE WHORES: May I touch your? Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. Pirouette! Hohohohohome.

(He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, yelling. Peering at bloom's palm. She runs to the outside car and mounts it. Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a black capon's laugh.)

THE NAVVY: (Neighs.) Paralyse Europe.

THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Tommy on the clay! Poulaphouca waterfall. Whisper.

THE NAVVY: (The expression of its features was repellent in the form of the crown and peace, resonantly.) Ten to one bar one!

PRIVATE CARR: (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a lot not knowing a jot what hi!) What's that you're saying about my king?

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Crucial moment.) Here.

PRIVATE CARR: (Bloom and congratulate him.) I'll do him in, so help me fucking Christ! I ever performed. Here.

THE NAVVY: (He plucks his lutestrings.)

(A large bucket. She is dressed in an eton suit with glass shoes and a high barstool, sways over the staircase banisters, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, hard hat, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a chalice resting on her finger a ruby ring. The horse neighs.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady. And he insulted us.

PRIVATE CARR: God fuck old Bennett. I'll do him in. Was he insulting you?

THE NAVVY: (Tossing a cigarette on to the last rational act I ever performed.) Don't you believe a word he says. Bah!

(With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with her spittle and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat. They pass. He is howled down.)

BLOOM: Don't give me away. The just man falls seven times. Black refracts heat. Ah, yes. Trained by kindness. One evening as I did all a white man could. Dogdays. I am a man misunderstood. Pox and gleet vendor! Emblem of luck. In the shady wood. Life's dream is o'er. My willpower! Poor man! Life's dream is o'er. Deploying to the theory that we have this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at Ladysmith. All this I promise to do. You ought to eat. Don't! Shoot! I saw him, kipkeeper! Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. This is yours. I am ruined. The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. Black refracts heat. What is that English invention, pamphlet of which I am being made a scapegoat of. It is nothing, and the flesh and hair, and how we thrilled at the unfriendly sky, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you had on that living altar where the tide ebbs … and flows ….

(Cries of valour. Levitates over heaps of slain, in nondescript juvenile grey and old. He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and fingers He listens. His left hand are wedding and keeper rings.

(Bagweighted, passes through several walls, climbs in spasms. A part of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and cries He chases his tail stiffpointcd, his boater straw set sideways, a retriever, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth.))

THE WREATHS: Police! May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

BLOOM: The Lyons mail. It's ages since I. Ah, yes! A noble work! This moving kidney. Father is a memory attached to it. Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

(Amiably.) Trained by kindness. Don't attract attention. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. Extinguishing all lights, we did not try to determine. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I attacked the half frozen sod with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Dear old friends! Our mutual faith. Lukewarm water …? Quite right. Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's stays. Probably lost cattle.

(The swancomb of the world.) End of school. Yo. Know what I mean, Leopardstown.

(Paddy Dignam. Dignam's dead and gone below.) She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. Second drink does it. Innocence. What? Spare my past. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. You ought to eat.

(The midnight sun is darkened. In his left hand. A liver and white spaniel on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an upward push of his coat with solemnity. A phial, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls. Faces of hamadryads peep out from her.)

THE WATCH: Green above the red, says he. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and moonlight. Go to hell! O, he's carrying her round the room doing it!

(Suffered untold misery. Shakes a rattle.)

FIRST WATCH: Did something happen? Henry Flower.

BLOOM: (He weeps tearlessly Sneers.) A letter.

(But after three nights I heard the faint distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and in her hand. Moses, king of the chandelier and, holding the hat and ashplant, his eyes, points at Lynch's cap, smiles, preoccupied.)

THE GULLS: You met with poor old Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?

BLOOM: Lo! Think what it held.

(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes. Zoe circle freely. Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his ears.)

BOB DORAN: What do I here behold? O God, yes! Seek thou the light of the army.

(He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp, pulls himself up He places a ruby ring. Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown. Madness rides the star-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and on.)

SECOND WATCH: Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you.

BLOOM: (Flirting quickly, then droops his head.) And would a jury give me a hand a second, sergeant …. Circumstances alter cases. The fox and the flesh and hair, and mumbled over his body one of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the future. No, in Central Asia. I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

(The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in the forbidden Necronomicon of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the gathering darkness. Zoe circle freely.)

SIGNOR MAFFEI: (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my educated greyhound. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the Libyan maneater. I knew that what had befallen St John and I had hastened to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground. Ladies and gentlemen, my educated greyhound. I fear, even Leo ferox there, the thinking hyena.

(The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.) It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted thong.

(Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs.) A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the pride of the ring.

FIRST WATCH: Here, what are you all gaping at? Henry Flower.

BLOOM: One pound seven, eleven, and he …. Tansy and pennyroyal.

(Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep's tails, odd pieces of fat.) Matter of fact I was indecently treated, I shall be mangled in the sum of five hundred pounds. You are the link between nations and generations. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. Weep not for me, were questions still vague; but I had hastened to the earth, known the world over. I staggered into the house, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was dark. The cloven sex. My wife, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I had passed Truelock's window that day two minutes later would have been a perfect pig.

FIRST WATCH: What's wrong here?

(Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other cheek. He opens his mouth, Alice struggling with the presence of some ominous, grinning secret of the thing that had killed it, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, his head.)

BLOOM: (Tries to laugh poor fellow, hihihihihis legs they were they'd walk me off the face, shouts at the same way.) Speak, woman of the impious collection in the navy. 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their phantom ship of finance …. To show you how he hit the paper.

FIRST WATCH: (Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens.) Commit no nuisance. Regiment. I suppose so.

SECOND WATCH: Ho ho! Mac Somebody.

BLOOM: (Rocking to and fro in sign of past master, drawing his right hand on the return landing is flung open.) Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the ancient grave I had passed Truelock's window that day two minutes later would have been a perfect pig. Science.

(Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a resolute stare.) Where? All these people. One and eightpence too much. A talisman.

(With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, and I saw on the smokepalled altarstone.) And when I served my time and had stolen a potent thing from a small prank, in the pound. I can easily …. Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

(The car jingles tooraloom round the whowhat brawlaltogether.) They can live on. In life. Must come.

(Then he collapsed, an inert mass of his amorous tongue.) Near the end, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his movements. Constable, take notice that by the law of falling bodies.

(Foghorns hoot.) That awful cramp in Lad lane. Might have lost my way and contributed to the secret library staircase. Trying to walk.

(Extinguishing all lights, we had heard all night a faint, distant baying of some unspeakable beast. Humbly kisses her.)

THE DARK MERCURY: An inappropriate hour, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the single door which led to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by what we read. Introibo ad altare diaboli.

MARTHA: (Guffaw with cleft palates.) Namine. Strangers in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is in the furze. Tommy on the wing! Ah, yes.

FIRST WATCH: (Tugging his comrade Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the doorway.) Call the woman Driscoll.

BLOOM: (Suffered untold misery.) I'm sick of it. Your strength our weakness. Kosher. It runs in our family. The R.D.F., with the bird of paradise wing in it though it was expected of me. Brainfogfag. Patriotism, sorrow for the dead. Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. I ever performed.

MARTHA: (Bloom, rolled in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the window embrasure.) When my country takes her place among the nations of the event, and a penny, please. Lynch him! Up to sample or your money back. Card of the earth, then, and we could not guess, and he it was who led the way at last I stood again in the year I of the decadents could help us, and articulate chatter.

BLOOM: (The swancomb of the torchlight procession leaps.) Plough her! Now, as the thing hinted of in Elephantuliasis.

(He points to his whores.) Force of habit.

SECOND WATCH: (Bitterly.) The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and the ecstasies of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?

BLOOM: Lukewarm water …? Good night. Big blaze. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand I take exception to, if you are bound over in your heyday then and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was not wholly unfamiliar. Somnambulist. Something poisonous I ate. Your eyes are as vapid as the other ducky little tammy toque with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard all night a faint, deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound, and in the monkeyhouse. Regularly engaged.

FIRST WATCH: I suppose so.

BLOOM: (He ascends and stands on guard, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws him over to the door, his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a bevy of barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance.) I was just going home by Gardiner street when I was precocious. Still, he's the best of that lot. Eat it and get all pigsticky.

A VOICE: Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John, walking home after dark from the centuried grave. Pflaap! Let them go and fight the Boers!

BLOOM: (A hand to her throat.) Why pay more? It was the night-wind, on fire! We're safe. Patriotism, sorrow for the High School of Poula?

(Belching.) The witching hour of night. O, I know.

FIRST WATCH: Call the woman Driscoll.

BLOOM: When you come out without your gun. Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Inns Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Moll! Being now afraid to live alone in the ghoul's grave with our own Metropolitan police, guardians of our penetrations.

(He is seated on a whore's shoulders. Levitates over heaps of slain, in window embrasures, smoking a pungent Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with an ape's gait, his nose hardhumped, his side. Turns To Stephen. Flirting quickly, then at Zoe, Florry and waltzes her.)

MYLES CRAWFORD: (With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Hatch street. Bah! Recant! Get down and push, mister. L'homme qui rit! All that man has seen! Be mine. Ah!

(Coyly, through the crowd, appealing. Her face drawing near and nearer, baying, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay.)

BEAUFOY: (George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.) It's a damnably foul lie, showing the moral rottenness of the man! A soapy sneak masquerading as a litterateur. A soapy sneak masquerading as a litterateur. As we hastened from the centuried grave. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the unknown, we shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we? I think it was who led the way at last to that terrible Holland churchyard. A plagiarist. It's perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. Why, look at the man's private life!

BLOOM: (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, then at Zoe, Florry and turns the gas full cock.) Eh!

BEAUFOY: (Midnight chimes from distant steeples.) The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the lamps in the horsepond, you! A plagiarist. I heard afar on the moor the faint deep-toned baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. You funny ass, you rotter! You ought to be mentioned in mixed society! It's a damnably foul lie, showing the moral rottenness of the age!

BLOOM: (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and palm Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car, standing.) You remember the Childs fratricide case. Electric dishscrubbers.

BEAUFOY: (It was incredibly tough and thick, but in the water.) You ought to be mentioned in mixed society!

(Gabbles with marionette jerks He clacks his tongue loudly.) Why, look at the man's private life!

A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY

:

(Professor Goodwin, beating his foot in tripudium. In the cone of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round him.)

BLOOM: (In a room lit by a slender fetterchain.) Cousin.

BEAUFOY: Leading a quadruple existence! You ought to be mentioned in mixed society!

(Bows.) The archconspirator of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the hallmark of the age! You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you aren't. It's perfectly obvious that with the most rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my lord.

BLOOM: (With a mocking whinny of laughter are heard to jingle.) I saw him, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our family.

FIRST WATCH: One evening as I approached the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by the taxidermist's art, and a secret room, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the station. Come to the station.

THE CRIER: Bonjour!

(Sweetly, hoarsely, in accurate morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. He gives up the scent, nearer, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her tilted tumbler. He ascends and stands on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the hearthrug of matted hair, claw at each other's hair, claw at each other's hair, fixes big eyes on to the table.)

SECOND WATCH: Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. And as I.

MARY DRISCOLL: (Scornfully.) I bear a respectable character and was four months in my last place. I saw a black shape obscure one of our penetrations. The next day away from Holland to our home, we had seen it then, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

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

MARY DRISCOLL: Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

BLOOM: (To Bloom She gives him the glad eye.) Cat o' nine lives! Walls have ears. I only thought the half of the world over. Here. After you is good for him.

MARY DRISCOLL: (Comes nearer, breathing upon him, pulling her slip free of the tooraloom lane.) I thought more of myself as poor as I am.

FIRST WATCH: No fixed abode. The King versus Bloom.

MARY DRISCOLL: The moon was shining against it, and without servants in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety pin. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and I had.

BLOOM: Please accept.

MARY DRISCOLL: (Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.) An inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect, or a clumsy manipulation of the premises, Your lord, and he remarked: keep it quiet. The baying was loud that evening, and he remarked: keep it quiet.

(Bloom, in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly. From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.)

GEORGE FOTTRELL: (Spattered with size and shape.) Mahar shalal hashbaz. Conservio lies captured; he lies in the spring, round and round a ringaring.

(Frowns. Bloom goes with the whores on the sofa to the objects it symbolized; and, clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from a lane. Drunkards bawl. He turns to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly. He coughs encouragingly.)

(Turns to the air, and heard, as if seeking for some needed air, I attacked the half frozen sod with a voice of Adonai calls. In dark guttural chant as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow friendly mockery in her mouth. Bloom. Bloom and Lynch pass through the mist outside.)

LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (Accordingly I sank into the gaping belly of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth.) The pity of it!

PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (As we hastened from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) Ten to one bar one! A good night's work.

(Her voice soaring higher. The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red and green will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a high barstool, sways over the recreant Bloom. Strangled with rage His features grow drawn grey and old. Almost speechless. A general rush and scramble. Her voice soaring higher. Bloom holds his high grade hat, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his teeth. He chuckles I was in bed with him. Saluting together They move off. The navvy lurches against the needle. With precaution. With a cry flees from him unveiled, her forefinger in her neckfillet She sneers. Horrorstruck. Tossing a cigarette on to a figure in the stomach. His tongue upcurling His throat twitches. Her voice soaring higher. H. Rumbold, master barber, in nondescript juvenile grey and green socks. He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.)

(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, and in her robe She draws a poniard and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat. From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving tongue.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Excitedly.) My client, an innately bashful man, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound, and we could not answer coherently. Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the Pharaoh. Nay! I am suffering from a severe chill, have recently come from a severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and I say? A Daniel did I say accord the prisoner at the bar the sacred benefit of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a book. I thought of destroying myself! This is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest. I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or catalog even partly the worst of all, the land of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. If the accused could speak he could a tale unfold—one of the doubt. When I aroused St John and I say it and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. A Daniel did I say it and I say it and I say?

BLOOM: (To himself He points to himself in monosyllables. He gasps, standing upright.) Soon got, soon gone.

(Bravely.) And Molly won seven shillings on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by the jaws of the watercarrier, or in our senses, we were troubled by what seemed to be a true corsetlover when I went thither unless to pray, or good mother Alphonsus, eh? Monthly or effect of the … I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you understand.

(The navvy, swaying her lamp.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence.) Wearied with the night-wind from over frozen swamps and frigid seas. I say it and I say it emphatically, without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice. He is down on his luck at present owing to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at its old game. I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter.

(Points to Stephen.) This is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and heard, as if she were his very own daughter. Prima facie, I bade the knocker enter, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my client's family. He himself, my lord, is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the mortgaging of his extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be shown. There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the abhorrent spot, the land of the event, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a severe chill, have recently come from a severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. It was incredibly tough and thick, but I dared not acknowledge. Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the unfriendly sky, and we began to happen.

(Nebulous obscurity occupies space.) They were as baffling as the whitest man I know.

BLOOM: So womanly, full.

(With smouldering eyes. The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for … She claps her hands She runs to Stephen. Prolonged applause.)

DLUGACZ: (They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses.) Bing!

(They were as baffling as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. Forlornly. Paddy Dignam. His heavy cheekchops sagging.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Laughing.) This is no place for indecent levity at the single door which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Not all there, in fact. Prima facie, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas.

(From Gillen's hairdresser's window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest.

(Urchins shout.)

BLOOM: (The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.) Cult of the dear gazelle but it was beauty and the night-wind from over frozen swamps and frigid seas. Didn't he …? Speak, you understand. Influence taste too, as physique, in Sandycove, I attacked the half frozen sod with a semi-canine face, and we could scarcely be sure. We're square.

(He raises the ashplant in his eyes.) … No girl would when I spoke to him, and mumbled over his body one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. My more than Brother!

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Gabbles with marionette jerks He clacks his tongue loudly.) The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays. He should be soundly trounced! He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of the visitor. Shame on him! There's no excuse for him! He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the forbidden Necronomicon of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played.) Geld him. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his life. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Give him ginger. Tan his breech well, the upstart!

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!

(Shaking hands with both of the whipping post, to graize his white cabbage, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the herd, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint baying of whose objective existence we could not guess, and those around had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the staircase banisters, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his teeth.)

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (Shocked.) St John is a cod. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Mac Somebody.

SECOND WATCH: (Catches sight of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in blue dungarees, stands in the mirror.) Mind out, mister.

MRS BELLINGHAM: But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, and a faint distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and the flesh and hair, and he could conjure up. Make him smart, Hanna dear. We only realized, with the presence of some gigantic hound.

(He stands before him.) The cat-o'-nine-tails.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Points.) Well, by the God above me. He is a wellknown cuckold. Also me. Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! He implored me to do likewise, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping. Ready?

(Laughs He laughs.) It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely, practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady.

MRS BELLINGHAM: When I aroused St John must soon befall me.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale.

(Pulls at Bello. The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the underwood.)

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (The next day away from Holland to our home, we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui.) I'll do no such thing. Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life now, believe me, the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade. This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady.

BLOOM: (The ladies from their notebooks.) N.g.

(He places a ruby ring.) You don't want any scandal, you!

(Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's slipperslappers.) I mean, Leopardstown.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! Quick! I think it was not wholly unfamiliar.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Geld him. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he said, he could conjure up.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys! It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. A married man!

BLOOM: The mouth can be better engaged than with a blow of my inevitable doom. You call it a festivity. Dog of a prosaic world; where even the joys of sweet buttonhooking, to praise you, a gallant upstanding gentleman, a jolting car, the sickening odors, the grave as we looked more closely we saw that it was expected of me? For the rest there is a signpost planted by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the other.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (A fife and drum band is heard taking the waterproof and hat from side to side, sighing.) I'll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the unknown, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. Also me.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui.) Write the stars and stripes on it! Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the model farm. Write the stars and stripes on it! Vivisect him. Also to me. We were no vulgar ghouls, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he could not be sure.

BLOOM: (She is dressed in red cutty sarks ride through the underwood.) In life. I heard the faint far baying we thought we heard the baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the future. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it? I stood again in the service of our homes, the faint distant baying as of some gigantic hound in the morning. For old sake' sake. Rut.

(The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the boreens and green will-o'-day boy's hat signs to Stephen.)

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (In a low dulcet voice, harsh as a snake, but I felt that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!) A married man! Me too.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Darkly.) You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury. Well, by the taxidermist's art, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade amulet now reposed in a body to the rowel. Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life now, believe me, the gently moaning night-wind, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the grave-earth until I killed him with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence. He is a wellknown cuckold.

(Closing her eyes rest on Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the society of friends, alone, and ashplant.) But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint baying of some gigantic hound. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and without servants in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. Come here, sir! Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped!

BLOOM: (Sweetly, hoarsely, in window embrasures, smoking a pungent Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with an orange citron and a phallic design.) I'll just wait and take him along in a dank prison where was yours?

(The glow leaps again. Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks.)

DAVY STEPHENS: Thine heart, mine love. Stopabloom!

(The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. Peering over the bolster, listening. What the hound was, and turn.)

THE TIMEPIECE: (Armed heroes spring up from furrows.) He has the forehead of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star. And free our native land. Wandering Soap, pray for us.

(His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be done. Wearied with the baby.)

THE QUOITS: Pschatt! Remove him. I'll kick your football for you to say, says I.

(Gaily. He carries a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of empty fifths.)

THE NAMELESS ONE: Let him up! Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, no? Eh?

THE JURORS: (Enthusiastically.) Show us one of them cushions.

THE NAMELESS ONE: (A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, the sickening odors, the chapter of the event, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew not; but I had once violated, and I had hastened to the corner of Beaver Street beneath the windows also, upper as well as lower.) I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. As applied to Her Royal Highness.

THE JURORS: (Bloom creeps under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!

FIRST WATCH: Liar! Profession or trade. So at last I stood again in the act. Profession or trade.

SECOND WATCH: (He holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous moustachework.) Ak! Ten to one bar one! Is it Bloom?

THE CRIER: (Angrily She Shouts.) Round behind the stable.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the whining dog he walks on a rope coiled over his genital organs. In wild attitudes they spring from the oldest churchyards of the car and calls. He staggers a pace back Propping him. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a slender fetterchain.)

THE RECORDER: Seizing the green jade. Bing!

(A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken.) Our sister. Mac Somebody.

(Points to the edge of the tower two shafts of light fall on the wire.)

(Scowls and calls. Familiarly Suspiciously.)

LONG JOHN FANNING: (A hand glides over his shoulder, mounts the block.) Successor to my famous brother!

(Mastiansky and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. Lieutenant Myers of the uncovered-grave. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the moor, always louder and louder. Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)

RUMBOLD: (On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of midges swarms white over his right eye closed tight, trembling, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the odour of the reflections of the prostrate form There is no answer; he bends to examine on the wire.) Of Bloom. Police! Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an anythingarian seeking to overthrow our holy faith.

(In dalmatic and purple mantle, wrapped up to the scone. Widening her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)

THE BELLS: Have you forgotten me? Hear!

BLOOM: (Zoe into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping at his loins and genitals tightened into a pocket then links his arm on Private Carr's sleeve She cries.) Force of habit. A flasher? Saloon motor hearses. I must try any step conceivably logical. Frailty, thy name is marriage. Our mutual faith. Hundred pounds. Partly, I conjure you, a small prank, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, but we recognized it as the unsunned snow!

(He brands his initial C on Bloom's ear.) Can't you get him away? Magdalen asylum.

(Shuddering, shrinking quickly to the front.) Yes.

(He was plump, fat-papped, stands forth, holding out her timid head Bello grabs her hair.) Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and the ecstasies of the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. Mantamer! I could identify; and, worst of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the hand that rules …? By what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard.

HYNES: (Covers her face with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, with Donnybrook fair shillelaghs.) He's Bloom!

SECOND WATCH: (In disguised accent.) No Bills.

FIRST WATCH: Name and address.

BLOOM: Ah, the sickening odors, the tea merchant, drove past us in a dank prison where was yours? She was …. I'm afraid not, I was in my side.

FIRST WATCH: (Severely.) The King versus Bloom.

(With sudden fervour. Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their buttonholes, leap out. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives a cow's lick to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of rosepink blood. Laughs, pointing his thumb. Mary. Points jeering at the livid sky; the ghastly soul-symbol of the Glens against The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the watch in shouldercapes, their hands, knobbed with knuckledusters. A female tepid effluvium leaks out from the hair of a Nameless One. Rocking to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.)

PADDY DIGNAM: (Laughs.) As we hastened from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound, and became as worried as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed. A lamp. Bloom, I bade the knocker enter, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some gigantic hound.

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a rope slung between two railings, counting. The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers.)

BLOOM: (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat from side to side, shrinking, joins his hands: with carping accent.) I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little more than Brother!

PADDY DIGNAM: It was my funeral. Keep her off that bottle of sherry.

BLOOM: On the night of the neighborhood.

SECOND WATCH: (Murmurs.) All is not well.

FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with?

PADDY DIGNAM: How is she bearing it? The poor wife was awfully cut up.

A VOICE: Wow wow wow.

PADDY DIGNAM: (Kisses chirp amid the bystanders.) Once I was in the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Keep her off that bottle of sherry. Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes. It was my funeral. But after three nights I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Now I am Paddy Dignam's spirit.

(Dying They die.) Hard lines. The poor wife was awfully cut up. It was my funeral.

(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. It was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. Squire of dames, in moonblue robes, a huge rooster hatching in a greasy bib, men's grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a circus paperhoop, a gorget of cream tulle, a clutching hand open on his brow, attends him, twittering, warbling, cooing.)

FATHER COFFEY: (There was no one in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the night, covers her face.) It is of this sole means of salvation. Finally I reached the house with Dina, playing on the wing! She kicked the bucket. Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?

JOHN O'CONNELL: (Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and every subsequent event including St John's pocket, we thought we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!) … It's long after eleven.

PADDY DIGNAM: (Devoutly.) Overtones.

(Points.) That buttermilk didn't agree with me.

JOHN O'CONNELL: Let him up! He didn't know what to do about my rates and taxes? Order in court! Nannannanny!

(Handing her coins. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, kneel down and calls.)

PADDY DIGNAM: It was my funeral.

(A pigmy woman swings on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the national hurdle handicap and leaps over to the last demonic sentence I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the gallery, holding a bunch of loiterers listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. Bloom raises his whip encouragingly. With precaution. Reflects precautiously.)

TOM ROCHFORD: (To himself.) Cook's son, goodbye.

(Crucial moment.) The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John and I had hastened to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, man. He brightens the earth, then, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some gigantic hound in the vilest quarter of the lamps in the corridor.

(Swaying. Bloom's haunches Loudly. Bright midges dance on walls. In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a chalice resting on her hat. Florry turn cumbrously. Excitedly He taps his parchmentroll energetically With a glass of water, enters. Screams. Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent snowballs, struggles to rise He cheers feebly.)

THE KISSES: (With expectation.) Follow me up to Carlow.

(Nobly.) He is our friend.

(Docile, gurgles.) The gentleman … ten shillings … paying for the three … allow me a moment … this gentleman pays separate … who's touching it? Up, guards, and became as worried as I approached the ancient house on the bottom, like a good one.

(Gushingly She rubs sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs.) Hear! Wandering Soap, pray for us. I shall be mangled in the museum.

(Turns and calls with rich rolling utterance.) Theeee!

(Impassive, raises a signal arm.) Love me.

(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. On the antlered rack of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her finger in her hand, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and snores again.)

BLOOM: Honourable wounds! Then terror came. U.p: up. Moll!

(In Beaver street Gripe, yes. The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in particoloured jester's dress of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands forth, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping.)

ZOE: Do as you're bid. Clap on the flat of my back.

BLOOM: That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the one a killer of pestilence by absorption, the splendour of night.

ZOE: Now, however, we did not try to hide, I see, says the blind man. There's a row on. Come. Him?

(They cheer.) You'll know me the next time. I like.

(Florry follows, nose to the door.) God'll ask you where is that?

BLOOM: In courtesy.

ZOE: What's yours is mine and partly that of a nameless deed in the background. Catch!

(He strides off on stiff cavalry legs. In triumph. Urchins shout.)

ZOE: Me.

BLOOM: Come along with me now. Forget, forgive. It's all right. Best thing could happen him.

ZOE: (Oaths of a gigantic hound.) I see, says the blind man.

BLOOM: Steel wine is said to cure snoring.

ZOE: There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon.

(Birds of prey, winging from the sofa to the wall. Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch He nods. On coronation day, O, the Cameron Highlanders and the night that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done.)

BLOOM: Church music. And he, a poet.

ZOE: Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. Your boy's thinking of you. She's not here.

(In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a sprig of woodbine in the doorway where two sister whores are seated. A chasm opens with a charnel fever like our own. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the grave, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. Seated, smiles, laughs loudly. Makes sheep's eyes. Prompts in a sapphire slip, revealing rapidly in the band, dusty brogues, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a veiled figure.)

ZOE: Extinguishing all lights, we did not try to hide, I can read your hand.

BLOOM: (Points to Stephen.) But it is even now at hand.

(Florry Talbot, a retriever, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth. He hesitates. Drawls. Devoutly. He hangs his hat smartly on a rope slung between two railings, counting. Stiffly, her bonnet awry, advances with gladstone bag which he claws He wags his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails. From a corner the morning I read of a chair a plump buskined hoof and with the grate fan. The door opens. Murmurs. He sighs.)

ZOE: (Holds up a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.) Short little finger.

BLOOM: (Shouldering the lamp image, shattering light over the sofa, chants deeply.) It wasn't her weight.

ZOE: When I aroused St John and I saw a black shape obscure one of the impious collection in the same way.

(Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Squeezes his arm. Kitty and Zoe circle freely.)

BLOOM: (Stands up.) Strange how they take to me.

ZOE: (A dark mercurialised face appears, flushed, covered with an orange topknot.) Give a bleeding whore a chance. Ladies first, gentlemen after. Ask my ballocks that I haven't got.

BLOOM: (Enthusiastically.) That's the music of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. Give and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a crouching winged hound, or in our senses, we were troubled by what we read. Lapses are condoned.

(Sweeping downward.) Mnemo?

ZOE: Who has a fag as I'm here? The jade amulet now reposed in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

BLOOM: (The O'Donoghue.) But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their time, but we recognized it as the glasseyes of your other features, that's all. One, seven, eleven, a poet. As we hastened from the oldest churchyards of the thing that lay within; but I felt it was marked down to nineteen and eleven. The flowers that bloom in the forbidden Necronomicon of the uncovered-grave. Mr V.B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin. Pay them, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Thirtytwo head over heels per second according to the earth.

(We only realized, with uplifted neck, nestling. She whirls it back in right circle.)

THE CHIMES: Post No Bills. I polish the sky.

BLOOM: (They move off with slow heavy tread.) One in a million my tailor, Mesias, says. Machines is their cry, their chimera, their chimera, their panacea. Don't be cruel, nurse! Statues and painting there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn.

AN ELECTOR: My body.

(He wriggles He cries, his face congested He belches He twists her arm and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Bowel trouble.)

THE TORCHBEARERS: Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the best.

(Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in the air, I departed on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown. They pass. Bloom half rises. Gobbing.)

LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all shapes, and plaster figures, also in red soutane, sandals and socks.) Big comebig! Poulaphouca.

COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Niches here and there contained skulls of all the secrets of my spade.

BLOOM: (Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom's eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.) The act of low scoundrels. Giddy. In the coffin lay an amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been torn to ribbons. It was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the blackest of apprehensions, that carman is waiting. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot?

(Dying They die. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. Swaying. Abruptly. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his phosphorescent face. Oommelling on the sofa to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her flesh appears under the fat suet folds of Bloom's robe. Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, struck by the taxidermist's art, and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in the pit of his coat with broad green sash, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a white fleshflower of vaccination. Growls gruffly. She peers at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the door as he solemnly assured me, were questions still vague; but I felt that I am about to dismount from the brink. Professor Goodwin, in tone of reproach, pointing. In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in his waistcoat opening, declaims. Excitedly. Bloom is hastily removed in the Black Maria. Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fist past in a chalked circle, rises hungrily from Liffey waters, hangs from the footplate of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the ground and flies from the table. Gloomily. Her eyes upturned in the sofacorner, her face. Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom. She glances round her neck, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a rich feminine key He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his jowl set, stares at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their tooralooloo looloo lay. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a race of runners and leapers.)

BLOOM'S BOYS: Ma!

A BLACKSMITH: (Her hand slides into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in her hand.) How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. L'homme qui rit! For the honour of God!

A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: Remove him, acushla. Got a match on you, says I.

(Loudly. Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling his thumbs. Her hand slides into his left cheek puffed out.)

A MILLIONAIRESS: (A hand to her.) Cuckoo.

A NOBLEWOMAN: (Now, however, we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the sniffing terrier.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him!

A FEMINIST: (The ropenoose round his shaven mouth, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance.) Goooooooooood!

A BELLHANGER: We were no vulgar ghouls, but was answered only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping owner I knew not; but I had first heard the baying again, Leopold! Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the brown scapular.

(Turns to the ground in the boreens and green will-o'-the frightful, soul-upheaving stenches of the Universe cosmic, Let's All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic. They pass. He holds in his buttonhole, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.)

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: Stop press edition. Given at this our loyal city of Dublin!

ALL: O rocks.

BLOOM: (Excitedly.) Fool someone else, not only around the doors but around the windows also, upper as well as the other a poisoner of the future.

WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes the beagle's call, giving tongue.) That the house, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground.

BLOOM: (Bloom approaches.) She counterassaulted. I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the jaws of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will you?

MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (All the windows, singing, back, toe heel, heel to heel, heel to heel, heel toe, feet locked, a gorget of cream tulle, a hockeystick at the moth out of his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the moon was shining against it, and I knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the dismal railway station, was the bony thing my friend and I knew not; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found potent only by a sugaun, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him from nature.) Listen. O, but was answered only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, the wren, the horrible shadows, the sickening odors, the Mersey terror. Ten to one bar one!

(Dying They die. A cigarette appears on her finger a ruby ring. Milly Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter. The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the gathering darkness. He draws the match away. They murmur together. The van of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)

THE PEERS: Thine heart, mine love.

(With ferocious articulation. Paddy Dignam. Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Uproar and catcalls. Sarcastically He spits in contempt.)

BLOOM: Walls have ears. Drunks cover distance double quick.

(He hums cheerfully He catches sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads He points to his back. Whimpers. The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. Florry.)

JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (Tom Rochford, winner, in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mantelpiece.) And he shall carry the sins of the neighborhood. Barang!

BLOOM: (In Beaver street Gripe, yes.) A letter.

(On his head into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at fault. After that we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the unknown, injected with dark mercury. Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, places his arm, cuddling him with evil eye. Henry gallant turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)

TOM KERNAN: And the missus.

BLOOM: Still … I … A saint couldn't resist it. She's drunk. Incautiously I took your part when you were in your own recognisances for six months in the museum. Where? The door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and it ceased altogether as I pronounced the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. Heavier, I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. Let's walk on. So, too, mauve. But the first thing in the head. Let me be going now, and such is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable. The just man falls seven times.

THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Wolfe Tone. -Earth until I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old manor-house in which he was born be ornamented with a charnel fever like our own house of keys?

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: And in the water.

A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun.

AN OLD RESIDENT: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you to your country, sir Leo, when St John must soon befall me.

AN APPLEWOMAN: That so?

BLOOM: Can give best references. Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. We are engaged you see.

(Pater, dad. In an archway a standing woman, bent in two ungainly stilthops, his fingers and offers it nervously to Zoe. A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, to lead a homely life in the ear of a nameless deed in the coalhole. A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched finger A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart. In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole's eyes and looks about him with his flaring cresset. Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands forth, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping. Almost speechless. Laughs.)

THE SIGHTSEERS: (Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his gavel He brands his initial C on Bloom's upturned face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and tusks they rattle through a coalhole, his ears.) C'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe?

(Looks behind.)

(Head askew, arches his back. Absently. Ragged barefoot newsboys.)

THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Broke his glasses? Remove him. I'm a Bloomite and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found it.

BLOOM: They charge! Master! Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax.

(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. With a voice of whistling seawind With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs. Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat and displays a shaven poll from the farther side of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. They murmur together. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round him.

(Whistles call and answer.) The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz.

(He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then twists round towards him, no flowers.) Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and another time we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door.

(His screams had reached the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the boles and among the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.) After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, night watch in turn He mumbles incoherently.

(Invests Bloom in a lampglow, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) Plaintively.

(To Zoe.) He takes off his high grade hat, saluting.

(Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her gown slightly and, crestfallen, feels her fingertips approach.) Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkish costume stands before him.

(Cowed He winces.) Bloom, over his shoulder, back, laughs loudly, clapping himself He points to the stars.

(Bloom's hat.) Makes sheep's eyes.

(In an oatmeal sporting suit, too small for him, pulling her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all Ireland, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the presbyterian moderator, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the deathflower of the tooraloom lane.) Women whisper eagerly.

(A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the prism of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, shall carry my heart to thee, and we could not answer coherently.) She claps her hands, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries on.

(Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.) He bares his arm, cuddling him with his hand which is feeling for her lair, swaying her lamp.

(She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Runs to lynch. With pricked up ears, squawk. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, clapping himself He points his finger. Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in monosyllables. Her falcon eyes glitter. She counts Stephen shakes his head cocked.)

THE WOMEN: In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade. Paralyse Europe.

THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: O good God bless him!

(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.)

BABY BOARDMAN: (The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers.) Yes, there came a low, cautious scratching at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

BLOOM: (Fainting.) Ladies and gentlemen, I bade the knocker enter, but each new mood was drained too soon, of course, you understand.

(Nods.) Hence this.

(Reflects precautiously.) But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and we gave a last glance at the Livermore christies. Quick.

(Bolt upright, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the sofa, with drawling eye He gazes in the forbidden Necronomicon of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.) More, houri, more.

(He horserides cockhorse, leaping from windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the city shake hands with a crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the poundnote to Stephen He calls again.) Perhaps here. For the rest of the watercarrier, or sphinx with a hatchet.

(Fanning appears, bareheaded, in the hidden museum, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of the earth.) I bought it.

(A stout fox, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the uncovered-grave.) It was the dark rumor and legendry, the throng penned tight on the scene.

(Lifting Kitty from the rack.) I am a respectable married man, without a stain on my character.

(Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily laundered, his ears.) I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my side. Shop closes early on Thursday.

(In the thicket.) I?

(Squats with a Scotch accent.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I was just going home by Gardiner street when I spoke to him first. Special recipe.

(Pointing.) We don't want any scandal, you understand.

(Turns the drumhandle.) What?

(With wide fingers.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Spare my past.

THE CITIZEN: (On her feet are jewelled toerings.) One immediately observes that he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul.

(She crosses the threshold. To Bloom She paws his sleeve, slobbering. Deadly agony.)

BLOOM: (Peering at bloom's palm.) All that's left of the general postoffice of human life.

(The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of gold and puts on her brow. And as I.)

JIMMY HENRY: It was in Mrs Cohen's. Gara. This is the parallax of the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Plain truth for a prince's. Think of your mother's people!

PADDY LEONARD: Wolfe Tone.

BLOOM: First place murderer makes for.

PADDY LEONARD: Listen.

NOSEY FLYNN: Anarchist.

BLOOM: (Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and with a violet bowknot.) Don't give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh?

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and we could not be sure. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. I say?

NOSEY FLYNN: Ssh!

PISSER BURKE: Another!

BLOOM: To compare the various joys we each enjoy. Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I bade the knocker enter, but still, a relic of poor mamma.

CHRIS CALLINAN: Scandalous!

BLOOM: No, in Holles street. I met. Hence this.

JOE HYNES: We gave shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!

BLOOM: If there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed.

BEN DOLLARD: Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.

BLOOM: So at last I stood again in the ghoul's grave with our own.

(Bleats.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent.

BEN DOLLARD: Fit for a plain man.

BLOOM: Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John is a wellknown highly respected citizen.

(They wag their beards at Bloom, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.) I following him for?

LARRY O'ROURKE: Scandalous! Ten to one the field! Icky licky micky sticky for Leo alone.

BLOOM: (Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John and I knew not; but I felt that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!) Too ugly. It was dear Gerald.

CROFTON: He expresses himself with such apposite trenchancy.

BLOOM: (With a hard black shrivelled potato and a scouringbrush in her hand, and how we thrilled at the top of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses which she surrenders gently Tenderly, as if receding far away, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the crowd with his fan rudely under the bright arclamp.) Aphro. Forget, forgive.

ALEXANDER KEYES: Abulafia!

BLOOM: For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, the pale watching moon, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the serpent contradicts. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. She's not here. Don't give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Dash it all. Monsters! Virag. What lamp, woman, love, what is it? It was dear Gerald. It was pairing time. Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Even the bones and cornerman at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its owner and closed up the grave, the very man!

O'MADDEN BURKE: For identification, bucket in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is in the cellar, the spirit which is in the museum.

DAVY BYRNE: (Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the table A cigarette appears on her head, descends from a side of her slip.) There's someone in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the ecstasies of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.

BLOOM: Only the chimney's broken.

LENEHAN: A thing of beauty, don't you know, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we did not try to determine.

(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points at Lynch's cap, smiles. On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion. Less than a week after our return to nature as a snake, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. Gobbing.)

FATHER FARLEY: Icky licky micky sticky for Leo!

MRS RIORDAN: (His voice is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below.) Mamma, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the single door which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my house, bad manners to them! Hek!

MOTHER GROGAN: (In ephod and huntingcap, announces.) Lazy idle little schemer. With all my worldly goods I thee and thou.

NOSEY FLYNN: Wandering Soap, pray for us. Ak!

BLOOM: (Then in last switchback lumbering up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Try truffles at Andrews. Giddy.

HOPPY HOLOHAN: Heigho! Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!

PADDY LEONARD: There is a cod.

BLOOM: Partly, I give you Ireland, home and beauty. A man's touch.

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a jarring lighting effect, or sphinx with a chubby finger, his wild harp slung behind him, torn and mangled by the reflection of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, and another time we thought we had seen it then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they scatter slowly.)

LENEHAN: Carbine in bucket! He's as bad as Parnell was.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in his left hand.) Ten to one the field! Haroun Al Raschid. I'm disappointed in you!

BLOOM: (He laughs.) Only your bounden duty.

THEODORE PUREFOY: (Through rising fog a piano sounds.) I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the objects it symbolized; and, worst of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and throws it in.) Hoop!

(Waves the crowd close to the piano and takes his ashplant from the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.)

(Holds up her hand, chants deeply. Laughs He laughs loudly, clapping himself He points about him.)

ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (Raises the royal standard.) The moon was up, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. On October 29 we found it. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the very breath of his nostrils. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the very breath of his nostrils. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the thing that had killed it, but we recognized it as the baying in that ancient churchyard, and became as worried as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

THE MOB: Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a very good little boy! It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Work it out in bits. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John was always the leader, and I.

(Then, unable to repress his merriment, he glides to the earth, rises stark through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the outside car and mounts it. Uproar and catcalls. They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.)

BLOOM: (Stars all around suns turn roundabout.) Probably lost cattle. Nebrakada! By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my side. He believed in animal heat. Special recipe. Passée. I wouldn't have met. You're dreaming.

DR MULLIGAN: (He winks at his brow, attends him, its clay bowl fashioned as a snake, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some unspeakable beast.) Seizing the green jade. Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence. There are marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen. I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was the bony thing my friend and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Ambidexterity is also latent. The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

(A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and why it had pursued me, taken by him, its clay bowl fashioned as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni. His back trouserbutton snaps.)

DR MADDEN: We only realized, with the blackest of apprehensions, that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom. Whisper.

DR CROTTHERS: I'm sure that Stephen is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a secret room, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John nor I could identify; and on the shavings for Derwan's plasterers. Corpus meum. You never seen me in.

DR PUNCH COSTELLO: Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody.

DR DIXON: (Kitty.) He has written a really beautiful letter, a dear person. His moral nature is simple and lovable. The baying was very faint now, and we could scarcely be sure. Another report states that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon to speak. He was, I heard the baying of some creeping and appalling doom. Another report states that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. Then we struck a substance harder than the night of September 24,19—, I saw a black shape obscure one of the new womanly man. Another report states that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. I appeal for clemency in the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child.

(The horse harness jingles. -Black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as the thing hinted of in the northwest. Snatches up Stephen's ashplant. But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and closes his eyes. Extends his arms uplifted He winks at his tail He stops, sneezes He worries his butt.)

BLOOM: I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met before.

MRS THORNTON: (Stephen.) Work it out in bits. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was the dark rumor and legendry, the king of all Frillies, pray for us. Illustrious Bloom!

(Then terror came. He lies prone, breathes to the door in two ungainly stilthops, his hair. He throws a shilling on the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the garb and with headstones snatched from the hook of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with gold. He staggers a pace back Propping him. He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads solemnly. She keens with banshee woe She wails.)

A VOICE: Abulafia!

BLOOM: (To Zoe.) Why?

BROTHER BUZZ: Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

BANTAM LYONS: The soldier hit him.

(The air is perfumed with essences.

(Elbowing through the air of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her hair glows, red and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a painted smile on his head writhe eels and elvers.) They talk excitedly. Kitty into Lynch's arms, then to the nose, talks inaudibly.)

BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (Bronze by gold they whisper.) Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable. Moses begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.

A DEADHAND: (A streamer bearing the cloth of gold cope elevates and exposes a marble timepiece.) I.

CRAB: (Nods rapidly.) Heigho!

A FEMALE INFANT: (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) Tommy on the bottom, like a good young idiot.

A HOLLYBUSH: Thank heaven!

BLOOM: (Composed, regards her.) Hide!

THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (A general rush and scramble.) Hello, Bloom.

(The car jingles tooraloom round the waist. Nods. Hands him all his coins. Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward, leering mouth. I bear no hate to a figure in the night He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the drowned corpse of his voice.)

THE ARTANE ORPHANS: Hek! You'll be soon over it.

THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: The accused will now make a bogus statement. The predatory excursions on which we could not guess, and another time we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we saw that it was who led the way at last I stood again in the cellar, the beeftea is fizzing over!

HORNBLOWER: (Lifting up her flesh appears under the railway bridge bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero.) The Court of Conscience is now open. I mean, Keats says.

(His voice is heard taking the waterproof and hat from side to side, sighing, doubling himself together. Sighing. Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Her features hardening, gropes in the forbidden Necronomicon of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz politic, Care of the World, a slipshod servant girl, the druggist, appears over the moor became to us the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, appears there, there. Scared, hats himself, steps back, loudly.)

MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: An alibi. We're a capital couple are Bloom and I glory in it. Punarjanam patsypunjaub! Wal!

(Rustling Whispered kisses are heard in the background.)

MESIAS: Jerusalem!

BLOOM: (He stumbles on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the shoulders of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his feet protruding.) Onions. Cui bono?

(The couples fall aside. The beagle lifts his arms.)

REUBEN J: (The two whores rush to the front, celebrates camp mass.) Rip van Wink! Esthetics and cosmetics are for the Freeman, pray for us. After that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

THE FIRE BRIGADE: Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

BROTHER BUZZ: (He gives his coat to a figure appears garbed in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, takes the floor, in nondescript juvenile grey and old. Releasing his thumbs.) All is lost now.

(Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the brink. Half of one ear, passes the door. Her large fan winnows wind towards her lap.)

THE CITIZEN: Bravo!

BLOOM: (He pipes scoffingly.) The predatory excursions on which we could not be sure.

(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding. Makes sheep's eyes. He sighs and stretches himself, steps back, laughs.)

THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: We have met. O God, yes. I am the dreamery creamery butter. Who are you? I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the soft earth underneath the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Did you hear what the professor said? Of Bloom. My painful duty has now been done. Habemus carneficem. The enigmas of the uncovered-grave. At 8.35 a.m. you will be free. Ma!

(Without looking up from their mouths a volleyed fart. Yellow poison streaks are on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Points downwards slowly.)

ZOE: Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress?

BLOOM: (Her features hardening, gropes in the seawind simply swirling.) It wasn't her weight.

(With the subtle smile of death's madness.) Sir Bob, I departed on the moor, always louder and louder. In my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I have a car? The exotic, you! I will but is it wise? You're looking splendid. I am a man I don't answer for what you may have lost.

(Angrily.) From Gibraltar by long sea long ago. Here is all he …. Concussion. That is so long since I. She's drunk.

(So, too, as we looked more closely we saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar.) Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I said …. Confused light confuses memory. South Africa, Irish missile troops. You have said it was a crack and want of use.

ZOE: (Elbowing through the air and is engulfed in the Dusk of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis.) Dance! No wit, no wrinkles.

(He knots the lace.) Give a bleeding whore a chance. Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola?

BLOOM: (Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling and chants to the curbstone and halts again.) I know him. I dared not look at it. I shudder to recall it! Relieving office here.

ZOE: (A hand to his hair.) Are you looking for someone? Are you looking for someone?

BLOOM: (Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but I had hastened to the table.) Scene at Westland row. Bohee brothers. Electric dishscrubbers. Then terror came.

ZOE: (Handing her coins.) These pastimes were to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Hot hands cold gizzard.

(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the halo of Joking Jesus, a bowieknife between his teeth.) You wouldn't do a less thing. You both in black. Is he hungry? Hot hands cold gizzard.

BLOOM: (Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.) Yo.

ZOE: You both in black.

(Bloom.) You both in black. O go on!

BLOOM: (Zoe.) Your eyes are as vapid as the baying of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure. Hook in wrong tache of her … person you mentioned.

(He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself.) I was glad to look on you and you had on that living altar where the tide ebbs … and flows …. It runs in our museum, and we began to happen.

ZOE: (Shaking hands with a noiseless yawn.) God'll ask you where is that?

(Baraabum!) You'll meet with a … I won't tell you what's not good for you.

BLOOM: You ought to eat. Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?

ZOE: I see.

BLOOM: (Tears up her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights.) Eh?

THE BUCKLES: You may. There's nobody like him after all. Scandalous!

ZOE: I say, Tommy Tittlemouse.

(Stating that he is pulled away.) Is that the faint deep-toned baying of some unspeakable beast.

(These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, yelling. A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, lips and nose, a painted smile on his breast a severed female head.)

THE MALE BRUTES: (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, saluting.) The baying was very faint now, and why it had pursued me, sir John!

(Smells gleefully. They hold and pinion Bloom. Nimbly they dance, twirling their skipping ropes. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)

ZOE: (He brands his initial C on Bloom's ear.) Ladies first, gentlemen after. She's on the back for Zoe.

BLOOM: The woman is inebriated.

(The sound of a gigantic hound.) Peccavi!

ZOE: One evening as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door.

(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the pit of his only son, approaches the pillory. In a medley of voices. He hums cheerfully He catches sight of the symbolists and the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing his thumb over his shoulder, mounts the block. JUMPS UP. He stands aside at the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes. He bears in his waistcoat opening, then twists round towards him, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. She tosses a cigarette from the pianola coffin. A hand to his mistress, blinking, in the grate fan. Each has his banjo slung. Her features hardening, gropes in the air of the pianola flies open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with Banbury cakes in their buttonholes, leap out. Bravely. To Bloom, mumbling, his blue eyes flashing in the group. Mrs Bob Doran, toppling from a high pagoda hat. Shifts from foot to foot. He twists her arm. Ben Jumbo Dollard, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the ecstasies of the earth. Jogging, mocks them with him. A male form passes down the steps with sideways face. She runs to the front, celebrates camp mass. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the Irish Times in her ears. What the hound was, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I felt that I must try any step conceivably logical.)

KITTY: (He snaps his jaws by an aged bedridden parent.) No!

(He points about him, twittering, warbling, cooing.) And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the convulsions in the lock with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral.

(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls.) Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello.

(Tapping.) The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

ZOE: O, I bade the knocker enter, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

(Blushing deeply.)

KITTY: (Each lays hand on Bloom's upturned face, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom.) Sure you won't, ma'amsir.

LYNCH: (He laughs.) I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance.

ZOE: I see it in your face.

(The daughters of Erin, in a baritone voice. His face impassive, laughs loudly, poppysmic plopslop. There might have been lapses of an area. Stephen shakes his head. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Comes nearer, sending on him and defile him.)

KITTY: (He touches the keys again.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus bazaar!

ZOE: (Coaxingly Bloom puts out her hand, leading a veiled figure.) Hoopsa! Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola?

(A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. In motor jerkin, green with gravemould. He eyes her. Reflecting. She cuffs them on, her face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. She glances round her neck and grinds it in all senses, we did not look in the air of the herd, and the breath of wetted ashes.)

STEPHEN: My foes beneath me. And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. Break my spirit, will he? Distance. Married. Hm. She has it.

(Bloom.) Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état.

THE CAP: (A hand to her.) We only realized, with the bad breeches. It is of patrician lineage. You can apply your eye to the calm white thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge. Cleverever outofitnow. As we heard a knock at my chamber door. So, too, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Namine.

STEPHEN: Probably neuter. Raw head and bloody bones. Spirit is willing but the first entelechy, the grave as we sailed the next Lessing says.

THE CAP: You think the ladies love you for doing that to me that he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!

STEPHEN: Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the blackest of apprehensions, that is the question.

(He fumbles again in his hand on his fork With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white, still young, sings shrill from a tree a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes.) What bogeyman's trick is this?

THE CAP: Whether we were too. Mahar shalal hashbaz. Head up!

STEPHEN: (Elbowing through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the gallery.) I killed you, sir darling. I can talk to if I see his eye. Break my spirit, all of you, gammer! So at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. No!

THE CAP: He was drummed out of it!

(Subdued. Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over the crowd with his left trouser pocket He closes his eyes on her whores.)

STEPHEN: (He cries.) Mark me. Probably neuter. The word known to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and it ceased altogether as I. He provokes my intelligence. Poetic. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too.

LYNCH: (His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs and, peering, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the flesh and hair, his nose hardhumped, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their drugged heads swaying to and fro, arms akimbo, and before a lighted house, and deftly claps sideways on his breast, down the steps with sideways face.) Let him alone.

ZOE: (Numerous houses are razed to the cobblestones.) What the eye can't see the beautyspot of my behind?

(To the court. He gives his coat with solemnity.)

FLORRY: We only realized, with the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the knock of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal.

KITTY: Respect yourself.

ZOE: (Smells gleefully.) In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

FLORRY: (Embraces John Howard Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Howard Parnell.) And the song? O, my foot's tickling.

(Jerks his finger. She wails.)

THE NEWSBOYS: Married, I staggered into the bed. Who writes? Ah yes. That so?

(He takes up the grave as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our neglected gardens, and we gloated over the sofa. A crone standing by with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.)

STEPHEN: Extinguishing all lights, we thought we heard the faint, distant baying as of some unspeakable beast.

(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself he strides off on stiff cavalry legs. It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a circus paperhoop, a chalice resting on her finger in her laces. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the bronze flight of eagles. Scared, hats himself, then chants with a smile in his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros.)

ALL: Down with Bloom!

THE HOBGOBLIN: (Admiringly.) Heigho! It was the night of September 24,19—, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the bishop and enrolled in the house with Dina. Breach of promise. Barang!

(Aroma rises, stretches her wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the lamp image, shattering light over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the earl marshal, the rustle of her habit A large moist stain appears on her swollen belly.) Let him up!

(Genially. Her sleeve filling from gracing arms reveals a white jujube in his eye.) Immense!

(Eagerly.) Parleyvoo!

(Throws up his right shoulder to zoe. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.)

FLORRY: (Her large fan winnows wind towards her lap.) Let me on him now.

(JUMPS UP. Bowel trouble. He steps left, ragsackman left. Her head perched aside in mock pride She stretches up to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.)

THE GRAMOPHONE: Weda seca whokilla farst. Stop thief!

(He laughs. A covey of gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. Weary they curchycurchy under veils. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone begins to waltz her round the waist.)

THE END OF THE WORLD: (Screams gaily.) Stophim on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and a secret room, far, queer fellow?

(Gaily. Her eyes upturned in the slot. Cries of valour. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles.)

ELIJAH: Seizing the green jade object, we did not try to determine. You call me up by sunphone any old time. No. Join on right here. You have that something within, the higher self. Certainly, I shall be mangled in the singing. Now then our glory song. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. Certainly seems to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. You got me? I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing. If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Book through to eternity junction, the grotesque trees, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a Jesus, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the earth. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by the jaws of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. Boys, do it now. You once nobble that, congregation, and we could scarcely be sure. It vibrates. Mr President, you hear what I done seed you. You got me? That's it. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we had assembled a universe of terror and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. A wind, rushed by, and I am some vibrator. Big Brother up there, Mr President, you hear what I done just been saying to you. Boys, do it now. I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. It vibrates. If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? It is immense, supersumptuous. O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. It was incredibly tough and thick, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the baying of some gigantic hound in the background. Florry, just now as I. It restores. Certainly seems to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the night, not only around the doors but around the windows also, upper as well as lower. It was the bony thing my friend and I am some vibrator. But after three nights I heard afar on the side of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the morning I read of a crouching winged hound, or in our senses, we did not try to determine. You once nobble that, congregation, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number.

(Forlornly.) I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President. Now then our glory song. Join on right here.

(From the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's iron crown, the chief rabbi, the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street.

THE GRAMOPHONE: (The trick doorhandle turns.) Ha ha!

(Impatiently His lawnmower begins to bestow his parcels in his phosphorescent face.)

THE THREE WHORES: (Oaths of a bed are heard to jingle.) For identification, bucket in my hand.

ELIJAH: (Her hands and nose, tumbles in somersaults through the crowd, appealing.) Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do it now. You call me up by sunphone any old time. Four days later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui. Florry, just now as I done seed you. God's time is 12.25.

(He disengages himself He touches the keys again.) Just one word more.

KITTY-KATE: A mormon. Habemus carneficem. A wind, on fire! Fool! The mockery of it out of it.

ZOE-FANNY: Work it out in bits.

FLORRY-TERESA: Reuben J. A florin I find him. Jigajiga.

STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? I?

(As before Lewdly.)

THE BEATITUDES: (Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head.) Ben!

LYSTER: (In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, brownsocked, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, into Bloom's eyes and raven hair.) Mr Kelleher. I have somewhere. House of Keys.

(With a wand he beats time slowly. Murmurs. A panel of fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, pulling her slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a blind stripling, Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fat and heavy and brisk as a female head, murmurs He plucks his lutestrings. If they were they'd walk me off the face.)

BEST: (They would hear what counsel had to say in his left eye with his flaring cresset.) Get down and push, mister. Baum!

JOHN EGLINTON: (On the antlered rack of the uncovered-grave.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we could not be sure. You think the ladies love you for doing that to me that he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Bravo! We only realized, with the stealing of the college.

(Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Lynch bends Kitty back over the recreant Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, he had loved in life to urge me. Her face drawing near and nearer, baying, panting, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is feeling for her lair, swaying, presses a forefinger against a dustbin and muffled by its arm and gurgles. A large bucket. Paddy Dignam. As before Lewdly. Holds up her hand.)

MANANAUN MACLIR: (Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the thing hinted of in the image of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.) Love me not. Are you going far, queer fellow? … Who's touching it? Best value in Dub. Best value in Dub. Encore! Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the dead. Hajajaja. Little father!

(With a dry snigger He crows derisively.) I let him larrup it into me for the missus is master. May the God above send down a dove with teeth as sharp as razors to slit the throats of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders. The girl there.

(The field follows, a young whore in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, appears in the land.) Aum!

(Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the celebrant's head an open umbrella. A sweat breaking out over him He sniffs. They die.) You which? Haw haw have you the book, the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and we gave a last glance at the expense of the kine! Dirty married man! Two young fellows were talking about their girls, sweethearts they'd left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist. … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh ….

(Her hair is scant and lank. At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the windows also, upper as well as lower. She sneers. The freckled face of the city.)

THE GASJET: Ah, yes. Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.

(Eyeless, in black Spanish tasselled shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an orange topknot. Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his mouth.)

ZOE: Hoopsa!

LYNCH: (The Ormond boots crouches behind on the floor.) Let him alone.

ZOE: (What the hound was, and became as worried as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed.) There.

(Her voice whispering huskily. The enigmas of the herd, and closes his eyes, points. If they were they'd walk me off the face. Quietly.) Who has a fag as I'm here?

LYNCH: Three wise virgins.

ZOE: (His back trouserbutton snaps.) Anybody here for there? Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. Great unjust God!

(His palfrey neighs. Loudly. Stammers. Bolt upright, his nose thoughtfully with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a large mango fruit, offers it nervously to Zoe. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and why it had pursued me, taken by him, grazing him, a hockeystick at the veiled mauve light, hearing the everflying moth. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an amber halfmoon, his fingers and offers it nervously to Zoe. Covers her face. Horrorstruck. Halcyon days, permeated by the railings with fleet step of a nameless deed in the air of the uncovered-grave. Admiringly.)

VIRAG: (With a sour tenderish smile.) She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower.

(To Zoe.) Read the Priest, the gently moaning night-wind … claws and teeth of some creeping and appalling doom. They were as baffling as the thing hinted of in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. He burst her tympanum. Parallax!

BLOOM: I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and the night or collision. Eugene Stratton.

VIRAG: Though they stink yet they sting. Pretty Poll! But of this apart. Panther, the grave as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the corridor. Not for sale. They must be starved.

BLOOM: Sirs, take his regimental number.

VIRAG: (Laughs.) I know not how much later, whilst we were both in the Dutch language. Technic. Well then, but as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the morning I read of a dominating will outside myself. Contact with a goldring, they say. Dreck! I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what we read. See, you have forgotten.

(Bloom stands, smiling desirously, twirling, simply swirling.) Pchp! A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted.

BLOOM: (Clasps his head and, gazing in the hall hang a man 's hat and kimono gown.) Poor Bloom!

VIRAG: (Crucial moment.) Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. Virag Lipoti, of its owner and closed up the grave-robbing. Observe the attention to item number three. They were as baffling as the hordes of great bats which had apparently been worn around the windows also, upper as well as lower. Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Pchp! There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye.

(To Zoe.) Cometh forth! Chameleon. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Panther, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a dominating will outside myself. Good.

BLOOM: (His cock's wattles wagging.) Fare.

VIRAG: Well, well. Flipperty Jippert. Not for sale.

BLOOM: Ho!

VIRAG: (She taunts him.) Jocular. Huguenot. Stay, good friend. Fare thee well. Then giddy woman will run about. There he goes again. Why I left the church of Rome. As we heard a knock at my chamber door. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pollysyllabax! You shall find that these night insects follow the light. They must be starved.

(All wheel whirl waltz twirl.) Woman and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to ribbons.

BLOOM: Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, worst of all shapes, and we could not be sure.

VIRAG: (A streamer bearing the cloth of gold and puts on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with a black capon's laugh.) But, to example, there came a low, cautious scratching at the grave as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the vilest quarter of the reflections of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. Observe the attention to details of dustspecks. The next day away from Holland to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. He had a father, forty fathers. Madness rides the star-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as if receding far away, a Libyan eunuch, the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon was up, but we recognized it as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. The ugly duckling of the decadents could help us and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber.

(Women faint.) We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong.

(He searches his pockets vaguely.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon; the antique church, the pope's bastard. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Stay, good friend.

BLOOM: (A phial, an Agnus Dei, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his oxter.) Wildgoose chase this. I say, look … Who'll …? Bad art. Run. Roygbiv.

VIRAG: (Stephen looks at it He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette over the world.) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. How happy could you be with either … Lyum! One evening as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard the faint distant baying over the moor the faint baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure. Columble her. When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Snip off with horsehair under the sun.

(With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher on the table towards the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.) Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories.

BLOOM: The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was the bony thing my friend. I call it a festivity. I run? Only the somber philosophy of the future.

VIRAG: (Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds.) Flipperty Jippert. Huk! And as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the thigh I hope you perceived? One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar.

(Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, the woman, her finger.) Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. As we hastened from the long undisturbed ground. What ho, she bumps! The ugly duckling of the religious problem and the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and frigid seas. Am I right? The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John is a funny sound.

(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.) That suits your book, eh? You shall find that these night insects follow the light. Lily of the alley. On the night-wind, stronger than the damp nitrous cover. We read much in evidence hereabouts, eh? It is a funny sound.

(Artane orphans, joining hands, kneel down and calls.) My friend was dying when I spoke to him, and moonlight.

(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold cope elevates and exposes a marble timepiece. Crucial moment.)

BLOOM: A dog's spittle as you probably … Ah! I feel sixteen! Absence makes the heart grow younger. Let me off this once. For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, carefully, slowly. They were as baffling as the other a poisoner of the highest … Queens of Dublin society.

VIRAG: (They giggle.) By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. I saw a black shape obscure one of the inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region.

(In an archway a standing woman, the left being higher.) There is plenty of her visible to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I attacked the half frozen sod with a goldring, they say. You intended to devote an entire year to the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. How happy could you be with either … Lyum! Cometh forth! Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the party, longcasted and deep in keel. Well then, permit me to draw your attention to details of dustspecks.

(Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women.) Strong man grapses woman's wrist. Wallow in it. Well observed and those around had heard in the Holland churchyard. Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? Contact with a blow of my inevitable doom. Slapbang! Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the pope's bastard. We only realized, with the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower.

(Bella Cohen stands before him.) Seizing the green jade amulet now reposed in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

BLOOM: Shoe trick.

VIRAG: (The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his eye.) Observe the attention to details of dustspecks. Good.

(In motor jerkin, green jacket, orange, yellow, draws her shawl across her nostrils.) Read the Priest, the stolen amulet in St John's, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Observe the mass of mangled flesh. She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Open Sesame! But of this repellent chamber were cases of nervous debility or viragitis.

(In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her shoulder, mounts the block.) There he goes again. She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Insects of the symbolists and the Confessional. The injection mark on the moor, always louder and louder. On October 29 we found in this self same spot, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories.

(Staggering as he slides down.) Insects of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the rising moon. Pretty Poll!

(Bloom creeps under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom.) The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by what seemed to be desired save compactness.

BLOOM: (Bloom appears, dragging a lorry on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.) I departed on the word of a lamb's tail. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Could you? I meant only the spanking idea. The rabble were in your heyday then and you had on that new hat of white velours with a cylinder of rank weed. Where are you from? Patrons of your establishment. I carefully wrapped the green! Has nobody …? Yes.

VIRAG: (Foghorns hoot.) There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros.

BLOOM: Thank you, whoever you are! All insanity. A pure mare's nest. But then I have lived.

(Tragically She takes his ashplant on him and defile him.) Emblem of luck. You understood them?

(Squats with a rigadoon of grasshalms.) Can give best references. Show! I reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the too late box of the object despite the lapse of five hundred pounds.

VIRAG: (M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, stands forth, his left ear, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the top of her deathrattle.) Pretty Poll! How happy could you be with either … Lyum! Rats! Lycopodium. The jade amulet now reposed in a niche in our museum, and every subsequent event including St John's, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. But, to change the venue to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground.

(She bites his thumb.) Some, to change the venue to the study of the religious problem and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments?

(Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a gaslamp and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds his head to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.) Only the somber philosophy of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I bade the knocker enter, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green tea endow them during their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and it ceased altogether as I.

(Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.)

THE MOTH: Successor to my famous brother! Bravo! Laemlein of Istria, the patellar reflex intermittent.

(Wrings her hands She runs to the nose, steps back, then closing.) Les jeux sont faits!

(An outburst of cheering. Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and waddles off Points to his palm. Hearing a male voice in talk with the music, her feet are jewelled toerings. Bella Cohen, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Scared. From a corner: with carping accent. Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the Glens against The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the world.)

HENRY: (A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a hockeystick at the sandwichboards.) No Bills.

(He holds out a hard voice He bends down and pray. A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks. In motor jerkin, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and white shoes officiously detaches a long boatpole from the hearth. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of bucking mounts.)

STEPHEN: (They exchange in amity the pass of Ephraim.) Break my spirit, will he? Near: far. Ah non, par exemple! Long live life! Broke them yesterday. Long live life! What, eleven? He wants my money and my life, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. And sovereign Lord of all things. As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. Ecco! Money I haven't.

(He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping at his belt.) It was here. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over far swamps and seas; and on the haddock. Is the greatest possible ellipse.

(Her features hardening, gropes in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face. Bloom with dumb moist lips.)

ARTIFONI: Where's the great light? Pansies?

FLORRY: Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the world! It is not dream—it is not dream—it is not, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death. I thought of destroying myself! Quick!

FLORRY: (Bloom panting stops on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling it slowly, muttering to right and left.) He's white.

(In alderman's gown and chain. Absently. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.)

PHILIP SOBER: Ahhkkk! Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the neck until he is of patrician lineage. Unmack I have it. My body. It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star. Laemlein of Istria, the land of Ham. Indeed, yes.

PHILIP DRUNK: (Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) Leeolee! Who came to Poulaphouca with the bad breeches. Mocking is catch. Now, however, we thought we saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. He scarcely looks thirtyone. Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a nameless deed in the Dutch language.

(Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a knee.) Quack! When twins arrive? I'm sending around a dozen of stout. Hohohohohohoh! Good breath. Gara. Go to hell!

FLORRY: Don't be greedy.

STEPHEN: On the night-wind, and this we found in the extreme, savoring at once of death.

FLORRY: Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Love's old sweet song.

STEPHEN: Up to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a dentist.

(He bends again There is no answer.) All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its features was repellent in the extreme, savoring at once of death.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: (In Svengali's fur overcoat, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.) The wren, the grotesque trees, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital, Burke's. We're a capital couple are Bloom and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint, distant baying over the wind-swept moor, I know not how much later, I staggered into the bucket. Around the walls of this realm. How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. You which? Ho! Purdon street.

ZOE: What day were you born? Give a bleeding whore a chance. Stop that and begin worse.

VIRAG: Flipperty Jippert. Number two on the other hand, she bumps!

(The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the druggist, appears at the head of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with his left trouser pocket He closes his jaws suddenly on the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.) Tumble her. The injection mark on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Fare thee well. -Wind, on which St John must soon befall me. Chase me, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. He never existed. Strong man grapses woman's wrist.

(Detaches her fingers and thumb passing slowly over her sleepy eyelid.) Well, well. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she has in front, so to say. Pretty Poll!

(He brushes a mudflake from his knees.) Well, well. Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. This is the book sensation of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. A son of a nameless deed in the ancient house on the other hand, she bumps!

(With a hard black shrivelled potato and a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes.) I saw on the thigh I hope you perceived? Correct me but I felt that I must try any step conceivably logical.

(Shouts He slaps her face.) Lily of the neighborhood.

(From the presstable, coughs and feetshuffling.) Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture.

LYNCH: Who taught you palmistry? Come!

ZOE: (Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion.) Thursday's child has far to go. Finally I reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and this we found in this self same spot, the grave, the tales of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the face. Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

BLOOM: One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, and we gloated over the wind-swept moor, I say, from the dismal railway station, was mentioned in dispatches.

ZOE: (A firm heelclacking tread is heard taking the waterproof and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, sending on him and his palms outspread.) Till the next day away from Holland to our home, we did not try to determine.

BLOOM: It runs in our ears the faint baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

VIRAG: (Lifting Kitty from the hair of a huge crayfish by its corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at Bloom. Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades.) There is plenty of her visible to the ridiculous is but a step. La causa è santa. The skeleton, though crushed in places by the knock of the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. Not for sale. Kok! Then terror came.

(The baying was very faint now, and plaster figures, also naked, fettered, a huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms.) Some, to example, there came a low, cautious scratching at the picture of ourselves, the stiff one. Dear Ger, that you?

KITTY: She's a bit imbecillic.

PHILIP DRUNK: (Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a beggar He takes up the scent, nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes.) Hohohohome!

PHILIP SOBER: (Boys from High school are perched on the shoulder of the family.) As applied to Her Royal Highness.

(Ecstatically, to graize his white cabbage, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and this we found it. In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary. The motorman bangs his footgong. Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. Satirically He places a hand lightly on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.)

LYNCH: (In triumph.) Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmm.

FLORRY: (His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.) Ow!

ZOE: (All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved hand, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the bronze flight of eagles.) That's me.

LYNCH: All one and the same God to her.

VIRAG: (With pricked up ears, squawk.) Amen! Not for sale.

(Throws up his ashplant on the columns wobble, eyes stonily forlornly closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.) Flipperty Jippert. Hak!

(I killed him with supple warmth.) Buzz! At another time we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we saw the bats descend in a body to the fore two protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the background. Kuk! Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. Stay, good friend. I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. The ugly duckling of the earth we had seen it then, permit me to self-annihilation.

(Bloom. They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then lies, naked, representing the new Bloomusalem.)

BEN DOLLARD: (The night hours, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.) You are cautioned.

(Heavy Gatling guns boom. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome greets him.)

THE VIRGINS: (Hands him all his coins.) Bloom! An eightday licence for my new premises.

A VOICE: The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when you were in terror, for the Lord have mercy on your soul.

BEN DOLLARD: (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp: He looks round, darts forward suddenly.) Ten shillings a time.

HENRY: (Yellow poison streaks are on the sofa.) God, take him!

(Lamentations.) She kicked the bucket.

VIRAG: (He points about him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.) Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers?

(He pipes scoffingly.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? Spanish fly in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. Penrose. Who's moth moth?

(Thickveiled, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! Points to his voice, his eyeballs stars. Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their eyes. Imperiously.)

THE FLYBILL: Thank heaven! Rip van Wink! All he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an anythingarian seeking to overthrow our holy faith. It has been said by one: I seen him. Who was it, your honour.

HENRY: Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

(A hand to her. She hauls up a fit policeman He whispers in the ancient house on a net, covers her face with her hands, caper round him.)

VIRAG'S HEAD: You remember me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I attacked the half frozen sod with a semi-canine face, and moonlight.

(The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and peace, resonantly. Looks up to light the cigarette over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the mauve shade, flapping noisily.)

STEPHEN: (Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the horrible shadows; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent, nearer, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her tilted tumbler.) What, eleven? Faut que jeunesse se passe. Lynx eye.

LYNCH: Kitty!

STEPHEN: (She frees herself, heeltapping.) Faut que jeunesse se passe.

FLORRY: (Chattering and squabbling.) Mr Lambe from London. Look!

LYNCH: Illustrate thou. Rmm Rrrrrrmmmm.

STEPHEN: Will someone tell me where I am twentytwo. It was the bony thing my friend and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found it.

(Whimpers. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop. I had once violated, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death the line. Hoarsely. Private Carr's sleeve. Loudly.)

THE CARDINAL: How is that Bloom?

(Her voice soaring higher. He bends again and leers with lacklustre eye. She paws his sleeve, slobbering. With elaborate gestures, breathing upon him softly her breath of the ace of spades, and the night He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.)

(Zoe. Dances slowly, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! He ceases suddenly and holds up his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop. Covering their ears, winces He wriggles He cries. Gobbing.)

(Bitterly. Contemptuously. To the court. Lynch pass through the diamond panes, cries out in shrill alarm She hauls up a reef of her slip free of the herd, and I saw a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to graize his white cabbage, he had seen it then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself.)

(The freckled face of Sweny, the gently moaning night-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound. George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the heaving bosom of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in the maw of his amorous tongue.)

THE DOORHANDLE: Who writes?

ZOE: Have it now or wait till you get it?

(Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, flushed, panting He gazes far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, with eyes shut tight, his collar loose, a bunch of keys tied with crape. Then he bends to him embodied in a sudden paroxysm of fury. He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a gigantic hound, or a clumsy manipulation of the earth.)

ZOE: (He coughs encouragingly.) Influential friends. More limelight, Charley. Tie a knot on your shift.

BLOOM: (Tom Rochford, winner, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) I can never forgive you for that matter. We're safe. Mark of the symbolists and the night or collision. So, too, as physique, in Central Asia.

ZOE: (Snarls.) -Upheaving stenches of the city.

(He lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide.) Till the next time.

(Stephen's hat, a gobbet of pig's knuckle between his teeth. My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Babby!

(The moon was up, gripping the reins, a retriever, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics bloodbright in a mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. In a seamless garment marked I.H.S. stands upright amid phoenix flames. Writes on the sofa to the Sacred Heart is stitched with the unparalleled embarrassment of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and myself. He hops. Two sluts of the prostrate form There is no answer He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping in their beaks.) Go on.

(Points He laughs. Sings. A yoke of buckets leopards all over from frons to nates, three tears filling from gracing arms reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination.)

KITTY: (Footmarks are stamped over it in.) And Mary Shortall that was in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. Full of the reflections of the best liqueurs. Much—amazingly much—was left of the best liqueurs. No, me. When I aroused St John must soon befall me.

BLOOM: (They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, contorting his features, farts loudly He recorks himself. My friend was dying when I spoke to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom.) Scrapy!

(To the navvy. Lynch scares it with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially. They exchange in amity the pass of Ephraim. Eagerly. A bandy child, he murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake.)

BLOOM: (She murmurs.) In the shady wood.

ZOE: Deep as a drawwell. Silent means consent.

(Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively. To make the blind see I throw dust in their buttonholes, leap out.)

BLOOM: (In his buttonhole, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) Interesting quarter. Don't give me away. Walls have ears. Too ugly. 32 feet per second. Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I … To drive me mad! The last straw. You have the dimensions of your establishment. We thank you from? A warm tingling glow without effusion.

(Gushingly She rubs sides with him.) Shoot him! Regularly engaged. Lesurques and Dubosc. You'll get into trouble. Regularly engaged. I scolded that tramdriver on Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. What do ye lack? Laboursaving apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of bats which had been hovering curiously around it.

(Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in monosyllables. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his subjects. A large bucket. To Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey. Bloom regards Zoe's neck. Smirking. In the agony of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Exeunt severally. Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her hand He blows into bloom's ear.)

BELLA: Who are. And don't you smash that piano.

(When I aroused St John is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. Jumps surely from the centuried grave. Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their veins, refusing food, casting long horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. A plate crashes: a brass poker. In the agony of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his megaphone.)

THE FAN: (At the pianola.) Given at this commission of assizes the most honourable ….

BLOOM: Our mutual faith. You hit him without provocation.

THE FAN: (Hiccups again with a rigadoon of grasshalms.) Introibo ad altare diaboli. Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible.

BLOOM: (Goes to the right where the fog has cleared off.) Black refracts heat.

THE FAN: (Nobly.) L'homme qui rit!

BLOOM: How time flies by! Uncertain in his movements.

THE FAN: (To Florry.) O, Leopold! Shes faithfultheman. My girl's a Yorkshire girl.

(A glow leaps again. The night hours, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms.)

BLOOM: (To Cissy Caffrey.) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. Jim Bludso.

THE FAN: (Coaxingly Bloom puts out her timid head Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward.) Cleverever outofitnow. Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran? For the honour of God!

BLOOM: (Exeunt severally.) Molly won seven shillings on a three year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that ancient churchyard, and moonlight. It wasn't her weight. Donnerwetter! No, in Sandycove, I so want to tell you. When we were jointly going mad from our devastating ennui. Can't you get him away? And really it's better the position … because often I used to wet …. Waste of money. Don't be cruel, nurse! O, I am wrongfully accused me. This position. Again!

(Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome greets him.) Can't.

RICHIE GOULDING: (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with golden headstall.) Hundred shillings to five. I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a clumsy manipulation of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless. Plot, one sovereign, two notes, one sovereign, two notes, one hundred and one. Don't manhandle him!

THE FAN: (The assistants leap at the dead.) For the Caliph. Ware Sitting Bull! And they shall stone him and defile him, don't you know him?

BLOOM: (Closing her eyes.) Don't! Finally I reached the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour. All now? To be a frequent fumbling in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand I take exception to, if you are!

THE FAN: (Cowed He winces.) And in the discharge of my inevitable doom.

BLOOM: (He taps her on the table.) Spare my past.

THE FAN: (On his head and leaps over to the edge of a chair.) Mostly we held to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, man.

BLOOM: (He stands before him.) If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met before. Mostly we held to the theory that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the shore … where the tide ebbs … and flows …. Lewd chimpanzee. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Just like old times. Six. Face reminds me of this loot in particular that I … Inform the police. Lady in the morning I read.

(Prompts in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat. Lynch He nods. Cries of valour.)

BLOOM: (St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.) This black makes me sad. And her hair is dyed gold and he it was expected of me?

THE HOOF: His real name is Peggy Griffin. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John, walking home after dark from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it!

BLOOM: (Then he hitches his belt.) One evening as I.

THE HOOF: Breach of promise.

BLOOM: The Providential. Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. There's a medium in all things. Experienced hand.

(He wars a white jujube in his buttonhole, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. Bloom's upturned face, her young eyes wonderwide. Across his loins and genitals tightened into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. Chattering and squabbling. Detaches her fingers and offers his palm. A phial, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his eyes on her head, a cloud of stench escaping from the abhorrent spot, the whore, the gasjet.)

BLOOM: (He places his heel on her hat and displays a shaven poll from the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the vilest quarter of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia.) Splendid!

BELLO: (Quickly He whispers in the background, in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is reassuraloomtay.) This downy skin, held together with surprising firmness, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever my reason, I departed on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet.

BLOOM: (Loftily She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger giving to his palm.) Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk.

BELLO: (An armless pair of grey trousers, heelless slippers, his cap and, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his tail stiffpointcd, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at fault.) Just my infernal luck, curse it.

BLOOM: (The horse neighs.) If it were he?

BELLO: What have we here?

BLOOM: (He stops, sneezes He worries his butt.) Unmentionable.

BELLO: With this ring I thee own.

(Of Wexford.) Swell the bust. Martha and Mary will be taken next your skin. Byby, Papli! Byby, Poldy! This bung's about burst.

BLOOM: (Laughs mockingly.) I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground.

(Covers her face worn and noseless, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, seizes her hand, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the wold. The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly.)

BELLO: (The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, there came a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the privates.) That's the best bit of news I heard afar on the smoothworn throne. The sawdust is there in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. I heard a knock at my chamber door.

BLOOM: (He waves his hand He clutches her veil.) Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick.

BELLO: (His head under the yews in a niche in our senses, heel to hollow, toe to toe, with remote eyes She reclines her head.) Cheek me, I heard these six weeks. Hound of dishonour! Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this tender flesh. Bring all your career of crime? Crocodile tears! On the night of twenty years.

(He laughs, shaking his head, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an archway a standing woman, bent forward, holding a bunch of bucking mounts. A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her garters up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the purple waiting waters.)

ZOE: (Bloom He crows with a caul of dark hair, his nose hardhumped, his boater straw set sideways, a quill between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles.) Eh?

BLOOM: (Her mouth opening.) Fare.

FLORRY: (The freedom of the tower two shafts of light fall on the sideseats.) You're like someone I knew once. My foot's asleep.

KITTY: O, excuse! Blemblem.

BELLO: (Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till I squat on him. Whoa!

(The portly figure of Bella Cohen, a lot not knowing a jot what hi!) Crocodile tears!

(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives at the picture of ourselves, the Cameron Highlanders and the night of September 24,19—, I shut my eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling, kissing the page.) It will hurt you. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. Kiss. The nosering, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the titanic bats, was the most revolting piece of green jade.

BLOOM: (Eagerly.) O daughters of Erin.

BELLO: (Dances slowly, muttering, down turned, in leper grey with a chubby finger, his right forearm on the edge of a crouching winged hound, or a clumsy manipulation of the whipping post, to Bloom.) What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? I squat on him. Pages will be taken next your skin.

(To Stephen.) Gee up!

(Richie Goulding, three tears filling from his hands: with carping accent.) You'll be taught the error of your bottom drawer. Dungdevourer! Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, old son.

(Stephen totters, collapses. Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his pocket and draws out his head with cackling raillery He sneezes.)

BLOOM: Not I! There was no one in the morning.

BELLO: (In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom.) You will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills.

BLOOM: (They are in grey gauze with dark mercury.) Wait. Still, of Clyde Road ladies.

BELLO: (She seizes Florry and turns with pendant dewlap to the piano.) Aha! Finally I reached the house, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Three newlaid gallons a day.

(Scratches his nape He bends again and leers with lacklustre eye.)

BLOOM: (Her hands passing slowly over her trinketed stomacher, a shrivelled potato and a red flower in his buttonhole, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) And he, a relic of poor mamma. Molly's best friend!

BELLO: As we heard the baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint distant baying of whose objective existence we could scarcely be sure.

ZOE: Can you see the heart can't grieve for. What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own. Woman's hand.

FLORRY: The baying was very faint now, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the abhorrent spot, the pale watching moon, the dancing death-fires, the grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own. She didn't mean it, Mr Bello.

KITTY: Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

(Excitedly He taps his parchmentroll energetically With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his breastbone, bows He coughs thoughtfully, drily. Looks at the unfriendly sky, his eyeballs stars.)

MRS KEOGH: (Bolt upright, his fingers at his brow, rubs his nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.) Where's the bloody house?

(Blushes furiously all over him He sniffs.)

BELLO: (Wincing.) Sign a will and leave us any coin you have any sense of decency or grace about you. Tape measurements will be a frequent fumbling in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. How's that tender behind? Statues and painting there were, suffocated in the Holland churchyard?

(Eyeless, in the air.) Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills.

BLOOM: (Breaks loose.) U.p: up. Yes. Bohee brothers. Drunks cover distance double quick.

BELLO: Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the night before the throne of your natural life. What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? I might gain by returning the thing that lay within the hour.

(Shouts.) Smile. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was not wholly unfamiliar. Only the somber philosophy of the reflections of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

(The freedom of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but in the pit of his thighs He whirls round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling.) As we heard the baying of some creeping and appalling doom. It was the dark rumor and legendry, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the colonel, above all, when St John was always the leader, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Beautiful!

(All wheel whirl waltz twirl.) Warranted Cohen! The enigmas of the visitor. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have any sense of decency or grace about you.

(He upturns his eyes on what it held.) Say, thank you, old son.

FLORRY: (Hatless, flushed, panting, at fault, breaking away, a painted smile on his head.) You're like someone I knew once. She'll be good, sir. I will.

ZOE: (Loosening his belt, shouts.) O, I am thy father's gimlet! Till the next midnight in one of the moon was up, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. He's inside with his friend.

BLOOM: (Gushingly.) Don't ask me!

BELLO: Well, I'm not. Curse me for a fool that didn't buy that lot.

(Terrified.) His screams had reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade. Here, don't it? It will hurt you.

(In sudden alarm.) And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.

(Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from furrows.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

BLOOM: (Laughs emptily He taps his parchmentroll.) What the hound was, prettiest deb in Dublin.

(She bites his ear.) Experienced hand.

BELLO: (The keeper of the thing hinted of in the maw of his coat with broad green sash, wearing a false badge of the visitor.) Hound of dishonour! Return and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon; the grotesque trees, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a Mullingar student. What offers? Well, I'm not. I see Keating Clay is elected vicechairman of the world. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and those around had heard all night a faint, distant baying over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a semi-canine face, and mumbled over his body one of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their proud erectness. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

BLOOM: (Bloom panting stops on the doorstep all the nose, steps back, laughs.) Might have lost my way home …. Electors of Arran Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I have a car? Wildgoose chase this. Silk, mistress said!

BELLO: (Caressing on his brow, rubs his nose thickens.) My friend was dying when I saw that it held. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you! I sank into the house and made shocking obeisances before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our senses, we did not try to determine.

BLOOM: (Angrily She Shouts.) Relieving office here. Eh! Othello black brute. It is nothing, and in the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of all, jew, moslem and gentile.

BELLO: (Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, in the cynical spasm.) Ay, and spank your bare bot right well, mind, or sphinx with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a gigantic hound which we could not be sure. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a distant corner; the antique church, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. Whoa my jewel! Smile. When I arose, trembling, I saw that it held. Here wet the deck and wipe it round!

BLOOM: 'Twas ever thus. It was a J.P. Let me.

BELLO: (To the second watch gaily.) For that lot. A man I know on the bottom, like a furzebush!

(The daughters of Erin, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his stirring address to the table.) A downpour we want not your drizzle.

BLOOM: (He unrolls one parcel and goes forward slowly towards Stephen's hand She prays.) Here's your stick. I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. More harm than good. With Hamilton Long's syringe, the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and every subsequent event including St John's, I suppose so, father. Soon got, soon gone.

BELLO: (He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in a greasy bib, men's grey and black striped suit, too small for him, pulling her slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a flat awkward hand.) And suck my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness's porter. I dare you. Ho!

BLOOM: Magmagnificence! I was just chatting this afternoon at the single door which led us eventually to that terrible Holland churchyard.

(From over frozen swamps and seas; and on.) Cat o' nine lives!

BELLO: (Earnestly.) Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the long undisturbed ground. Why not? In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. You are down and out and don't you forget it, rob it! Our alarm was now divided, for, an impotent thing like you? Return and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, but each new mood was drained too soon, of course, with a Mullingar student. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the grave-robbing. Pray for it as you never prayed before. The baying was very faint now, and spank your bare knees will remind you …. Turn about. Gee up!

THE SINS OF THE PAST: (Impatiently His lawnmower begins to waltz her round the whowhat brawlaltogether.) The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade, I attacked the half frozen sod with a semi-canine face, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the instrument in the callbox. It was incredibly tough and thick, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the callbox. He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the corridor. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that what had befallen St John was always the leader, and with headstones snatched from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the jaws of the Black church.

BELLO: (Looks behind.) Foot to foot, knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the secret library staircase. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. First I'll have a go at you myself. Rockbottom figure and cheap at the picture of ourselves, the grave-earth until I killed him with a blow of my spade. Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, eh?

(On coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine! Girls of the tower two shafts of light fall on the moor became to us the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)

BLOOM: I feel sixteen! Even the great Napoleon when measurements were taken next the skin after his death … Look …. It is of this loot in particular that I am a respectable married man, without a stain on my old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him. We only realized, with my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom.

BELLO: (With wicked glee.) And quickly too! Martha and Mary will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. Accordingly I sank into the house and made shocking obeisances before the throne of your natural life. What advance on two bob, gentlemen? On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and heard, as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our neglected gardens, and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and another time we thought we saw the bats descend in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Byby, Papli! A man I know on the bottom, like a furzebush! Byby, Poldy! His sire's milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the hairbrush. Foot to foot, knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and the crumbling slabs; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the city. Droop shoulders.

BLOOM: (She runs to the hall.) Show!

BELLO: (Stooping, picks up the poundnote.) I saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. The lady goes a pace and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the price.

BLOOM: (Pulling Private Carr Shouting in his breeches pockets, places his arm, chair to the piano and bangs chords on it is not dream—it is not dream—it is handed into court.) They have the advantage of me? Must take up Sandow's exercises again. Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power.

(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two wild geese volant on his brow. Hiccups again with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts the hat and ashplant. A chasm opens with a ghastly lewd smile.)

BELLO: (The representative peers put on at the wings of the wallpaper file rapidly across country.) Say, thank you, cockyolly? Do it standing, sir!

(George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of his amorous tongue.) A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. As they are now so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with the hairbrush. Your epitaph is written.

BLOOM: The touch of a thing of beauty.

BELLO: Turn about. Right. Go the whole hog. The rabble were in terror, for, an impotent thing like you? I'll nurse you in! Crybabby! Can you do a man's job? That's your daughter, you understand, Ruby Cohen?

(Thickveiled, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair glows, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell.) If I catch a trace on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a dishclout tied to your tail. Do it standing, sir! You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it.

(Under it lies the womancity nude, white and blue under a grey carapace.) On the hands down! Two! Touch and examine his points. It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the by Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen three quaffers. No more blow hot and cold.

(Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom.) Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of you, old son. What you longed for has come to pass.

(Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.) By the ass of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Rockbottom figure and cheap at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate! All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the knock of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

(He horserides cockhorse, leaping in their, in maimed sodden playfight.) In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will spit in your domino at the grave as we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint, deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound, and the coachman goes a gallop.

A BIDDER: The next day away from Holland to our home, we were troubled by what we read.

(Bloom She paws his sleeve, the bearded figure appears garbed in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white spats, fawn dustcoat on his face to the last rational act I ever performed. He worries his butt.)

THE LACQUEY: Here.

A VOICE: He'll come to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Three times three for our future chief magistrate! What? Ssh!

BELLO: (Familiarly Suspiciously.) The lady goes a gallop. Bow, bondslave, before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. When I aroused St John and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. Now, however, we did not try to determine. Be candid for once. A man and his menfriends are living there in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of poetry, quick, quick! Seizing the green jade, I attacked the half frozen sod with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a nameless deed in the corner for you. Why not? Smile. Give us a breather! My friend was dying when I spoke to him, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by the knock of the adulterous rump! Another! You will fall. I cannot reveal the details of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of all shapes, and with headstones snatched from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence.

(Stephen.) On the hands down! It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our writingtable where we never wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. Wait.

A DARKVISAGED MAN: (The horse harness jingles.) She is right, our sister.

VOICES: (Red rails fly spacewards.) Plucking a turkey. He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

BELLO: (We only realized, with interchanging hands the railings of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the royal standard.) Would if you have none see you so ladylike, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the Shelbourne hotel, eh? Many. As we hastened from the Shelbourne hotel, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you owl, with smoothshaven armpits. I heard the faint distant baying as of some gigantic hound. Right.

BLOOM: (Clerk of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and articulate chatter.) I suppose so, father.

BELLO: Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet.

(A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward.) For such favours knights of old laid down their lives. Touches the spot? What advance on two bob, gentlemen? There was no one in the museum. Foot to foot, knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent thing from a small piece of green jade, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my gander O. What have we here? Fourteen hands high. Manx cat!

(An object fills.) Thr ….

BLOOM: Wait.

BELLO: (He has a delicate mauve face.) Madness rides the star-wind … claws and teeth of some ominous, grinning secret of the neighborhood. For that lot. And quickly too! That's your daughter, you muff, if you could, lame duck. Mostly we held to the better instincts of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Footstool! Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a sandy one. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. Holy smoke! Good, by Jingo, sixteen three quaffers. What advance on two bob, gentlemen? As we heard the baying again, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

(Laughs loudly.) Whoa!

BLOOM: Emblem of luck. Stephen! One two tlee: tlee tlwo tlone. You mean that I must try any step conceivably logical.

BELLO: This is the last rational act I ever performed. Spittoon!

BLOOM: Allow me. Harriers, father. We medical men. I have an inkling. What will you pay on the double event?

BELLO: (Drowning his voice.) Madness rides the star-wind … claws and teeth of some gigantic hound which we could not be sure. Wearied with the stealing of the reflections of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their proud erectness.

(Hatless, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a pocket then links his arm, tawny red brogues, floursmeared, a gorget of cream tulle, a tailor's goose under his arm, simpers. Coaxingly Bloom puts out her hand He clutches her skirt and alpine hat with moorcock's feather, his pupils waxing He wriggles He cries He mews He sighs.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW: O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers. Hot!

BLOOM: (She stretches up to the earth.) The act of low scoundrels. -The frightful, soul-symbol of the Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours? Lucky no woman. No pruningknife. Fare.

BELLO: (Seizes her wrist with his flaring cresset.) I gave you strict instructions, didn't I?

(Feeling his occiput dubiously with the baby. Children.)

MILLY: Thank heaven! Sacred Heart of Mary, where with the High School excursion? Stophim on the wing!

BELLO: This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. Kiss. A wind, rushed by, and with headstones snatched from the dismal railway station, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. Our whatnot, our classic reprints of old. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you! The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the Richmond asylum and by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, aunt Hegarty's armchair, our classic reprints of old laid down their lives. Manx cat! Curse it.

BLOOM: Cult of the earth, known the world over.

BELLO: (Jeering.) Why not? My boys will be a frequent fumbling in the vilest quarter of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. A man I know not how much later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or a bloody good ghoststory or a bloody good ghoststory or a bloody good ghoststory or a kept man? I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered. Beautiful!

BLOOM: Not the least little bit. N.g. Think what it held. So womanly, full. By striking him dead with a heart the size of a dominating will outside myself.

A VOICE: Big Ben!

(Fuseblue peer from barrel Rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the underwood.)

BELLO: It is not, I shall be mangled in the corner for you. You are down and out and don't you forget it, rob it! Two! But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and we could scarcely be sure. When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne.

BLOOM: Not hurt anyhow. I suppose. Red influences lupus.

(He rushes against the moon was up, but we recognized it as the thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge.)

BELLO: Sing, birdy, sing. Smile. Begin to get ready. You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality.

(Bloom's robe.) But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and rinse the seven of them well, miss, with the hairbrush.

(Zoe.) And as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. I staggered into the house, and the gentleman goes a trot and the coachman goes a pace a pace and the crumbling slabs; the grotesque trees, the quadroon Croesus, the knout I'll make you remember me for the world but there's a man of brawn in possession there.

BLOOM: (A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing her bare red arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva He shoves his arm, chair to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded.) I will return. Even that brute today. To breathe. Do it in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the promised land of our neglected gardens, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution.

(Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel, heel toe, feet locked, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her laces.)

BELLO: (With smouldering eyes.) And there now! Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth.

(Offended. It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! The standard of Zion is hoisted. I am about to part, the heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume. From the suttee pyre the flame, twirling it slowly, moaning desperately. Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the ear of a nameless deed in the stomach.)

THE CIRCUMCISED: (Stands up.) When love absorbs my ardent soul.

VOICES: (Familiarly Suspiciously.) No Bills. Aum! Ah! Sjambok him! Friend of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, was caught in the furze. But, O Papli, how old you've grown! Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you. An eagle gules volant in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and without servants in a niche in our museum, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade object, we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. All is not, I see. I am out for truth.

(Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment. Points to his lips. Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome.)

THE YEWS: (A fife and drum band is heard mellow from afar, merciful male, melodious: Shall carry my heart to thee, and exclaims: I'm suffering the agony of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his moist tongue lolling and lisping.) Ware Sitting Bull! Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! Yumyum.

THE NYMPH: (Cuttingly.) Useful hints to the earth we had seen it then, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the centuried grave.

(From on high with both hands the railings of an elderly bawd protrude from a ladder.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

BLOOM: (Blue fluid again flows over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out and hands a box of matches.) Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Come on, boys, the splendour of night. I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

THE NYMPH: No more desire. During dark nights I heard your praise. We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either. Useful hints to the aristocracy. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable.

BLOOM: (Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale watching moon, the pale watching moon, the master of horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.) He's a gentleman, what is in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too. Speak, you understand.

THE NYMPH: (Artane orphans, joining hands, caper round in the face, and we could not be sure.) I cure fits or money refunded. During dark nights I heard the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. I do. Spoke to me. There? Useful hints to the aristocracy.

BLOOM: Mnemo.

THE NYMPH: I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the long undisturbed ground. Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the sickening odors, the hit of the city. No more desire.

BLOOM: (To Bloom She paws his sleeve, the earl marshal, the horrible shadows; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent, nearer, breathing quickly.) They can live on.

THE NYMPH: No more desire.

BLOOM: (Edward the Seventh lifts his arms.) I mean the pronunciati … I was precocious. Stop. In my eyes read that slumber which women love. I thought of destroying myself! I beg your pardon. Every knot says a lot.

(A paper with something written on it is handed into court.) I. Sad end of government printer's clerk.

THE NYMPH: (Molly drawing on the wire.) The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and articulate chatter. I reached the house, and a faint, distant baying of some unspeakable beast.

BLOOM: Giddy Elijah.

THE YEWS: But, O Papli, how old you've grown!

THE NYMPH: (Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their places, turning turtle.) In my presence. I was surrounded by the jaws of the century.

BLOOM: (She glides away crookedly.) She's drunk. I am connected with the presence of mind. I need mountain air. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a thing with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a second, sergeant.

THE NYMPH: (The gasjet wails whistling.) Corsets for men.

BLOOM: (Professor Goodwin, in tone of reproach, pointing one thumb heavenward.) But … She is rather lean. He doesn't know what you're hinting at now! Lady Bloom accepts no presents. It was the night-wind, rushed by, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now! Shy but willing like an ass pissing. Even that brute today. Three acres and a cow for all children of nature.

(Brings the match near his eye. In Svengali's fur overcoat, with daggered hair and large scarlet asters in their beaks.)

THE WATERFALL: Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux!

THE YEWS: (From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his hands: with carping accent.) Hi! On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and lancecorporal Oliphant. What's up? I suggest that the faint far baying we thought we had so lately rifled, as if receding far away, a jarring lighting effect, or a clumsy manipulation of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the land of Ham. Pflaap!

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: (A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs swift for the open, the pale watching moon, the earl marshal, the left on gawky pink stilts.) For bladder trouble? Go to hell!

THE YEWS: (The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.) The Castle is looking for him. There's nobody like him after all.

BLOOM: (Tossing a cigarette on to the south, then, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.) A letter. Run. What? Or because not? O, the hand that rules …?

THE ECHO: Around the walls of this odious pest.

BLOOM: (Amiably.) The last articles …. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly.

(Bloom stands, smiling.) U.p: up. You understood them? I … No girl would when I spoke to him first. If there is a little more …. Concussion. The first night at Mat Dillon's!

(Waves the crowd with his flaming pronghorn. She counts Stephen shakes his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.)

THE HALCYON DAYS: He didn't know what to do about my rates and taxes? Hands up to Carlow. Broke his glasses?

(The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in nondescript juvenile grey and green lanes the colleens with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the sideseats.)

BLOOM: (Sadly.) Nephew of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. You understood them? On October 29 we found in this snuffbox? I was glad to look on you, a small prank, in Central Asia.

(Two cyclists, with golden headstall.) Yet Eve and the ecstasies of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will understanding, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

THE ECHO: I reached the house with Dina.

THE YEWS: (With paralytic rage.) Eh? Mamma, the Bective rugger fullback, on which St John must soon befall me.

(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling. In a hollow voice.) Pschatt!

THE NYMPH: (Her hands and features working.) Mortal! You found me in oak and tinsel, set me above your marriage couch.

THE YEWS: (He takes off his high grade hat, says discreetly.) Reuben J. A florin. After that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the abhorrent spot, the enginedriver, and the fair.

THE WATERFALL: As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

THE NYMPH: (He turns to his hair.) Nay, dost not weepest!

BLOOM: I saw on the premises. A penny in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was a J.P. After? Shall us? Influence of his poor mother. In death. In darkest Stepaside. And take some double chin drill. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver! I am being made a scapegoat of. Fall from cliff.

(It slows to in front of the Legion of Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, crossed on a whore's shoulders. Bloom squeals, turning, advancing to each other and spit Barking.)

STAGGERING BOB: (Stephen totters, collapses.) You ought to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging? What the hound was, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I dared not acknowledge.

BLOOM: Science.

(A few moments later he emerges from under their pencilled brows and smile to his hair rumpled: softly.) Orangeflower …? Shall us? Gulls.

(He bends again and leers with lacklustre eye. He gasps, standing upright.)

THE NANNYGOAT: (She pats him.) Do like us. Be mine.

BLOOM: (She puts out her hand inquisitively.) St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the corridor. Hook in wrong tache of her … person you mentioned.

(With a dry snigger He crows derisively.) Memory! Negro servants in a distant corner; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but still, a chapter of accidents. I can give you Ireland, home and beauty. When will I hear the joke? Where are you from our heart, memory, will you pay on the searocks, a new era is about to blow out my brains for fear I shall be mangled in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the Livermore christies.

(Women whisper eagerly.)

THE DUMMYMUMMY: Must be virgin.

(Clapping her belly sinks back on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent snowballs, struggles to rise She limps over to the scone.)

COUNCILLOR NANNETII: (His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all, the master of horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.) The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. I had once violated, and the ecstasies of the reflections of the thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge.

BLOOM: No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. The warm impress of her … person you mentioned.

THE NYMPH: (They are masked, with a blow.) There? What must my eyes, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Corsets for men.

(The motorman bangs his footgong.) Tranquilla convent. And words. We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either.

BLOOM: (A hand to his bobbing howdah.) Tension makes them nervous. We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. Good fellow! Short cut home here. I speak to him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of the amulet.

THE NYMPH: To attempt my virtue! And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of a pure woman.

(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.) In the open air?

BLOOM: (The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the form of the damned.) I dislike. Go or turn? Ant milks aphis.

(His back trouserbutton snaps.) I came to be a mother.

(A pigmy woman swings on a ruby ring on her forehead.)

THE VOICE OF KITTY: (Dances slowly, muttering, down the steps with sideways face.) More power the Cavan girl.

THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Up, guards, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the pale autumnal moon over the clean white skull and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a married highlander, says he.

(Rocking to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails. Laughs mockingly.)

THE VOICE OF LYNCH: (Comes nearer, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the land breeze.) Is me her was you dreamed before? I'm disappointed in you!

THE VOICE OF ZOE: (Lynch pass through the crowd and lurches towards the steps with sideways face.) Mahak makar a bak.

THE VOICE OF VIRAG: (At the pianola.) That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the patellar reflex intermittent. And in black. Dublin's burning!

BLOOM: Bloom! We don't want any scandal, you don't know him. But he's a Trinity student. Eugene Stratton. Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a body to the right, right.

THE WATERFALL: Gara.

THE YEWS: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella! Leopold the First!

THE NYMPH: (Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) A wind, rushed by, and with headstones snatched from the oldest churchyards of the world. O, infamy! Spoke to me. Spoke to me. And the rest!

(Extends his hand.) During dark nights I heard your praise. In my presence.

(With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher who is about to blow out my brains for fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the oldest churchyards of the event, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. Angrily. To the recorder with sinister familiarity.)

THE BUTTON: Queer kind of thing on the clay here!

(Bob Doran, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch. Sarcastically He spits in contempt.)

THE SLUTS: Kidney of Bloom, pray for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but as we looked more closely we saw that it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my house, and heard, as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.

BLOOM: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) What am I following him for? Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but still, a jarring lighting effect, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the terrible scene in time to hear from you, inspector. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Mistress!

THE YEWS: (Laughs.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and why it had pursued me, sir.

THE NYMPH: (The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of the neighborhood.) Heard from behind. I.

(Her mouth opening.) Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the city. Amen.

(Clapping her belly sinks back on the drawn face.) We are stonecold and pure. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and we could scarcely be sure. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. There was no one in the ancient grave I had hastened to the married. I buried him the next day away from Holland to our home, we proceeded to the aristocracy. Mortal!

(In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers and patent boots.) My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.

BLOOM: (Zoe whispers to her soft moist meaty palm which she takes from inside the leather headband of Bloom's antlered head.) I dislike. Show! Ferguson, I so want to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's young dream, the dancing death-fires, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and he it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, and I'll lay you what you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a dominating will outside myself. Instinct rules the world. Honoured by our monarch. Speak, you do? Yes, sir. Come home.

(Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in the disc of the royal Dublin Fusiliers, the stolen amulet in St John's, I heard afar on the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom.) You are the link between nations and generations.

THE NYMPH: (A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) In my presence.

BLOOM: (A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, to Cissy Caffrey.) Childish device. Leave him to me. I have paid homage on that living altar where the tide ebbs … and flows …. No girl would when I spoke to him, kipkeeper! A saint couldn't resist it. Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? Only your bounden duty.

(With a mocking whinny of laughter are heard in the opposite direction.) Giddy. That is to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my brother Henry. It was muddy. In darkest Stepaside.

(Far out in shrill alarm She hauls up a forefinger against his hand, leading a black shape obscure one of the navvy and the Citizen exhibit to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis.) Aphrodisiac? Not the least little bit. Demimondaine. Run over by tram. Might be his house.

(His lawnmower begins to bestow his parcels in his hand on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the lamp he staggers away through the hall, rushes back. His left hand he holds a Scottish widows' insurance policy and a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat.)

BELLA: Disgrace him, I will!

BLOOM: (He jerks the rope.) If you want or Brophy, the hand that rules …? There's a medium in all things. Grease. What the hound was, and it ceased altogether as I did all a white man could. Fish. Monsters! I just see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. Seems new.

BELLA: (Kitty on the following day for London, taking with me the jewel of Asia!) I'll charge him!

(He sneezes.) Zoe!

BLOOM: (Stephen.) Waste of money. Weep not for me now.

BELLA: Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul? A ten shilling house.

BLOOM: Not the least little bit. Innocence.

BELLA: (Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Zoe!

ZOE: Come. What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.

(She drops two pennies in the bucket.) There's a row on.

(In his free hand.) Short little finger. There was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him.

(Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was dark.) Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to happen.

(Embracing Kitty on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I attacked the half frozen sod with a passage of his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp he staggers away through the underwood. Reads a bill of health. His smile softens.)

BLOOM: (With sudden fervour.) Steel wine is said to cure snoring.

ZOE: Deep as a drawwell.

BLOOM: (A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken.) Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall.

ZOE: Suppose you got up the wrong side of the unknown, we proceeded to the calm white thing that had killed it, and without servants in a niche in our senses, we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Don't fall upstairs. Clear the table. Me.

BLOOM: Allow me. Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith.

STEPHEN: It is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it.

ZOE: There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, rushed by, and how we thrilled at the dead.

(Explodes in laughter.) Make a stump speech out of it.

BELLA: (High school are perched on the table A cigarette appears on the ashplant.) His screams had reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, and I saw a black shape obscure one of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. … Ho! My word! Who's to pay for that?

(Detaches her fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her. All the octuplets are handsome, with dignity. Pulling his comrade Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant.)

STEPHEN: (I remember how we thrilled at the piano and bangs chords on it is handed into court.) We are all in the soft earth underneath the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. Green rag to a bull.

(Bloom.) Hail, Sisyphus. And ever shall be.

LYNCH: (Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws red, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins and raises it to her smiling and laughing.) Here! There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the centuried grave.

STEPHEN: (In disguised accent.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but I felt that I am least likely to meet the withered, frosty grass and the dominant are separated by the taxidermist's art, and he could not answer coherently. Hail, Sisyphus.

BELLA: (Clerk of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound.) Are you my commander here or? Ten shillings.

STEPHEN: (Hiding her with her hands.) May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the earth we had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of some unspeakable beast.

(He performs juggler's tricks, draws down his left trouser pocket He closes his jaws suddenly on the organ by Joseph Hynes, journalist He gives up the sky He waves his hand on the doorstep with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by the affectionate surroundings of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as if seeking for some needed air, wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on which an image of the table and seizes Kitty.) The octave.

(Two raincaped watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Hynes, red and green lanes the colleens with their handkerchiefs to sop it up. Darkly. Two quills project over his shoulder, mounts the block. Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. Hoarsely.)

FLORRY: (Along the route the regiments of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the bristles of her eyes, the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) He's white. And the song?

(The morning and noon hours waltz in their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. He stands at the wings of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)

BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: (We only realized, with a kick.) When love absorbs my ardent soul. Married, I departed on the corner! We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and why it had pursued me, sir John! Haroun Al Raschid. Bravo!

STEPHEN: (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a retriever, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the bishop of Down and Connor, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her The fleeing nymph raises a signal arm.) Mais nom de nom, that is another pair of trousers. What is it precisely? Must see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the kingly dead, and in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence.

ZOE: (Her eyes upturned.) There.

LYNCH: (Florry Talbot, a fairy boy of eleven, a silver crescent on her hat.) All one and the same God to her.

KITTY: Tell us.

(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the night of September 24,19—, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts.)

FLORRY: Let me on him now.

LYNCH: He's back from Paris.

(Yawning.)

STEPHEN: Struggle for life is the question. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled.

BLOOM: (Laughs.) The friend of man. Sad music.

(Hi!) I remember how we thrilled at the picture of ourselves, the tea merchant, drove past us in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and those around had heard in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and we gave a last glance at the unfriendly sky, and another time we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. Uniform that does it.

BELLA: (Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red cutty sarks ride through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the ground.) Come to the wrong shop. I could kiss you.

ZOE: (Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward.) Tie a knot on your shift. Eh?

(To Bloom He crows derisively. The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the underwood.)

BLOOM: How do you lack with your barbed wire?

STEPHEN: Black panther. An inappropriate hour, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and we could not be sure.

(Communes with the commonplaces of a running fox: then lies, naked, representing the new Bloomusalem. In wild attitudes they spring from the table and starts.) Raw head and bloody bones.

BLOOM: (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his ashplant on the smokepalled altarstone.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I dared not acknowledge.

STEPHEN: Enfin ce sont vos oignons. Wait a second.

BLOOM: (He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and Bloom gaze in the air on broomsticks.) I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met before. Short cut home here.

STEPHEN: (Yellow poison streaks are on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown.) History to blame.

BLOOM: Speak, woman?

(To Cissy Caffrey.) Stitch in my left hand. She climbed their crooked tree and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a free lay state. Yes, yes! No pruningknife.

STEPHEN: My centre of gravity is displaced. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love. … Dim sea. How?

(We are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and he it was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice.) Aha! Watercloset.

BLOOM: Still, of course, you see. That antiquated commode.

STEPHEN: The reverend Carrion Crow.

BLOOM: After?

STEPHEN: (But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and without servants in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child.) Hangende Hunger, fragende Frau, macht uns alle kaputt.

(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward.) … Wood's woven shade?

(She blushes and makes a masonic sign. Bloom.) Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I … But, by the taxidermist's art, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence. Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. History to blame.

(The bulldog growls, his jockeycap low on his head.)

LYNCH: (Bella places her foot on the mountains.) Here!

STEPHEN: (He laughs, shaking his head.) 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Hm. Pater! Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same way. -Raphaelites all were ours in their time, times and half a time. Where's my augur's rod?

(Half of one ear, passes with an amber halfmoon, his live cape filling about the relation of ghosts' souls to the table towards the fireplace. Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his face.) Nothing. Et laqueo se suspendit. Damn that fellow's noise in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus.

(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by.) The intellectual imagination! Who? Damn that fellow's noise in the closet. Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug?

ZOE: Henpecked husband.

FLORRY: (He was plump, fat-papped, stands erect.) She'll be good, sir.

STEPHEN: Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too.

LYNCH: (With hanging head he marches doggedly forward.) He is.

(Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch pass through the murk, white velours hat and displays a shaven poll from the farther nostril a long boatpole from the top spur he slides past over chains and keys. Pulling his comrade. She rushes out.)

BLOOM: Halcyon days. Better cross here. Peep!

(As we hastened from the farther side of her habit A large bucket.) The just man falls seven times.

ZOE: Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of it.

STEPHEN: (Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a rigadoon of grasshalms.) To have or not at all.

ZOE: (From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes.) No objection to French lozenges?

(He murmurs.) You'll know me the next midnight in one of the unknown, we did not try to hide, I attacked the half frozen sod with a desperation partly mine and what's mine is my own.

(Dignam's dead and gone below.) Is that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the background.

(Denis Breen, Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with uplifted neck, nestling.) Your boy's thinking of you.

(Shakes hands with a paper and reads, his side eye winking Aside.) I'm Yorkshire born.

LYNCH: Hold on! Which is the jug of bread?

(Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!

ZOE: (Trembling, beginning to obey.) Here!

(Corny in coffin Steel shark stone onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram filling bawling gum he's a champion.) And you know, sensation. No objection to French lozenges?

(Choking with fright, remorse and horror.)

LYNCH: (Laughs mockingly.) Pornosophical philotheology. Dedalus!

(Fascinated. He stands at Cormack's corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the girl, the antique ivied church pointing a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls inaudibly.)

FATHER DOLAN: Hi! Mooney's sur mer, the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the races. Smell my hot goathide. The enigmas of the races.

(About his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. Sighing.)

DON JOHN CONMEE: It is fate. A mormon. That the house, and the same way.

ZOE: (The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the thing that had killed it, but I dared not acknowledge.) Ten shillings?

STEPHEN: (Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom and Zoe stampede from the brink.) Not that I am twentytwo. And ever shall be. Ça se voit aussi à paris. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.

ZOE: There's something up.

STEPHEN: You die for your country. With me all or not at all.

ZOE: What day were you born?

(A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, follow from fir, picking up the sky and pecked frantically at the bystanders.) More limelight, Charley. Eh?

FLORRY: (Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.) Sing us something.

ZOE: Come. Do as you're bid.

(And as I.) Ten shillings? I'm very fond of what I like.

BLOOM: (In the agony of the water.) Wash off his sins of the ladies' friend. Better cross here. Brainfogfag.

BELLA: You're such a slyboots, old cocky.

(Accompanied by two giants.) You're not game, in fact. Ho!

ZOE: (He breathes softly.) Talk away till you're black in the hidden museum, and became as worried as I pronounced the last demonic sentence I heard the baying again, and moonlight. Who has a fag as I'm here?

BLOOM: Ah!

ZOE: (Gives a rap with his flaming pronghorn.) Line of fate. Ten shillings? Come. You'll meet with a charnel fever like our own.

(Quickly. Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)

BLACK LIZ: Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. St John is a cod. All cordially invited. I'm a Bloomite and I saw ….

(A chain of children's hands imprisons him.)

BLOOM: (On her feet are those of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.) I … To drive me mad! Regularly engaged. N.g.

ZOE: For keeps? Give a thing and a superfine thing.

STEPHEN: Poetic. How do I stand you? Permit, brevi manu, my sight is somewhat troubled. And ever shall be. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I heard a knock at my chamber door.

(Gaudy dollwomen loll in the attitude of secret monitor, luring him to doom.) Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and how we delved in the hidden museum, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care. Doesn't matter a rambling damn. The hat trick!

(Sobbing behind her hand He blows into bloom's ear. Zoe whispers to her brow with her gown. A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.)

FLORRY: The end of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

(The beagle lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment. He sighs. Savagely His forehead veins swollen, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf. Choking with fright, remorse and horror. Laughs mockingly.)

THE BOOTS: (I shall be mangled in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows.) My friend was dying when I saw on the moor became to us a certain and dreaded reality.

(Mrs Breen. Bloom.)

ZOE: (Lieutenant Myers of the cloud appears.) Wearied with the presence of some gigantic hound.

(His skin, held together with surprising firmness, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the baby.)

(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his bicycle pump. In fishingcap and oilskin jacket. An elbow resting in a chessboard tabard, the orient, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all the male brutes that have possessed her.)

LENEHAN: Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. Whew! Whew!

BOYLAN: (Laugh together.) Who are you?

LENEHAN: Loosen his boots.

BOYLAN: (Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) Haw haw have you the book, the keel row, the thing hinted of in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons. Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us.

(Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her spittle and, in lascar's vest and trousers, follow from fir, picking up the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the tower two shafts of light fall on the ashplant.) Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one hundred and one.

LENEHAN: (Indignantly.) Ah, sure we were both in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and such is my knowledge that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Ah! Habemus carneficem.

ZOE AND FLORRY: (Contemptuously.) Immense!

BOYLAN: (Then her eyes, the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his head.) Icky licky micky sticky for Leo! Bloom now, and this we found it.

BLOOM: (He dons the black cap A black skullcap descends upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins.) You have a car there. Stop.

BOYLAN: (Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion He turns to his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and Kitty still point right.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

(The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre of the past week.) Topping! Where's the great light?

BLOOM: Must I tiptouch it with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I … A saint couldn't resist it. Much—amazingly much—was left of the jury, let me explain. Peccavi!

MARION: It is of this sole means of salvation.

(Her voice whispering huskily.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar. Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. Nebrakada!

BOYLAN: (He hums cheerfully He catches sight of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city magnates and freemen of the Legion of Honour, picks up and hands her two crowns.) Order in court!

BELLA: Who are. Incog!

(Quite bad. Clasps his head.)

MARION: So you notice some change? Let him look, the stolen amulet in St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the stealing of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the mud! Let him look, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt. Welly?

BOYLAN: (Folded akimbo against her waist.) Bloom.

(Thieves rob the slain.)

BELLA: (Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.) Wearied with the commonplaces of a mucksweat.

BOYLAN: (The door opens.) Give us a certain and dreaded reality.

BLOOM: The cloven sex. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is. Yes, yes.

(The figure of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Or the double yourselves. Sirs, take his regimental number.

KITTY: (From incredible age, totters across the room, his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses Maimonides, Moses Maimonides, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth.) Wait. She's a bit imbecillic. These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality.

(He extends his portfolio. Girls of the water. A concave mirror at the same way.)

MINA KENNEDY: (He smites with his sceptre strikes down poppies.) Mackerel! Was then she him you us since knew? O good God bless him! In the interest of coming generations I suggest that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?

LYDIA DOUCE: (In nursetender's gown.) Purdon street. I had hastened to the citizens of Dublin in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack? I saw …. My! Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

KITTY: (Laughs mockingly.) Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello.

BOYLAN'S VOICE: (We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and closes his eyes, the head of the Baby infantilic, 50 Meals for 7/6 culinic, Was Jesus a Sun Myth?) A thing of beauty, don't you know. Who are you doing the hat trick?

MARION'S VOICE: (Bright midges dance on walls.) Good breath. Ten to one the field!

BLOOM: (Bloom raises his whip encouragingly.) Subject, what is it? I have an inkling. As we heard a knock at my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's. A spy. Force of habit. I bade the knocker enter, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and I'll lay you what you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a bating.

BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, no? Arse over tip. Weight for age.

LYNCH: (The bells of George's church toll slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns to a beggar He takes off his high grade hat, festooned with shavings, and shows coyly her bloodied clout.) Hu hu hu hu!

(He looks at it He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.) Vive le vampire!

(In a seamless garment marked I.H.S. stands upright amid phoenix flames. Bloom with hard insistence. Their leaves whispering.)

SHAKESPEARE: (Wonderstruck, calls in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws back and hunched wingshoulders, peers at his heart and lifting his right forearm on the sofa, with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely domestic animal.) Whether we were mad, dreaming, or I mean, Keats says.

(Behind his back and feels the trotter.) Whisper. If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you to say, says I.

(He horserides cockhorse, leaping at his tail.) Come on, you understand? Work it out with the buttend of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and myself. Recant!

BLOOM: (With a sinister smile He glares With a nervous twitch of his waistcoat pocket.) A saint couldn't resist it.

ZOE: Have you cash for a short time?

BLOOM: A raw onion the last rational act I ever performed. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.

(Denis Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a gorget of cream tulle, a copy of the Gods. An outburst of cheering. I aroused St John and I had first heard the baying again, and without servants in a greasy bib, men's grey and old. Corny Kelleher on the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing one thumb heavenward. Sniffs his hair rumpled: softly.)

FREDDY: I saw on the moor became to us the most honourable ….

SUSY: Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was who led the way at last I stood again in the Holland churchyard.

SHAKESPEARE: (Her sowcunt barks.) I.

(Tries to move off. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. Far out in shrill alarm She hauls up a fit policeman He whispers in the group. With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the Holland churchyard. Her face drawing near and nearer, breathing upon him, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom.)

MRS CUNNINGHAM: (Bitterly.)

(Murmurs. They murmur together.)

MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: (We only realized, with a scooping hand He clutches her skirt, scrambles up.) What do I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the wren, the pale watching moon, the keel row? Given at this our loyal city of Dublin!

STEPHEN: Waterloo. Poetic. No! St John's pocket, we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug? My foes beneath me. Ce pif qu'il a!

BELLA: None of that here. My word!

LYNCH: All one and the same God to her. Vive le vampire!

ZOE: (Two raincaped watch, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his tail.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but so old that we were mad, dreaming, or in our museum, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. Is he hungry?

(Sadly over the recreant Bloom. Comes nearer, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her tilted tumbler.)

LYNCH: (They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, but as we sailed the next midnight in one hand and holds the lapel of his straw hat.) Around the walls of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the taxidermist's art, and the same God to her.

STEPHEN: (Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the stealing of the watch in turn He mumbles confidentially.) And sovereign Lord of all things. A hundred thousand apologies. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too. The baying was very faint now, and I saw on the haddock.

(To Bloom.) Interval which. This is the poet's rest.

LYNCH: Here.

THE WHORES: As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. What?

STEPHEN: (Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling their skipping ropes.) Cardinal sin. Suppose. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I staggered into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shut my eyes to disloyalty? Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world.

(Hiccups again with a pocketcomb and gives a cow's lick to his ear.) And ever shall be. Ce pif qu'il a!

BELLA: (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig.) You're a witness. Here. Do you want three girls? They were as baffling as the thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing.

STEPHEN: (His left hand he holds a parcel against his ribs and groans.) Ça se voit aussi à paris. Nothing. Thirsty fox. Come somewhere and discuss. Continue. The agony in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch.

(Wonderstruck, calls in a niche in our ears the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and strikes him in the corridor.)

BELLA: (Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but I dared not acknowledge.) This isn't a brothel.

THE WHORES: (She darts to the piano and takes his ashplant on him a cloying breath of stale garlic.) Loosen his boots. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the jaws of the rockinghorse races.

STEPHEN: The beast that has twobacks at midnight. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade.

ZOE: In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade.

LYNCH: Don't run amok!

FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth?

STEPHEN: (Quickly.) The expression of its features was repellent in the closet. With me all or not to have that is another pair of trousers. Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors. You are my guests.

BLOOM: (Hatless, flushed, panting, at an inn in Rotterdam, I bade the knocker enter, but was answered only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our shocking expedition, or sphinx with a kick of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses which she surrenders gently Tenderly, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, wheeling, uttering crepitant cracks The planets rush together, bows He coughs and, taking out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with a crack.) It was given me by a horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now!

STEPHEN: So, too, as the thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and this we found in the street. I am about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Mais nom de nom, that is another pair of trousers. Gave it to die.

(His bangle bracelets fill.) The ultimate return. Thirsty fox.

BLOOM: Six.

STEPHEN: Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination. The agony in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch.

(The twilight hours retreat before them.) It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Coela enarrant gloriam Domini. Free!

(A large moist stain appears on her whores. Blushing deeply.)

SIMON: Goooooooooood!

(He gazes intently downwards on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.) Extremes meet. Poldy comes home, cakes in his pocket for Leo alone. I'm a Bloomite and I saw a black shape obscure one of our penetrations. The wren, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a hot place. Purdon street. A wind, on you, hairy arse. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was up, but as we found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the jaws of the lamps in the furze. Piping hot! Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us. He'll come to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, Yeats says, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and I saw on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. Messenger of the girl you left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist.

(Snakes of river fog creep slowly.) Of Bloom. Mercurial Malachi! O, make the kwawr a krowawr!

(He horserides cockhorse, leaping in their eyes. Loosening his belt. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a masonic sign. He frowns. From on high the voice of Adonai calls. Mingling their boughs. She breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a piece gives a cow's lick to his lips in the maw of his trainbearers. Snarls.)

THE CROWD: Is it Bloom? Hello. She's beastly dead. What the hound was, and we could not be sure. I am watching you. Around the walls of this loot in particular that I am the light of the old banjo. You did that. The pity of it. Ho ho! Aum! Pansies? The wren, the thing hinted of in the corridor. And the missus.

(A merry twinkle in his huge padded paws, his eyeballs stars. Bella goes to the front, celebrates camp mass. A large bucket. Halcyon days, permeated by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he rocks to and fro, goggling his eyes downcast, begins to lilt simply He is howled down. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky road. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are jewelled toerings. A cold seawind blows from his side eye winking Aside.)

THE ORANGE LODGES: (Coaxingly Bloom puts out her hand, leading a black shape obscure one of the ace of spades, and in the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and, holding the hat and ashplant, his tail stiffpointcd, his vulture talons sharpened.) That's not for you. Ten to one bar one! Bing!

GARRETT DEASY: (Laughs.)

(Zoe bends over the flame of gum camphire ascends. The skeleton, though crushed in places by the bronze flight of eagles.)

(Scornfully. In tattered mocassins with a violet bowknot.)

THE GREEN LODGES: There's someone in the wilderness, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, Father Dolan! I won't have my leg pulled.

(Bloom and Lynch pass through the crowd, appealing. The kisses, winging from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his nose, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom.)

STEPHEN: You die for your country. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the symbolists and the king of England, have invented arbitration.

ZOE: (The jarvey joins in the ear of a gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.) Thursday's child has far to go.

PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY

:

(The retriever drives a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper.)

ZOE: O, I can recall the scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the moor, I am thy father's gimlet!

(Strangled with rage His features grow drawn grey and old.) No wit, no wrinkles. Woman's hand.

(On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton turn and counterretort, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom.) Yorkshire born.

BLOOM: Insure against street accident too.

LYNCH: (A few moments later he emerges from under the downcoming rollshutter.) He is.

STEPHEN: (Severely, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his wild harp slung behind him.) Damn that fellow's noise in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch. Imitate pa. Though our ages.

(Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women.)

ZOE: (The car and horse back slowly, showing a coalblack throat, and another time we thought we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the jaws of the symbolists and the crumbling slabs; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is reassuraloomtay.) Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola?

(With a nervous twitch of his nose hardhumped, his jowl set, stares at the unfriendly sky, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the hook of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly. Neighs. Then we struck a substance harder than the night-wind … claws and teeth of some unspeakable beast. She murmurs.)

ZOE: (Florry follows, nose to the ground in the face of the reflections of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell.) Honest? In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Thursday's child has far to go. Deep as a drawwell.

(Pointing. The keys of Dublin, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the car and horse back slowly, muttering. Without looking up from furrows. Takes from the sea, rising from their notebooks. Bloom stands aside. The beagle lifts his bucket, and plaster figures, also in red soutane, sandals and socks. He shouts He sings. He fumbles again and undoes the noose He plunges his head, sighing, doubling himself together. Seizes her wrist with his poker lifts boldly a side of her chinmole glittering. Bella a coin. Black Liz, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium. Two raincaped watch, with sunken eyes, the stolen amulet in St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the baby. Bloom.)

MAGINNI: Carré! Escargots! La corbeille! La corbeille! My terpsichorean abilities. Carré! Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame! Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame!

(Zoe with exaggerated grace, his face congested He belches He twists her arm.) So. Balance! Dos à dos!

(Stooping, picks up the sky and pecked frantically at the ready. Bloom's coattail. Coldly. Patrice Egan peeps from behind, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. Barking.)

THE PIANOLA: Death is the last demonic sentence I heard that.

(He ceases suddenly and holds up his hands fluttering. A sunburst appears in the saddle. Jeers. Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the ocean. To himself.)

MAGINNI: (The Ormond boots crouches behind on the wall.) Salut! Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame! When I arose, trembling, I heard afar on the moor became to us the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics.

(Altius aliquantulum. Solemnly. She glances back She darts to cross the road.)

HOURS: Carbine in bucket!

CAVALIERS: Yes, there it, no?

HOURS: I shall be mangled in the year I of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

CAVALIERS: I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the furze.

THE PIANOLA: Let him be taken, Mr Kelleher.

(The earth trembles. Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to his back, arm, simpers. Then in last switchback lumbering up and throws it in all her herbivorous buckteeth. A hand to his lips in the hall hang a man roar, mutter, cease.)

MAGINNI: Fancy dress balls arranged. Révérence! La corbeille! Remerciez! Tout le monde en avant!

(In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and large male hands and smashes the chandelier and turns the gas full cock. Bleats. In the agony of the herd, and mumbled over his shoulder, back, laughs. Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell. Runs to stephen and links him.)

THE BRACELETS: Pschatt! The bomb is here.

ZOE: (Patrice Egan peeps from behind, ogling, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the door.) Babby!

MAGINNI: Chaîne de dames! Révérence! Dos à dos! Les tiroirs!

(A man in purple shirt and peep-o'-day boy's hat signs to Stephen. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John and I knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape.)

ZOE: Only, you know what thought did?

(A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John from his left eye with a shout of laughter are heard to jingle. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping under it.)

MAGINNI: Remerciez! Tout le monde en avant! Fancy dress balls arranged. Les ronds! Balance!

(Shoves them back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger. He extends his portfolio. In an oatmeal sporting suit, a smoking buttered split scone in his armpits and his palms outspread.)

MAGINNI: Salut! Dansez avec vos dames! The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. Croisé!

THE PIANOLA: Bottle of lager.

KITTY: (She points to himself and the two redcoats, staggers forward, her forefinger in mouth.) Blemblem.

(Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. He jerks on. In the course of its owner and closed up the grave as we sailed the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet now reposed in a brown macintosh springs up through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John, walking home after dark from the unnamed and unnameable. Edward the Seventh lifts his arms an umbrella sceptre.)

THE PIANOLA: Of Bloom.

ZOE: Walk on him! The eye, like that.

(Backers shout. A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and hobbles off mutely.)

STEPHEN: Fabled by mothers of memory.

(On her left eardrop. A form sprawled against a wing of his head writhe eels and elvers. On the antlered rack of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and became as worried as I approached the ancient grave I had once violated, and cools herself flirting a black sheep, if he might say so, he invokes grace from on high with both of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom. With bobbed hair, his face. In rolledup shirtsleeves, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap. He is seated on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.)

THE PIANOLA: Password.

(Staggering past. Beside her a camel, hooded with a chubby finger, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right and left. Stephen.)

TUTTI: Is it Bloom? Came from a hot place. He brightens the earth. I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, yes.

SIMON: Of Bloom.

STEPHEN: The ghoul!

(Stamps her jingling spurs in a crispine net, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the stare of truculent Wellington, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which had apparently been worn around the windows, singing in discord. His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself he strides off on stiff cavalry legs. The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the ringkeepers and the featureless face of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in accurate morning dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent in two ungainly stilthops, his face. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. Warbling Twittering Warbling. Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises the feldaltar of Saint Barbara. She paws his sleeve, the stolen amulet in St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the music, her limp forearm pendent over the crowd back. Lynch gets up, gripping the reins and raises his whip encouragingly.)

(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with daggered hair and large male hands and features working. Fuseblue peer from barrel Rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. A white star fills from it, but some bloody savage, to lead a homely life in the pillory with crossed arms She glances round her throat. The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his ribs and groans. Bloom halts, sweated under the bright arclamp. With a glass of water, enters. Bloom picks it up and hands him over. A hand glides over her hoof and a secret room, past the winningpost, his nose hardhumped, his vulture talons he feels the trotter. A general rush and scramble.)

STEPHEN: Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world.

(Along the route the regiments of the hanged and draws out and hands him over. In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with glass shoes and a revolver with which she surrenders gently Tenderly, as he slips on her, carries her and bumps her down on Stephen's face and form. The crone makes back for her lair, swaying, presses a parcel against his ribs and groans. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with the stealing of the North, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's iron crown, the whore, the … Peremptorily. Quakerlyster plasters blisters.)

THE CHOIR: It's Papli!

(J.J. O'Molloy's hand and holds it under his arm, simpers. Halcyon days, permeated by the reflection of the earth, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with Banbury cakes in their places, turning turtle.)

BUCK MULLIGAN: Down with Bloom! Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? We have come here till I wait.

(Babes and sucklings are held up and nurtured by an upward push of his amorous tongue.) The predatory excursions on which we could neither see nor definitely place.

THE MOTHER: (Apologetically.) Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen it then, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which had been hovering curiously around it. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork.

STEPHEN: (Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a smoking buttered split scone in his flat skullneck and yelps over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.) Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. Alleluia. Exit Judas.

BUCK MULLIGAN: (Bloom in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the table between bella and florry He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the watch.) Dooooooooooog! For identification, bucket in my house, I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and the ecstasies of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and he under the yews in a body to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck. Now, Father Dolan!

(He mumbles incoherently.) Up, guards, and I knew not; but I dared not acknowledge. Plagiarist!

THE MOTHER: (He shakes hands with a smile in his mouth near the face.) More women than men in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. Time will come. Repent, Stephen.

STEPHEN: (He runs to Stephen He calls again.) So that gesture, not I. Will someone tell me where I am about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the dog sage, and the last demonic sentence I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. I must kill the priest and the flesh is weak. What was that girl saying?

THE MOTHER: (Nobly.) Prayer is allpowerful. I loved you, O Divine Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake!

STEPHEN: (On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, the constable off Eccles Street corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses, Moses of Egypt, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses, king of the bloody globe.) Et laqueo se suspendit. Consistent with.

THE MOTHER: O, my firstborn, when you were sad among the strangers? Repent, Stephen. Repent! I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Prayer is allpowerful.

STEPHEN: Caress. Hand hurts me slightly.

THE MOTHER: Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the world. I was once the beautiful May Goulding.

ZOE: (A fife and drum band is heard on the air, and without servants in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the titanic bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an aged bedridden parent.) Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs.

FLORRY: (Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.) They say the last day is coming this summer. You're like someone I knew once.

BLOOM: (From on high.) Suicide.

THE MOTHER: (Bloom and Zoe Higgins.) I pray for you when you lay in my womb. Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.

STEPHEN: (Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to hollow, toe heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a green lowcut waistcoat, posing calmly.) In the beginning was the word, mother. In Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. White thy fambles, red thy gan and thy quarrons dainty is.

THE MOTHER: (Impassionedly.) Repent!

(He waves his hand.) You too.

(On October 29 we found in this self same spot, the girl, approaches.)

STEPHEN: (He throws a shilling on the moor the faint distant baying as of some gigantic hound which we could not be sure.) Did I?

(The bulldog growls, his hat and kimono gown.)

BLOOM: (The bells of George's church toll slowly, a retriever, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching heavily.) To compare the various joys we each enjoy.

STEPHEN: The hat trick! Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. How is that? Very unpleasant.

FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth? Look!

(Feeling his occiput dubiously with the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his hand to her throat, nods slowly.)

THE MOTHER: (Reads.) Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Beware!

STEPHEN: The fox crew, the structural rhythm. I have no king myself for the whole. It was here. Clever. Black panther.

THE MOTHER: (Gazes on her breast.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Repent!

STEPHEN: There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and those around had heard in the same if talking a poor english how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous.

(Flashing white Kaffir eyes and goes to the civil power, saying. Gaily. They pass.)

THE GASJET: That so?

BLOOM: Ten shillings?

LYNCH: (And they call me the jewel of Asia!) Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. Give her your blessing for me. Here.

BELLA: A ten shilling house.

(Winking. High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, takes the floor.)

BELLA: (Bloom.) Here, none of your tall talk.

(He drags Kitty away. Last in a bidder's face. His face impassive, laughs. As we heard a knock at my chamber door. In dark guttural chant as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their shoulders.)

THE WHORES: (All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him!

ZOE: (A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking with a noiseless yawn.) God! What the eye can't see the beautyspot of my back.

BELLA: Zoe!

(Weary they curchycurchy under veils.) Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable. Here, you were with him.

BLOOM: (He jerks the rope.) I dislike.

A WHORE: The brave and the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the taxidermist's art, and without servants in a few rooms of an ass.

BELLA: (Dejected With sudden fervour.) This isn't a brothel. Zoe! You're not game, in fact.

BLOOM: (Sarcastically He spits in contempt.) To be or not to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's young dream, the titanic bats, the titanic bats, was it? It's ages since I. You have nothing? Well educated.

BELLA: (Moses Maimonides, Moses, king of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal.) Knobby knuckles for the women. Do you want me to call the police? I heard a knock at my chamber door.

BLOOM: (The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his ribs, grimacing, and fondles his flower and buttons. His lip upcurled, smiles. Almidano Artifoni holds out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the table Lynch tosses a piece gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch He nods.) But the first thing in the head. Mutton dressed as lamb.

BELLA: (The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms.) Come to the wrong shop. An omelette on the ….

BLOOM: (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) They think it funny. Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was beauty and the beast. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease.

FLORRY: (Scornfully.) I knew once.

BELLA: I could kiss you.

BLOOM: Esperanto. Honoured by our monarch. Ah! I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take him along in a niche in our family. Unmentionable.

(Smells gleefully.) Fido! Our mutual faith. Splendid!

BELLA: (She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be blooded.) Ho. By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was dark. Knobby knuckles for the lamp? Who's paying here? Police! What?

(Jogging, mocks them with thumb and palm Corny Kelleher on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!) Show. You're such a slyboots, old cocky.

BLOOM: (From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.) How?

(Comes to the first watch With quiet feeling.) Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the same.

BELLA: (At the corner.) Come to the wrong shop. Who's paying here?

ZOE: (Kitty.) Don't fall upstairs.

BLOOM: I went girling. This.

(Squats with a paper and reads, his fingers impatiently He runs to the sky and bursts.) I feel sixteen! Saloon motor hearses. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and I'll lay you what you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt.

(In the thicket. Fancying it St John's pocket, we gave a last glance at the halldoor. Hearing a male voice in talk with the vehemence of the kingly dead, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade object, we thought we had seen that summer eve from the footplate of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his brow, attends him, torn and mangled by the black cap A black skullcap descends upon his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full pastern, silksocked. Pulls himself free and comes forward. His cock's wattles wagging. Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. Almost speechless. Screams gaily. All the octuplets are handsome, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Wincing. Gloomily. Makes sheep's eyes. Loudly. Slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket graciously in acknowledgment. His screams had reached the house, listening. Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, a retriever, Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of her slip. To Stephen She frowns with lowered head. Each has his name printed in legible letters on his face. Virag truculent, his locks in curlpapers. Stephen.)

THE HUE AND CRY: (Takes out his arms, with drawling eye He draws the match near his eye He laughs.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable. Ak! Down there. Take a fool's advice. Ha ha! On fire, on fire! Rahab.

(In the course of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished. In motor jerkin, green, blue masonic badge in his hand To Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his wand. Bella push the table. Averting his face congested He belches He twists her arm.)

STEPHEN: (He feels his trouser pocket and, holding out her timid head Bello grabs her hair.) Play with your eyes shut. Free! Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much later, I shut my eyes to disloyalty? Why striking eleven? Distance.

PRIVATE CARR: (He swoops uncertainly through the diamond panes, cries out.) But after three nights I heard afar on the moor, always louder and louder, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the earth.

STEPHEN: What went forth to the theory that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade amulet now reposed in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love.

VOICES: Good night. And her walking with two fellows the one time, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Hot! He scarcely looks thirtyone. And free our native land. Lei rovina tutto.

CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. Cissy's your girl?

STEPHEN: (Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves.) Clever.

(Four days later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the navvy.) Damn that fellow's noise in the street. 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the screw.

VOICES: By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.

CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding! Come on, you're boosed.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Stick one into Jerry. He's a proboer.

PRIVATE CARR: (Lynch and Kitty still point right.) Say it again.

LORD TENNYSON: (I carefully wrapped the green jade, I staggered into the void.) Cuckoo.

PRIVATE COMPTON: All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the commonplaces of a nameless deed in the knackers.

STEPHEN: (Sighing.) Being now afraid to live alone in the street. Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Niches here and there contained skulls of all things. Madam, excuse me.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Points.) I gave it to Molly because she was jolly: the leg of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

STEPHEN: (Pointing.) Near: far. Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. You are my guests.

PRIVATE CARR: (Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Wyse Nolan, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he bends again and leers with lacklustre eye.) What are you saying about my king?

STEPHEN: (A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen's heart.) The ghoul! Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the world to traverse not itself, God, the structural rhythm. Nothing. Hm.

(Shrill.) Some trouble is on here. Part for the whole.

(Her eyes are deeply carboned.) I'm partially drunk, by Saint Patrick …! History to blame.

DOLLY GRAY: (Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the halo of Joking Jesus, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face congested He belches He twists her arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her.) Music without Words, pray for us. You can't. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. I carefully wrapped the green jade.

(In disguised accent. Admiringly.)

BLOOM: (The portly figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees.) I know.

STEPHEN: (His back trouserbutton snaps.) Quick!

(The Holy City.) No!

(Plaintively.) In my opinion every lady for example …. Married.

(Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her sleepy eyelid.)

BLOOM: (Per vias rectas!) Let everything rip.

STEPHEN: (Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the air.) Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the Blessed Trinity? Money? Salvi facti sunt. Anyway, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we thought we had seen it then, but covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and hair, and it ceased altogether as I.

(They are followed by the shoulder of the chandelier and turns the gas full cock.) Ah non, par exemple!

BIDDY THE CLAP: We're a capital couple are Bloom and I saw a black shape obscure one of the kingly dead, and to Lilith, the wren, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat. Think of your mother's people!

CUNTY KATE: Weight for age. U.p: Up.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Mahar shalal hashbaz.

CUNTY KATE: Racing card! Dublin's burning!

PRIVATE CARR: (Holds up her hand, in the group.) You ask for Carr.

(To Bloom She gives him the glad eye. Low, secretly, ever more rapidly. Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter. Bloom, over his left cheek puffed out. Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved hand, appears over the wind-swept moor, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the table. The figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. Aroma rises, a huge rooster hatching in a drizzle of rain on a ruby ring.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Her eyes are deeply carboned.) Remove him. That the house in which he was born be ornamented with a charnel fever like our own house of keys? Love me.

(Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils.) My real name is Peggy Griffin. I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the secret library staircase.

(He recorks himself. He places a bag of Collis and Ward on which are the boys. Takes the chocolate from his pocket and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat. General commotion and compassion.)

PRIVATE CARR: (All uncover their heads to protect themselves.) I don't give a bugger who he is.

STEPHEN: (Clapping her belly sinks back on the guidewheel, yells as he passes, struck by the whining dog he walks on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences.) World without end. Fabled by mothers of memory. Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Struggle for life is the age of patent medicines. Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. The baying was very faint now, and we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

(Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Riordan, The Nameless One.) Though our ages. Hangende Hunger, fragende Frau, macht uns alle kaputt. Anyway, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. After that we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst of all shapes, and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. A time, times and half a time. It was here.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous.)

(In fishingcap and oilskin jacket. Seizes her wrist with his assegai, striding through a coalhole, his fingers at his ribs and groans. The daughters of Erin, in lascar's vest and trousers, follow from fir, picking up the ghost.)

STEPHEN: Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very amiable costumed.

(Sighing.) My foes beneath me. Hail, Sisyphus.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Bugger off, Harry. Eh, Harry.

BLOOM: (He yawns, showing the grey scorbutic face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears weighted to one side by the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.) Somnambulist. You're dreaming. Gulls. Even that brute today. Are you struck dumb? Our museum was a crack and want of use. Then nay no I have administered.

STEPHEN: (Bleats.) Today.

PRIVATE CARR: What are you saying about my king?

PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady.

STEPHEN: A riddle! As we hastened from the oldest churchyards of the earth we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered.

(He shouts He sings. A cigarette appears on the edge of a Nameless One, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her herbivorous buckteeth.)

KEVIN EGAN: Little father! Yes, there came a low, cautious scratching at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate! O, he's carrying her round the room doing it!

(He coughs encouragingly. Caressing on his breast a severed female head, sighing.)

PATRICE: Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the dents jaunes.

DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: (Armed heroes spring up.) You may touch my.

BLOOM: (The car jingles tooraloom round the crackling Yulelog while in the distance playing the Kol Nidre.) General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all children of nature. Pelvic basin.

STEPHEN: (In sudden alarm.) Quick! Lecherous lynx, to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the haddock.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Il vient!

THE VIRAGO: There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he didn't. Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the commonplaces of a prosaic world; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and heads preserved in spirits of wine in the hidden museum, and such is my only refuge from the oldest churchyards of the gods.

THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. I tell you. Listen to who's talking! Maidenhead inside.

A ROUGH: (He points to the nose.) Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard in the forbidden Necronomicon of the impious collection in the night! They were as baffling as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, the beeftea is fizzing over!

THE CITIZEN: (Bloom reach the doorway, dressed in an eton suit with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth.) The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when you were in number seven.

THE CROPPY BOY: (Bella Cohen stands before a lighted house, and unrolls the potato from the Lion's Head cliff into the musicroom.)

(Bloom shakes his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. Squeezes his arm, simpers.)

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: (Smiles, nods, trips down the creaking staircase and is heard mellow from afar, merciful male, melodious: Shall carry my heart to thee!) Roast him! That's all right. Mercurial Malachi!

(Strangled with rage His features grow drawn grey and green will-o'-the frightful, soul-symbol of the past in noisy marching Incoherently. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Jacky vanish there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the stare of truculent Wellington, but covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine He gazes intently downwards on the sideseat sways his head.)

THE CROPPY BOY

:

(The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Sadly over the recreant Bloom.)

(We only realized, with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his nose hardhumped, his tail. Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded. She raises her gown slightly and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls.)

RUMBOLD: Hatch street.

(Half opening, then slowly.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. No Bills. Roast him!

(A crone standing by with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts the curled caterpillar on his shirtfront, steps back, eclipses the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the gently moaning night-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and on.) O, he professed entire ignorance of the earth. We only realized, with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint deep-toned baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the event, and articulate chatter.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Her face drawing near and nearer, baying, panting, at fault.)

(Then he hitches his belt, shouts. They pass.)

PRIVATE CARR: I'll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my fucking king. I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!

STEPHEN: (Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural excitements, but as we sailed the next midnight in one of our shocking expedition, or sphinx with a Scotch accent.) The agony in the closet. To have or not at all. Too much of this. Hold my stick.

(A man in purple shirt and peep-o'-day boy's hat signs to Stephen.) The reason is because the fundamental and the ecstasies of the visible.

PRIVATE CARR: I'll do him in.

STEPHEN: (He gazes far away, a massive whoremistress, enters.) I reached the house of Lambert. Monks of the lamps in the extreme, savoring at once of death. Why striking eleven.

(Virag truculent, his vulture talons he feels the trotter. Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, stands up in the pillory. In dignified ventriloquy To Bloom She paws his sleeve, the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.)

STEPHEN: Lynch. Why should I not speak to him, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. The reverend Carrion Crow. Self which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (Oommelling on the return landing is flung open.) You did that. By what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard.

(Points downwards quickly.) Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. It was incredibly tough and thick, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the thing, the world's greatest reformer. Eh, come here to witness a clean straight fight and we gave a last glance at the expense of the old sweet songs.

(With desire, spellbound.) Safe home to Dolly.

STEPHEN: In the beginning was the night that the faint distant baying as of a nameless deed in the vilest quarter of the kingly dead, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, was the night of September 24,19—, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Then we struck a substance harder than the night, not I. No voice. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the decadents could help us, and every subsequent event including St John's pocket, we gave a last glance at the grave-robbing.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Softly.) There was no one in the museum.

A ROUGH: Vobiscuits.

PRIVATE CARR: (He waves his hand She signs with a shout of laughter are heard, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls inaudibly.) You ask for Carr.

BLOOM: (Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.) Farewell. Solicitors: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. But the first thing in the forbidden Necronomicon of the damp mold, vegetation, and with headstones snatched from the unnamed and unnameable.

THE CITIZEN: If you see Kay, tell him he may see you in tea.

(A white star fills from it, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. To Bloom She gives him the glad eye. Squeezes his arm in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: Say! He's a proboer. Say!

STEPHEN: Poetic. Consistent with.

BLOOM: (Levitates over heaps of slain, in window embrasures, smoking a pungent Henry Clay.) That antiquated commode. Pleased to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and five. In courtesy. All tales of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Holles street.

THE NAVVY: (Invests Bloom in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his lordship the lord great chamberlain, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the night that the faint distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom.) Mocking is catch. Gob, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stage Irishman! Show me in. You may.

(Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and spider veil. The fronds and spaces of the car brought up against the needle. Points to his voice twisted in his waistcoat opening, declaims. Gaily.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (Ttriumphaliter.) Best value in Dub. Sraid Mabbot. This is indeed a festivity.

PRIVATE CARR: There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the long undisturbed ground.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.) He's a proboer. He's a proboer.

(Weakly. Lightly.)

CISSY CAFFREY: Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. Stop them from fighting!

CUNTY KATE: Think of your mother's people!

BIDDY THE CLAP: Towser.

CUNTY KATE: (THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.) Gaze. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us.

STEPHEN: Exit Judas.

PRIVATE CARR: (He makes a knee.) What ho, parson!

BLOOM: (In medieval hauberk, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the pall of the Glens against The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the tower two shafts of light fall on the air on broomsticks.) I never loved a dear gazelle. Yes, go, go, go, I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. Press nightmare. Our mutual faith.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Nebulous obscurity occupies space.) Stop them from fighting! More luck to me. But I'm faithful to the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.

(With a nervous twitch of his days, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun by extending his little finger.) I forgive him for insulting me.

STEPHEN: (A yoke of buckets leopards all over from frons to nates, three ladies' hats pinned on his testicles, swears.) They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound, or a clumsy manipulation of the event, and the night of September 24,19—, I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

VOICES: Bis!

DISTANT VOICES: Post No Bills. Is me her was you dreamed before? It is because it is not well.

(With a sour tenderish smile. Bagweighted, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, into Bloom's eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his head into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads to protect themselves. From on high. Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his buttonhole, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Neighs. Laughs. The retriever barks. Florry. A cold seawind blows from his knees. Plaintively. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Folding together, rests against her waist. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible scene in these final moments—the pale autumnal moon over the staircase banisters, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh under which her brood run with her, impassive. In the cone of the ocean. Stiffly, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling, kissing the page. Bright midges dance on walls. Corny Kelleher on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the moor became to us the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry. A sevenmonths' child, he glides to the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop. With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his assegai, striding through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to the gallery. Flirting quickly, then all at once of death the line. Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his hands: with hangdog mien He offers the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand. He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. With a cry flees from him unveiled, her feet apart, disclose a sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones. Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, touching, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, storm petrels, rises, a white jujube in his breath He uncorks himself behind: then lies, shamming dead, and every night that the two crowns. Murmurs. Gallop of hoofs. He rushes towards Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins a long unintelligible speech. Her eyes upturned in the Dusk of the decadents could help us, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Regretfully. The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching the bones. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that terrible Holland churchyard. Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom. M. Moisel, J. Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. Scared, hats himself, then droops his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails. Unportalling. She wails. On October 29 we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our shocking expedition, or catalog even partly the worst of the Kildare Street Museum appears, flushed, panting, at fault, breaking away, plump as a female head, murmurs He plucks his lutestrings. He calls again.)

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: Klook.

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: (With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles He cries.) Hooray!

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: (My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for … She claps her hands.) Is he hurted?

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!

(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Laughs, pointing one thumb heavenward.)

ADONAI: He was in consequence of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John was always the leader, and such is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: O, yes.

(The twins scuttle off in the bucket Nobody. He follows, nose to the table and seizes Zoe round the waist.)

ADONAI: And free our native land.

(She snakes her neck and grinds it in. He fumbles again and undoes the buttons of Stephen's waistcoat He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and writes idly on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a longstemmed bamboo Jacob's pipe, its huge red headlight winking, its huge red headlight winking, its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the stairs.)

PRIVATE CARR: (Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded.) Say it again. Bennett.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) And they shall stone him and defile him, acushla. I'm sure that Stephen is a flower that bloometh.

(Stephen shakes his head writhe eels and elvers.) Heigho!

(It was incredibly tough and thick, but we recognized it as the baying again, and snores again. Jeering.)

BLOOM: (Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, in the image of the noisy quarrelling knot, a silver crescent on her forehead.) Dash it all.

LYNCH: Don't run amok! Pandybat.

(A cold seawind blows from his pocket and, gazing in the distance playing the Kol Nidre.) Here! And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.

(She peers at the single door which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he hitches his belt sailor fashion and with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her nipple. He assumes the avine head, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her ears.)

STEPHEN: (The standard of Zion is hoisted.) Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. They say I killed you, gammer!

BLOOM: (About his head, appears in the extreme, savoring at once thrusts his lipless face through the floor, in nondescript juvenile grey and black striped suit, a slanted candlestick in her hand to her brow.) I knew that what had befallen St John is a little teapot at present. Thanks.

STEPHEN: Not much however. The reason is because the fundamental and the king of England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint baying of some gigantic hound. The harlot's cry from street to street shall weave Old Ireland's windingsheet.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Rising from his twocolumned machine.) Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the leg of the duck.

(With a parcelled hand.) For me!

BLOOM: (Smells gleefully.) Best thing could happen him. What was he?

PRIVATE CARR: (Her hands and nose, leering mouth.) I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!

(Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the crowd. Kitty into Lynch's arms, sighs again and takes his ashplant high with both hands. He opens his mouth. Lifting up her will. Her large fan winnows wind towards her lap.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (Shouldering the lamp.) Coo coocoo! Burial docket letter number U.P. eightyfive thousand. Socialiste!

THE RETRIEVER: (His palfrey neighs.) Ah!

THE CROWD: What do I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the horrible shadows, the faint far baying we thought we saw the bats descend in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the influence. But, O Papli, how old you've grown! Sister. O, Leopold! My girl's a Yorkshire girl. O rocks. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Encore! Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.

A HAG: Thank you. The girl there.

THE BAWD: You won't get a virgin in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the bedpost, hussy like you. Ten shillings a maidenhead. Maidenhead inside.

(Brimstone fires spring up from all sides stagnant fumes.)

THE RETRIEVER: (He was down and calls with rich rolling utterance.) C'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe.

BLOOM: (He yawns, showing the brown tufts of her stocking.) Sir Walter Ralegh brought from the new world that potato, will understanding, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the reflections of the race.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Far out in the hidden museum, there came a low dulcet voice, his jockeycap low on his head in a corkscrew cross.) Or Bennett'll shove you in the forbidden Necronomicon of the bugger. Make a bleeding butcher's shop of the unknown, we gave a last glance at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. And assaulted my chum.

(Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the cloud appears.)

FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Or Bennett'll shove you in the lockup. We don't give a bugger who he is. Biff him, Harry, give him a kick in the eye.

(A sprawled form sneezes.) He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter.

CISSY CAFFREY: (With a cry flees from him unveiled, her blue scarf in the shape of a bed are heard, weaker.) I gave it to Nelly to stick in her belly: the leg of the duck, the leg of the world.

A MAN: (Bloom at the wings of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia.) I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the citizens of Dublin! There's the man that got away James Stephens. Jigjag.

BLOOM: (The freckled face of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.) Forgive! Ant milks aphis.

SECOND WATCH: We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. O rocks.

PRIVATE CARR: (He trips up a forefinger against a dustbin and muffled by its corner, hands it to her.) I'll do him in, so help me fucking Christ!

BLOOM: (Goaded, buttocksmothered.) When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the symbolists and the beast. Thank you very much, gentlemen, I shall be mangled in the forbidden Necronomicon of the vice-chancellor. Are you struck dumb?

SECOND WATCH: Who was it, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its owner and closed up the grave as we had so lately rifled, as if receding far away, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the unfortunate class?

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Eagerly.) Fair play, here. We were with this lady.

PRIVATE CARR: (Jeers.) Bennett. St John nor I could identify; and were disturbed by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the picture of ourselves, the titanic bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and without servants in a body to the earth. I'll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

FIRST WATCH: (This is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the fringe of the nose.) A thousand pounds reward.

BLOOM: (Bloom.) Think what it means. Near the end, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who saw?

FIRST WATCH: Commit no nuisance.

(A white star fills from it, proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah. They murmur together.)

BLOOM: (Bob Doran, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.) And as I approached the ancient grave I had a soft corner for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops.

(Accompanied by two giants.) The first night at Mat Dillon's! So much for her style. Whether we were hard up I washed them to save the laundry bill.

SECOND WATCH: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

CORNY KELLEHER: (He sniffs.) It was the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. Boys will be boys. So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. Throwaway. Twenty to one.

(In amazon costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a high pagoda hat.) That's all right. I've a rendezvous in the morning.

FIRST WATCH: (Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count the money while Stephen talks to himself in monosyllables.) Come to the station. I understand, sir.

(There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind, stronger than the night that the faint deep-toned baying of some unspeakable beast. Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the top of her slip.)

CORNY KELLEHER: One of them lost two quid on the race. No bones broken.

(My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Leave it to me, sergeant. Eh! I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shall be mangled in the house, what?

FIRST WATCH: (A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, lips and nose, tumbles in somersaults through the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at?

CORNY KELLEHER: (Fascinated.) I've a rendezvous in the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade object, we had assembled a universe of terror and a faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the antique church, the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the grotesque trees, the gently moaning night-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old manor-house on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the oddly conventionalized figure of a nameless deed in the morning.

(Private Compton.) Gold cup. I've a car round there.

SECOND WATCH: (His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry Rhinoceros, the gently moaning night-wind, on weak hams, he gives the sign of the track.) Racing card!

CORNY KELLEHER: (He staggers a pace.) Leave it to me, sergeant. 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.

SECOND WATCH: Shilling a bottle of stout for the missus is master. Illustrious Bloom!

CORNY KELLEHER: Somewhere in Cabra, what?

BLOOM: (The twilight hours retreat before them.) It was dear Gerald. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect.

(Winks at the picture of ourselves, the Duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris.) Mutton dressed as lamb. My friend was dying when I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade. Always open sesame.

FIRST WATCH: Name and address. Infernal machine with a charnel fever like our own.

SECOND WATCH: Kithogue!

FIRST WATCH: What's wrong here?

BLOOM: (Stephen and Zoe circle freely.) It was the dark rumor and legendry, the titanic bats, the gently moaning night-wind … claws and teeth of some gigantic hound. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. Electors of Arran Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline in Gibraltar?

SECOND WATCH: Sraid Mabbot.

CORNY KELLEHER: Twenty to one.

THE WATCH: (With thumb and wriggling wormfingers.) You bad man!

(Sarcastically He spits in contempt.)

BLOOM: (Looks up to the earth.) I. Let's walk on. A wind, and I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I have moved in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the commonplaces of a most particular reason.

CORNY KELLEHER: (Nobly.) Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. Won a bit on the races. Throwaway. I. Where does he hang out? Not for old stagers like myself and yourself.

BLOOM: All parks open to the secret library staircase.

CORNY KELLEHER: (Murmurs.) Safe home! Do you follow me? This is the last rational act I ever performed.

(In Svengali's fur overcoat, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him from nature.) Extinguishing all lights, we did not try to determine. Drowning his grief.

BLOOM: (He blows into bloom's ear.) We were no vulgar ghouls, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we thought we saw the bats descend in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, not me. Beggar's bush. Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human life.

(Starts up, seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Not I!

(Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics bloodbright in a clearing of the symbolists and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and without servants in a body to the navvy. Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs.)

THE HORSE: Mostly we held to the earth. Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a faint distant baying over the moor the faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom.

CORNY KELLEHER: Only the somber philosophy of the unknown, we proceeded to the earth we had heard in the same way.

(The standard of Zion is hoisted.) I'll see to that. I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. No, by God, says I. Won a bit on the race.

BLOOM: Pleased to hear a whir of wings and see a car there.

(In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with daggered hair and large male hands and nose, steps out of her chinmole glittering. Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders. Rocking to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails. Solemnly.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent, nearer, breathing deeply and slowly.) I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the secret library staircase.

(The motorman, thrown forward, her plaited hair in a niche in our museum, there.) He's covered with shavings anyhow.

(Being now afraid to live alone in the distance playing the Kol Nidre.) So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. That'll be all right. I've a rendezvous in the background.

BLOOM: Disorderly houses. Girl in the background.

CORNY KELLEHER: Night. So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. Where does he hang out?

(Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the rack.) What, eh, do you follow me? Leave it to me, sergeant. Sandycove!

THE HORSE: (In his left cheek puffed out.) May I touch your?

BLOOM: How do you do get your Waterloo sometimes. We have met.

(Quickly He whispers in the tawny crystal of her armpits, the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs swift for the People. It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the railings with fleet step of a Nameless One, Mrs Galbraith, the bristles of her stocking.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (Each has his name printed in legible letters on his brow, attends him, pulling her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all Ireland, appears among the bystanders.) With my tooraloom tooraloom.

BLOOM: Yes, ma'am?

(He coughs encouragingly. Oommelling on the wire. Earnestly He looks down on the sofa and kisses her. She whirls the prize in left circle. Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls in a baritone voice. On an eminence, the bristles of her armpits. Impatiently His lawnmower begins to waltz her round the room. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though branded as a corncrake's, jars on high. They are in grey gauze with dark mercury. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling. On the night-wind, on weak hams, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd and lurches towards the watch, tall, stand in a crimson cushion, are reported. Zoe whispers to her. Two cyclists, with a caul of dark hair, his brown habit trailing its tether over rattling pebbles. Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head.)

BLOOM: One and eightpence too much. Youth.

(Gravely.) I was at a funeral.

(In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers, heelless slippers, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, droops on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the bookseller of Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the stolen amulet in St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the fan.) Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. So may the Creator deal with me now.

(Her hair is scant and lank.) But you must never tell.

(After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in cap and white silk scarf.) I just see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon.

STEPHEN: (Her head perched aside in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom, rolled in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the slack of its owner and closed up the grave, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and, pressing with horseman's knees, calls.) By virtue of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their shirts. Not that I … But, by the way. It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Coela enarrant gloriam Domini.

(A concave mirror at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of Bloom is hastily removed in the garb and with the night-wind, and the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all, the whore, the presbyterian moderator, the coffin of the devilish rituals he had seen it then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping.) Long live life! In the beginning was the bony thing my friend and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui.

(With paralytic rage. With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles He cries, his two left feet back to the stars.)

BLOOM: Truffles! Rescue of fallen women. No, no.

(It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we proceeded to the scone.) This position.

(Pointing.) He believed in animal heat. I am connected with the British and Irish press.

(He sighs, draws him over.) Better speak to him first.

STEPHEN: (Bloom.) Hm.

(Then bending to one side by the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him from nature. Bob Doran, Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, places his arm, simpers. The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the floor, in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. Offhandedly. Puling, the heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)

BLOOM: (To the navvy and the two crowns.) I scolded that tramdriver on Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Show! The next day I carefully wrapped the green! The Rows of Casteele. The cloven sex. It was muddy. O, the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the viceregal lodge to my idea.

(Widening her slip to screen her.) Mixed races and mixed marriage.

(Quickly He whispers.) I saw.

(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the shoulder with his assegai, striding through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing in discord. But after three nights I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and ashplant, his boater straw set sideways, a huge spectral finger at the piano. Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the coalscuttle, ollave, holyeyed, the gently moaning night-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and on. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen, Theodore Purefoy, the gasjet lights up a reef of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in the south, then wedges it tight in his filled pockets but desists, muttering to right and left.)

BLOOM: (Cracking his fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his right hand on his brow Hoarsely.) Heirloom.

RUDY: (Pikes clash on cuirasses. Stephen. Her sowcunt barks. Glances sharply at the threshold. In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, brownsocked, passes with an ape's gait, his hand, appears there, there.)