bella (contemptuously.) you're not game, in fact. (her sowcunt barks.) fohracht!
bloom (contemptuously.) clean your nailless middle finger first, the cold spunk of your bully is dripping from your cockscomb. take a handful of hay and wipe yourself.
bella i know you, canvasser! dead cod!
bloom i saw him, kipkeeper! pox and gleet vendor!
bella (turns to the piano.) which of you was playing the dead march from saul?
zoe me. mind your cornflowers. (she darts to the piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms.) the cat's ramble through the slag. (she glances back.) eh? who's making love to my sweeties? (she darts back to the table.) what's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.
(kitty disconcerted coats her teeth with the silver paper. bloom approaches zoe.)bloom (gently.) give me back that potato, will you? zoe forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing.
bloom (with feeling.) it is nothing, but still a relic of poor mamma.
zoe
give a thing and take it back
god'll ask you where is that
you'll say you don't know
god'll send you down below.
bloom there is a memory attached to it. i should like to have it.
stephen to have or not to have, that is the question.
zoe here. (she hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.) those that hides knows where to find.
bella (frowns.) here. this isn't a musical peep. and don't you smash that piano. who's paying here?
(she goes to the pianola. stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)stephen (with exaggerated politeness.) this silken purse i made out of the sow's ear of the public. madam, excuse me. if you allow me. (he indicates vaguely lynch and bloom.) we are all in the same sweepstake, kinch and lynch. dans ce bordel où tenons nostre état.