THE RECORDER: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! (He dons the black cap) Let him be taken, Mr Subsheriff, 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 neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him. (A black skullcap descends upon his head.)
(The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry Clay.)
LONG JOHN FANNING: (Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance) Who’ll hang Judas Iscariot?
(H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner’s apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs grimly his grappling hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)
RUMBOLD: (To the recorder with sinister familiarity) Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or nothing.
(The bells of George’s church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)
THE BELLS: Heigho! Heigho!
BLOOM: (Desperately) Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence. Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee. (Breathlessly) Pelvic basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. (Overcome with emotion) I left the precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing) Hynes, may I speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you want a little more…
HYNES: (Coldly) You are a perfect stranger.
SECOND WATCH: (Points to the corner) The bomb is here.
FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.
BLOOM: No, no. Pig’s feet. I was at a funeral.
FIRST WATCH: (Draws his truncheon) Liar!
(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)
PADDY DIGNAM: (In a hollow voice) It is true. It was my funeral. Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes.
(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)
BLOOM: (In triumph) You hear?
PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam’s spirit. List, list, O list!
BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau.
SECOND WATCH: (Blesses himself) How is that possible?
FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism.
PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks.
A VOICE: O rocks.
PADDY DIGNAM: (Earnestly) Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor’s Walk. Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that bottle of sherry. (He looks round him) A lamp. I must satisfy an animal need. That buttermilk didn’t agree with me.
(The portly figure of John O’Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.)
FATHER COFFEY: (Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak) Namine. Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen.
JOHN O’CONNELL: (Foghorns stormily through his megaphone) Dignam, Patrick T, deceased.
PADDY DIGNAM: (With pricked up ears, winces) Overtones. (He wriggles forward and places an ear to the ground) My master’s voice!
JOHN O’CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand. Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.
(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail stiffpointcd, his ears cocked.)
PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.
