STEPHEN: How is that? Les distrait or absentminded beggar. (He fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object fills.) That fell.
BLOOM: (Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches) This.
STEPHEN: Lucifer. Thanks.
BLOOM: (Quietly) You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more?
STEPHEN: (Hands him all his coins) Be just before you are generous.
BLOOM: I will but is it wise? (He counts) One, seven, eleven, and five. Six. Eleven. I don’t answer for what you may have lost.
STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next Lessing says. Thirsty fox. (He laughs loudly) Burying his grandmother. Probably he killed her.
BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say.
STEPHEN: Doesn’t matter a rambling damn.
BLOOM: No, but…
STEPHEN: (Comes to the table) Cigarette, please. (Lynch tosses a cigarette from the sofa to the table) And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. (A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it) Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. (He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy)
LYNCH: (Watching him) You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer.
STEPHEN: (Brings the match near his eye) Lynx eye. Must get glasses. Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat. (He draws the match away. It goes out.) Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. (He frowns mysteriously) Hm. Sphinx. The beast that has twobacks at midnight. Married.
ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him.
FLORRY: (Nods) Mr Lambe from London.
STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world.
LYNCH: (Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply) Dona nobis pacem.
(The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it in the grate.)
BLOOM: Don’t smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. (To Zoe) You have nothing?
ZOE: Is he hungry?
STEPHEN: (Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the bloodoath in the Dusk of the Gods)
Hangende Hunger,
Fragende Frau,
Macht uns alle kaputt.
ZOE: (Tragically) Hamlet, I am thy father’s gimlet! (She takes his hand) Blue eyes beauty I’ll read your hand. (She points to his forehead) No wit, no wrinkles. (She counts) Two, three, Mars, that’s courage. (Stephen shakes his head) No kid.
LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and shake. (To Zoe) Who taught you palmistry?
ZOE: (Turns) Ask my ballocks that I haven’t got. (To Stephen) I see it in your face. The eye, like that. (She frowns with lowered head)
LYNCH: (Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice) Like that. Pandybat.
(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, the bald little round jack–in–the–box head of Father Dolan springs up.)
FATHER DOLAN: Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little schemer. See it in your eye.
(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises from the pianola coffin.)
DON JOHN CONMEE: Now, Father Dolan! Now. I’m sure that Stephen is a very good little boy!
ZOE: (Examining Stephen’s palm) Woman’s hand.
STEPHEN: (Murmurs) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.
ZOE: What day were you born?
STEPHEN: Thursday. Today.
ZOE: Thursday’s child has far to go. (She traces lines on his hand) Line of fate. Influential friends.
FLORRY: (Pointing) Imagination.
