THE MOTHER: (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen breath) Beware! (She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly towards Stephen’s breast with outstretched finger) Beware God’s hand! (A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen’s heart.)
STEPHEN: (Strangled with rage) Shite! (His features grow drawn grey and old)
BLOOM: (At the window) What?
STEPHEN: Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. Non serviam!
FLORRY: Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out)
THE MOTHER: (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately) O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred Heart!
STEPHEN: No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I’ll bring you all to heel!
THE MOTHER: (In the agony of her deathrattle) Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN: Nothung!
(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET: Pwfungg!
BLOOM: Stop!
LYNCH: (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen’s hand) Here! Hold on! Don’t run amok!
BELLA: Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.)
BELLA: (Screams) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES: (Jammed in the doorway, pointing) Down there.
ZOE: (Pointing) There. There’s something up.
BELLA: Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom’s coattail) Here, you were with him. The lamp’s broken.
BLOOM: (Rushes to the hall, rushes back) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE: He tore his coat.
BELLA: (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points) Who’s to pay for that? Ten shillings. You’re a witness.
BLOOM: (Snatches up Stephen’s ashplant) Me? Ten shillings? Haven’t you lifted enough off him? Didn’t he…?
BELLA: (Loudly) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn’t a brothel. A ten shilling house.
BLOOM: (His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Puling, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the chimney’s broken. Here is all he…
BELLA: (Shrinks back and screams) Jesus! Don’t!
BLOOM: (Warding off a blow) To show you how he hit the paper. There’s not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY: (With a glass of water, enters) Where is he?
BELLA: Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM: O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he’s a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a masonic sign) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice–chancellor. You don’t want a scandal.
BELLA: (Angrily) Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is he? I’ll charge him! Disgrace him, I will! (She Shouts) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM: (Urgently) And if it were your own son in Oxford? (Warningly) I know.
BELLA: (Almost speechless) Who are. Incog!
ZOE: (In the doorway) There’s a row on.
BLOOM: What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and starts) That’s for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air.
