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.
(He worms down through A COALHOLE,
his brown habit trailing its
tether
over rattling pebbles. After
him toddles an obese grandfather
rat on
fungus turtle paws under A grey
carapace. Dignam’s voice,
muffled, is
heard baying under ground:
Dignam’s dead and gone below. Tom Rochford,
ROBINREDBREASTED, in cap and breeches,
jumps from his TWOCOLUMNED
machine.)
Tom Rochford: (A hand to his breastbone, bows) Reuben J. A florin I find him. (He fixes the manhole with A resolute stare) My turn now on. Follow me up to Carlow.
(He executes A daredevil salmon
leap in the air and is
engulfed in the
COALHOLE. Two discs on the
columns wobble, eyes of nought.
All recedes.
Bloom PLODGES forward again through
the Sump. Kisses chirp amid
the RIFTS
of fog A piano sounds. He
stands before A lighted house,
listening. The
kisses, winging from their Bowers
fly about him, twittering, warbling,
cooing.)
The kisses: (Warbling) Leo! (Twittering)
Icky licky micky sticky for Leo!
(Cooing) Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! (Warbling)
Big comebig! Pirouette!
Leopopold! (Twittering) Leeolee! (Warbling)
O Leo!
(They rustle, flutter upon his
garments, alight, bright giddy
flecks,
silvery sequins.)