m very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil.
Where are you from? London?

ZOE: _(Glibly)_ Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I'm
Yorkshire born. _(She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple)_
I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a
short time? Ten shillings?

BLOOM: _(Smiles, nods slowly)_ More, houri, more.

ZOE: And more's mother? _(She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws)_
Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll
peel off.

BLOOM: _(Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled
embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled
pears)_ Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed
monster. _(Earnestly)_ You know how difficult it is. I needn't tell you.

ZOE: _(Flattered)_ What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for.
_(She pats him)_ Come.

BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle.

ZOE: Babby!

BLOOM: _(In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair,
fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a
chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping)_ One two tlee: tlee
tlwo tlone.

THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me.

ZOE: Silent means consent. _(With little parted talons she captures his
hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor,
luring him to doom.)_ Hot hands cold gizzard.

_(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards
the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her
painted eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the
lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)_

THE MALE BRUTES: _(Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their
loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro)_
Good!

_(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.
They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to
his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)_

ZOE: _(Her lucky hand instantly saving him)_ Hoopsa! Don't fall
upstairs.

BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. _(He stands aside at the
threshold)_ After you is good manners.

ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after.

_(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out
her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall
hang a man 's hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, se