Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/475

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,