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trousers and jacket slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. A white yashmak violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and raven hair.)
bloom
Molly!
marion
Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. (Satirically.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?
bloom
(Shifts from foot to foot.) No, no. Not the least little bit.
(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuses, desire, spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)
marion
Nebrakada! Feminimum!
(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit, offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof then droops his head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops his back for leapfrog.)
bloom
I can give you… I mean as your business menagerer… Mrs Marion… if you…
marion
So you notice some change? (Her hands passing slowly over her trinketed stomacher. A slow friendly mockery in her eyes.) O Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the wide world.
