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florry
They say the last day is coming this summer.
kitty
No!
zoe
(Explodes in laughter.) Great unjust God!
florry
(Offended.) Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my foot’s tickling.
(Ragged barefoot newsboys jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, yelling.)
the newsboys
Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.
(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)
stephen
A time, times and half a time.
(Reuben J. Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim’s wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters hangs from the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognatic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.)
all
What?
the hobgoblin
(His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping, with outstretched clutching arms then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.) Il vient! C’est moi! L’homme qui rit!
