The
Nighttown chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses is famously surrealistic. But Joyce was
essentially a naturalistic writer telling the truths of everyday urban life as
no writer had before. The Nighttown chapter conveys the blended experience of
drunkenness and dreaming, the flow of fantasy and free-association with
Freud-like faithfulness. The style of this chapter is a theatre script, set
out in stage directions and characters’ dialogue parts, underscoring the
pseudo-reality of what is being presented. But the drunken/ sleeping fantasies
that intrude on the scene are psychologically realistic, what Stephen Dedalus
and Leopold Bloom in the red light zone of Dublin on a night in June 1904 would
be thinking, or at least have flickering across their minds in dream
recollection.
It is
possible to extract from the surrealism a straightforward description of the
red light zone, the prostitutes and their customers. Joyce’s 180 page chapter
boils down to one-tenth that length.
The text also describes a far-from-heroic street fight in realistic
detail. Novelists were
sociologists before there were ethnographers of everyday life. Joyce was
outstanding among them, since he dispensed with plot-- the most artificial
aspect of fiction-- and relied on acute observation to provide interest. What
he describes holds up well in comparison with subsequent micro-sociology.
Preceding
Joyce’s text are sociological comments on sex work and violence 110 years ago.
The Carousing Zone
Nighttown
in Dublin in 1904 was quite literally on the other side of the tracks, behind
the railway yards, and down-river near the harbor. It is mostly unpaved, with
scanty street lights, a place of sheds and barns (it is still the era of
horse-drawn vehicles), mostly low flimsy houses. The up-scale brothels are in a
street with more prosperous multi-story buildings. It is a place for the lowest
of the poor, beggars, sick and half-crazed people. Dirty and ill-fed children
play on the street even at night. It is also a carousing zone, a place where the
laws are relaxed, illegal and semi-legal entertainments are available. The
night-time population also includes drunken soldiers, sailors, and laborers
visiting cheap unlicensed drinking establishments run by “shebeen-keepers.” Joyce’s narrative also shows the
presence of medical students and middle-class middle-aged men. Touts, bawds,
and street-prostitutes recognize such outsiders immediately as potential
customers.
Carousing
zones, in one degree or another, have existed in most big cities since the Middle
Ages. Their atmosphere is a vacation-break from normal work and respectability;
a “holiday from morality” is their chief image and attraction. Various kinds of unlawfulness and
immorality are accepted here without question; but as we see, the carousing
zone has its own kind of order and rules its members try to enforce.
Stratification of sex-work
markets
Joyce’s
novel is permeated with sex. Both Bloom, the protagonist, and Mollie, his wife,
are pursuing extra-marital affairs; the latter with Blazes Boylan, her
concert-promoter, who is portrayed as a dandy and man-about-town in Dublin’s
saloons. Stephen’s medical student friends continually joke and brag about sex.
All this is amateur sex-- although as Viviana Zelizer shows, there is no sharp
division from paid sex, since receiving gifts and favors is generally part of
sexual relationships. Professional sex differs by being much more explicitly
bargained, and for short time-periods rather than longer relationships with
their bundle of commitments.
What
generates the demand for explicitly commercial sex? Customers are those seeking
more erotically attractive, or more easily accessible partners than are available to them
in the amateur sex market of courtship, dating, and affairs. Famously, this
includes soldiers, sailors and travelers away from normal social networks; but
also persons whose social class is too low, personality and culture unappealing
to potential partners, or who are too unattractive to match up with sexier
women. Another advantage of commercial sex is that it is an exchange market
where there are very few rejections, unlike (as David Grazian shows) the world
of dating, pick-ups, and hook-ups.*
*Elizabeth
Bernstein (2007) describes how work-obsessed Silicon Valley geeks buy upscale
prostitutes selling GFE (Girl Friend Experience) since it doesn't waste their
time.
It
follows that sex markets are stratified. Customers vary in how much money they
can offer. Older men of the higher social classes can afford the best-looking
women, compensating for their own declining physical attractiveness. Joyce
depicts two commercial travelers who have been drinking champagne with
Kelleher, a city official, who in turn brings them to the best brothel in
Dublin; also a middle-aged customer (bald head, goatee beard, suspenders
dragging from his trousers) whom Bloom passes in embarrassed silence on the
stairs. Prostitutes reminisce about a priest who tried to disguise his clerical
collar under his coat. Further down the customer chain are middle class
students, short on cash, like Stephen’s companion Lynch, who toys with the
prostitutes but can’t afford to take one until Stephen drunkenly offers part of
his teaching pay received that morning. Still further down are the drunken
soldiers, who pick up a street girl.
On the
seller’s side, prostitutes offer different prices, depending on their
attractiveness and the corresponding market of what their customers can
afford. Following is a list of
Joyce’s sex workers, in ascending order:
An
elderly bawd ("famished
snaggletooths") trying to upsell middle-class customers by offering a
virgin (“ten shillings a maidenhead”). Joyce describes her unappetizingly “in the gap of her dark den furtive,
rainbedraggled”.
“Cheap whores, singly, coupled,
shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.”
Cissy
Cafferty, on the street with two soldiers (“I’m
only a shilling whore.”) [a
shilling is 12 pence, 1/20th of a pound.
One pound was worth about $120 in today’s money; her price was about $6.]
Several
other slangy street whores are called Biddie the Clap and Cuntie Kate, implying
disease and gross appearance.
Among
the low-class whores is one Bloom fleetingly remembers as his first sex, behind
a stable. Another whore drifts through a previous chapter (“A
frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily into the day along
the quay.”) Bloom tries to avoid her; she had offered to do washing for his
wife, and they had “an appointment”
which Bloom now regards as too risky, as well as seeing that she “looks like a fright in the day.” She reappears in the post-Nighttown
chapter when she peers into a late-night shelter looking for customers: (“The face of a streetwalker, glazed and
haggard under a black straw hat...”) Bloom dismisses her as “partially idiotic female.”
 |
| Street
prostitutes: 1913 Berlin (Kirchner), 1921 Paris, 1919 Vienna (Schiele) |
Higher-class
whores are at Mrs. Cohen’s brothel. The sitting room is furnished in
middle-class style, with piano, gilt mantlepiece mirror, tapestried wallpaper,
and peacock-feather fireplace screen. The women’s prices are ten shillings each
[half a pound sterling, equivalent to
$60], for a short time, while staying the night is more.
Zoe, the
most attractive (a young whore in a
sapphire slip, a slim velvet fillet round her throat), is also the boldest
and most skilled talker, mixing slang and repartée. Kitty (a bony pallid whore in navy costume, sailor hat, doeskin gloves, coral
wristlet, corset, jacket, skirt, white petticoat, boa around her neck) is
dressed much more properly than Zoe’s deshabillé. Kitty has polite middle-class
manners, apologizing about her coughing and hiccuping-- implying ill health.
Florry (a blonde feeble goosefat whore in
a tatterdermalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spread-eagle on the sofa
corner) is regarded by Kitty as “a
bit imbecilic.”
 |
| Brothel
prostitutes: 1895 Paris
(Toulouse-Lautrec) |
The
madam or whoremistress, Mrs. Cohen,
is middle-aged, heavy, unattractive, but wears a low-cut evening gown, rings
and semi-precious jewels, and flirts behind a showy operatic fan. She is
reputed to be on good terms with officials and race-track tipsters, and to have
a son at Oxford. She is alert and aggressive at business, and compliments Bloom
for not letting himself be short-changed; although later she tries to cheat
Stephen out of more money.
 |
Madam:
1879 Paris (Degas)
|
 |
| Madam
(right): 1920 Kankakee, Illinois |
Still
higher on the scale are the barmaids at the Ormond Hotel, in the earlier
“bronze by gold” chapter. Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy go by polite form of
address, and are paid enough to dress well and take sea-side vacations. They
lord it over the waiters and kitchen servants. Their role is not so much to
serve drinks as to attract men to the saloon, where they flirt delicately. Two
of the gentlemen-about-town customers play a game with Miss Douce that they
call (in cultured French) “Sonnez la
cloche” (ring the bell). This consists of her raising her long skirt above
the knee and snapping her garter against her thigh. Although she tells Blazes
Boylan “You’re the essence of vulgarity,”
she smiles superciliously and glides gracefully away. This is reminiscent of
Zoe, at Mrs. Cohen’s, depositing her ten shilling note in the top of her
stocking. In a more high-class way, Misses Douce and Kennedy have a sex-worker
attitude to men, expressed as they look through the saloon window at a
top-hatted gentleman riding past in a carriage: “He’s killed looking back,” Miss Douce laughed. “Aren’t men frightful
idiots?” “It’s them that has the fine times,” Miss Kennedy answered.
Relationships among the players
If the
business is love for sale, there are ambiguous relationships among everyone
involved:
Sellers and buyers of sex: Prostitutes and their touts push a mixture of sexual
arousal, friendliness, and making the sale at the highest price. Taking
advantage of politeness, guilt-tripping, and fair play also enter the mix.
Which tactics prevail depends on where in the social ranking the exchange takes
place.
 |
| 1879 The Client (Degas) |
The
cheap whores call out blatant sexual come-ons: (“How’s your middle leg? Come here till I stiffen it for you.”) When
they are turned down, they make insults: (Bawd
spits in their trail her jet of venom. “Trinity medicals. All prick and no
pence.”)
Zoe
starts more indirectly with conversation, moves on to innuendo along with
cuddling, feeling Bloom’s pockets and genitals, lets him caress her breasts,
and bites his ear gently. This last technique is found in much earlier societies-- biting the
lover’s body is prominently mentioned in the Kama Sutra (ca. 200 A.D.), but
largely disappeared in the 20th century. Zoe switches tones when Bloom tries to
leave her. (“I hate a rotter that’s
insincere. Give a bleeding whore a chance.”) This mixture of aggression and
guilt-tripping works on Bloom, who apologizes for his bad manners and resumes
conversation. She then offers a deal: “Have
you cash for a short time? Ten shillings?” They go inside and he bows
politely to “two sister whores” at
the doorstep.
Inside,
Lynch (who has no money) is lifting the skirts of the whores, getting what sex
thrills he can for free. When Mrs. Cohen enters, she makes them stop playing
around: (“This isn’t a musical peepshow.
Who’s paying here?”), herself
playing the teamwork game of good cop, bad cop.
Competition among sellers. Sex business is rarely booming, and the whores compete for
customers. They do this by invidious comparisons, some more strident than
others: (The Bawd: “You won’t get a
virgin in the flash houses. Sixty-seven [a street number] is a bitch.”) Zoe’s competitive advertising is subtler: (Bloom: “Is this Mrs Mack’s?” Zoe: “No,
eightyone, Mrs. Cohen’s You might go farther and fare worse.”) Mrs. Cohen is aware of her standing.
When Stephen creates a drunken disturbance, she declares: “Here, none of your tall talk. This isn’t a brothel. A ten-shilling
house.” Bloom tells her: “But he’s a
Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. “She
replies angrily: “Trinity! Coming down
here, ragging after the boat races and paying nothing.” Class conflict comes to the
surface, although it quiets down when a cab drives up with more gentlemen
customers.
Inside
the brothel, there is a tone of put-downs between some of the whores. But on
the whole, they stay on friendly terms. This is typical of sex workers, since
they generally spend much time in each other’s company, and there are long
boring spells waiting for customers. Overall the strongest solidarity in the
red light district is among prostitutes who work together. Their implicit
rivalry is expressed mainly against sex workers of a different rank, especially
those they regard as underselling them or displaying too much sex in the
bargaining phase. The structures generates its own morality.
Relationships among customers: Male customers ignore each
other. Bloom avoids meeting eyes with the punter in the stairwell by turning
his head to examine the hall table. The two gentlemen (“two silent lechers”) arriving by cab try to enter unobtrusively,
while Bloom again averts his gaze. Why is there no atmosphere of camaraderie
among all those “out for a good time”?
Research on red light zones and sex clubs shows the same pattern; a
group of men may be jolly together passing by looking at prostitutes, but they
rarely break off from the group to engage a woman in bargaining. Prostitutes
regard such groups as lookers; actual customers are those who leave
the group, such as when they are drinking in a bar, to return alone. The solidarity
of the male group itself is a strong rival to the mutual absorption, the
temporary folie-à-deux of the erotic pair. Sexual adventuring, like violence,
has a strong element of pretence, more talk than action. [Grazian, On the Make.]
Quarrels and fights
Stephen
has been brought to the brothel after a drinking party by his friend Lynch. But
their concerns are deeply split: Lynch wants to flirt with the whores, hoping
to cadge enough money to hire one of them. Stephen is aimless, upset about the
death of his religious mother and his own failed vocation as a priest. They
don’t provide any solidarity for each other, and Stephen is badgered by Mrs.
Cohen into paying for three whores. Next, he starts swinging his walking stick
wildly—subjectively at his drunken fantasies, but in fact doing a little
symbolic property damage to Mrs. Cohen’s sitting room, which is one way to
reassert his will. Bloom, who has
a good financial head, settles the dispute with a token payment.
Outside
on the street, Stephen has gotten into another quarrel, this time with two
British soldiers. Considering this is the red light district, nevertheless it
is interpreted as a matter of honour, even sexual jealousy. Cissy, a street
whore, is alarmed when Stephen (probably inadvertently) runs up behind her,
while her two soldiers are off taking a piss. “But I’m faithful to the man that’s treating me though I’m only a
shilling whore.” *
*The
term “treating” existed in the US at the turn of the century, meaning a kind of
dating relationship, where the man paid for entertainment and gifts, and a
certain amount of sexual intimacy was expected. Truman Capote comments that the main character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s --set in New York
City in the 1940s-- is a “treats girl” who make her living by meeting wealthy
men in bars, then asking them for $20 (a lot of money in pre-inflation times)
to tip the maid in the ladies’ room. Elizabeth Taylor’s character in Butterfield Eight, based on John
O’Hara’s realistic novel of the 1930s, is also a treats girl.
In
Joyce’s Dublin, here is the morality of a sex worker: while she is with a
customer, he gets all her attention. The soldiers regard it the same way, and
accuse Stephen of insulting her. When the fight is about to happen, she seizes
the soldier’s sleeve, and cries: “Amn’t
I with you? Amn’t I your girl?
Cissy’s your girl.”
The
fight takes a number of moves to escalate. Of the two soldiers, Private Carr
does all the direct aggression, addressing Stephen and uttering a string of
curses. His chum, Private Compton urges him on: “Biff him Harry.” And later, as Bloom tries to intervene to prevent
the fight: “Go it, Harry. Do him one in
the eye.”
Stephen
is mostly aloof, makes supercilious answers to Private Carr’s threats, looks up
at the sky; at one point he nervously puts his arm on Private Carr’s sleeve,
and semi-apologizes: “I understand your
point of view...” although
continuing with his rambling thoughts. Private Carr now picks up a new line
of imputed insult, no longer about his girl, but about his king. Through a
series of six utterances, as Stephen tries to retreat, Private Carr escalates
verbally, from: “What are you saying
about my king? / I’ll wring the neck of any bugger says a word against my
fucking king. / I’ll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against
my bleeding fucking king. / I’ll do him in, so help me fucking Christ! I’ll
wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!” Piling on the obscenities operates as a
ritual encantation; each utterance repeats part of the previous and adds to it,
although the effect of this is to show no great respect for the king or anyone
else invoked in aid.
Joyce
accurately describes the process of cursing. As Jack Katz (“Pissed Off in
L.A.”), has shown with the curses drivers make at each other in road rage
incidents, cursing pumps you up; it is what I have called self-entrainment,
getting entrained in the rhythm of one’s emotion.
Ultimately
Private Carr breaks away from his girl who is holding him back, rushes at Stephen
and knocks him down. It is a
one-punch fight, total domination; this is typical of most casual fights among
the unacquainted, consisting of one “sucker punch.” As an informant told me
about bar fights: the first to decide there is going to be a fight usually
wins.
Private
Carr is looking for a fight; he has worked himself up; he is strong and an experienced fighter and has found a weak, diffident victim, all of which are
ingredients for the most typical kind of fighting, attacking the weak. In real
life, most fights are ugly, unfair, and not at all honorable except in the
partisan mind of the attacker.
The
audience plays an important role. Observational and video research [Collins
2008; Levine et al. 2011] shows that fights are longer and more intense when
the audience cheers on the fighters; short and abortive when the crowd is
divided or indifferent; and quickly end when bystanders intervene. Accordingly, the violence in Joyce's streetfight is very short, despite the surrounding bluster.
An
excited crowd has gathered, but they dispute among themselves in a cacophony of
voices who is to blame or even what is going on. Private Compton offers crucial
social support. Not only egging on his chum; he attempts to control the crowd,
waving them back, and calling out “Fair
play, here.” He is invoking the rules of a classic duel or fair fight,
one-on-one, while the audience watches. This is a second major form of
fighting, where the audience by assuming the role of spectators puts the
contenders under pressure to perform. Cissy immediately recognizes the
honorific form, and cries out: “They’re
going to fight! For me!”
Cooling out the cops
The
aftermath of the fight is equally realistic. The police arrive. Private Compton
tries to drag his chum away: “Here bugger
off, Harry. There’s the cops!” Too late, the police start asking for
identities. The privates go back to their line about being insulted with their
lady. Bloom asserts his civic standing: “I’m
a witness. Constable, take his regimental number.” Giving orders to a
police officer rarely works [Rubenstein 1973; Black 1980], and the cop
responds: “I don’t want your instructions
in the discharge of my duty.” Private Compton takes advantage of the turn
of attention to drag off his comrade, who has found a new target to swear at.
The cop
now is about to take Stephen’s name and address, when Bloom spies an
acquaintance in the crowd, Cornelius Kelleher, the city official who had
brought two gentlemen to the brothel. Bloom whispers about network connections:
“Simon Dedalus’ son. A bit sprung.” Kelleher
adopts a different approach with the police. “That’s all right, I know him.
Won a bit at the races./
Leave it to me, sergeant. That’ll be all right. We were often as bad, ay
or worse. What? Eh, what? The police are reluctant to change an
investigation they have already started, but they disperse the crowd (which
gives them more privacy), and gradually fall into Kelleher’s mood-- calming
things down, drawling, laughing, invoking an informal tone, above all pulling
them into his rhythm. “Come and wipe your
name off the slate.” (He lilts, wagging his head, then imitates a drunken
song.) “What, eh, do you follow me?” The second officer finally says: “Ah, sure we were too.” Bloom joins in, shakes hands all
around, offering polite thanks and confidential explanations. The artificial
and embarrassed quality of the parting is displayed as they all repeatedly wish
each other goodnight.
Respectability and embarrassment
Now
Kelleher and Bloom have to cool each other out, as middle-class citizens
meeting in the midst of the brothel district. Kelleher continues to laugh and
to make light of the whole series of events, while explaining his purely
incidental part in bringing the visiting commercials to Mrs. Cohen’s. Not that
he is a prude: “Sure they wanted me to
join in... No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself.
(He laughs again and leers with lackluster eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in
the house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!” Bloom tries to laugh: “He, he, he.” They ignore each other’s excuses and turn their
attention to Stephen, still knocked out on the ground. Kelleher has been asked
to help carry Stephen away in the cab, but he lets it drop. The ride would have
prolonged the embarrassing situation of being together. As the horse-cab turns
around and leaves, they act out a pantomime: Kelleher, Bloom, and the cabbie
all pretending to be mirthful about witnessing lapses from propriety.
Lapses
into scenes of sex and violence: the two primal urges, Freud theorized, that
are repressed by civilized conscience, but operate nevertheless beneath the
edges of consciousness.
The
following is Joyce’s text, extracts given in sequence without breaks, elisions
left unmarked. [In brackets are my brief summaries of omitted action.]
JOYCE’S
NIGHTTOWN CHAPTER
The Mabbot Street entrance to nighttown.
Rows of flimsy houses with gaping doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans.
Calls:
Wait, my love, and I’ll be with you.
The
Bawd. (The famished snaggletooths of an
elderly bawd protrude from a doorway. Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst!
Come here till I tell you. Maidenhead inside. Sst.
[Stephen
passes with his companion Lynch, making irrelevant remarks.]
The
Bawd: (spits in their trail her jet of
venom.) Trinity medicals. Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.
[Bloom
appears.]
The
Bawd: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched. Fifteen.
There’s no-one in it only her old father that’s dead drunk. (She
points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled Bridie Kelly stands.)
(Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)
The
Bawd: He’s getting his pleasure.
You won’t get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don’t be all night
before the polis in plain clothes see us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.
(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled,
shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.)
The
Whores: Are you going far, queer fellow? How’s your middle leg? Got a match on
you? Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.
(He plodges through their sump towards the
lighted street beyond. From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a
battered brazen trunk. In the shadow a shebeen-keeper haggles with a navvy and
two redcoats.)
The
Navvy: (belching) Where’s the bloody house?
The
Shebeen-keeper: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle. Respectable woman.
The Navvy:
(Gripping the two redcoats, staggers
forward with them.) Come on,
you British army!
Private
Carr: He ain’t half balmy.
Private
Compton: (Laughs.) What ho!
(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire
slip, closed with three bronze buckles, a slim black velvet filet round her
throat, nods, trips down the steps and accosts Bloom.)
Zoe: Are
you looking for someone? He’s inside with his friend.
Bloom:
Is this Mrs Mack’s?
Zoe: No,
eightyone. Mrs Cohen’s. You might go farther and fare worse. Mother Slipperslapper.
(Familiarly.) She’s on the job herself tonight with
the vet, her tipster, that gives her all the winners, and pays for her son in
Oxford. Working overtime but her luck’s turned today. (Suspiciously.) You’re not his father, are you?
Bloom: Not
I!
Zoe: You
both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?
(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips
approach. A hand slides over his left thigh.)
Zoe:
How’s the nuts?
(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket
and takes out an object.)
Zoe: For
Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh?
(She puts it greedily into a pocket, then
links his arm, cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. He gazes in
the tawny crystal of her eyes, ringed with kohol. His smile softens.)
Zoe:
You’ll know me next time.
(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the
mountains. Near are lakes. Round their shores file shadows black of
cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a
sky of sapphire, cleft by the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the
womancity, nude, white, still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask
roses. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood
exudes, strangely murmuring.)
(Zoe murmuring singsong with the music.)
Bloom: (Fascinated.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent.
Zoe: And
you know what thought did?
(She bites his ear gently with little
goldstopped teeth sending on him a cloying breath of stale garlic.)
Bloom: (Draws back mechanically caressing her right
bub with a flat awkward hand.) Are you a Dublin girl?
Zoe: (Catches a hair deftly and twists it to her
coil.) No bloody fear. I’m English. Have you a swaggerroot?
Bloom:
Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. (Lewdly.) The mouth can be better engaged than
with a cylinder of rank weed.
[Bloom
talks at length, says farewell.]
Zoe: (Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.) Honest? Till the next time. (She sneers.) Suppose you got up the
wrong side of the bed or came too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your
thoughts.
Bloom: (Bitterly.) Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle.
Zoe: (In sudden sulks.) I hate a rotter that’s
insincere. Give a bleeding whore a chance.
Bloom: (Repentantly.) I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil. Where are
you from? London?
Zoe (Glibly.) Hog’s Norton where the pigs
play 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 music room to see our new
pianola? Come and I’ll peel off.
Bloom: (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the
embarrassment of a pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled pears.)
Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she know.
Zoe: (Flattered.) What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for. (She pats him.) Come.
Zoe:
Silent means consent. (With little parted
talons she captures his hands, her forefinger giving to his palm the pass touch
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 sinous
folds lurks the lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)
(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.)
(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She
turns and, holding out her hands, draws him over. On the antlered rack of the
hall hang a man’s hat and waterproof. A door on the return landing is thrown
open. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an
ape’s gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar,
his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting his face quickly Bloom
bends to examine the halltable; then follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of
mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. The floor is covered with
an oilcloth mosaic, footmarks stamped over it, a morris of shuffling feet without
body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls are tapestried
with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate is spread a screen of
peacock feathers.)
(Lynch squats crosslegged on the hearthrug,
his cap back to front. With a wand he beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony
pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet,
a chain purse in her hand, sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her
leg and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag of
her corset lace hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates mockingly the
couple at the piano.)
Kitty: (Coughs behind her hand.) She’s a bit imbecilic. (Lynch lifts up her skirt and white petticoat
with a wand. She settles them down quickly.) Respect yourself. (She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor
hat under which her hair glows, red with henna.) O, excuse!
(The wand in Lynch’s hand flashes: a brass
poker. Stephen stands at the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With
two fingers he repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a
blonde feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdermalion gown of mildewed strawberry,
lolls spread-eagle in the sofa corner, her limp forearm pendent over the
bolster, listening.)
Kitty: (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed
foot.) O, excuse!
Zoe: (Promptly.) Your boy’s thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.
(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa
uncoils, slides, glides over the shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground.
Lynch lifts the curled caterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling.
Stephen glances behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)
Zoe: Who
has a fag as I’m here?
Lynch: (Tossing a cigarette onto the table.)
Here.
Zoe: (Her head perched aside in mock pride.) Is that the way to hand the pot to a
lady? (She stretches up to light the
cigarette over the flame, twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her
armpits. Lynch with his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her
garters up her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie’s green. She puffs
calmly at her cigarette.) Can
you see the beauty spot on my behind?
Lynch:
I’m not looking.
Zoe: (Makes sheep’s eyes.) No? You wouldn’t do a less thing. Would
you suck a lemon?
(Squinting in mock shame she glances with
sidelong meaning at Bloom, then twists round towards him pulling her slip free
of the poker. Blue fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling
desirously, twirling his thumbs.)
Zoe:
There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business with his
coat buttoned up. You needn’t try to hide, I says to him. I know you’ve a Roman
collar.
Lynch: I
hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for shooting a bishop.
Zoe: (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.)
He couldn’t get a connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush.
(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive
whoremistress enters. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed
round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and cools herself, flirting a black horn
fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen. On
her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She
has a sprouting mustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and
fullnosed, with orange-tainted nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops. )
Bella: My word! I’m all in a mucksweat.
(She glances around her at the couples, Then
her eyes rest on Bloom with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards
her heated face, neck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)
The Fan:
(Flirting quickly, then slowly.) Married, I see.
Bloom: (Approaches Zoe.) Give me back that potato, will you?
Zoe:
Here. (She hauls up a reef of her slip,
revealing her bare thigh and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.)
Those that hides knows where to find.
Bella: (Frowns.) This isn’t a musical peepshow. And don’t you smash that
piano. Who’s paying here?
(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in
his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)
Bella: (Looks at the money, then at Zoe, Florry and
Kitty.) Do you want three girls? It’s ten shillings here.
Stephen:
(Delightedly.) A hundred thousand apologies. (He fumbles again and takes out and hands her
two crowns.)
(Bella goes to the table to count the money
while Stephen talks to himself in monosyllables. Zoe bounds over to the table.
Kitty leans over Zoe’s neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap, and clasping
Kitty’s waist, adds his head to the group.)
Florry:
(Strives heavily to rise.) Ow! My
foot’s asleep. (She limps over to the
table. Bloom approaches.)
Bella,
Zoe, Kitty, Lynch, Bloom: (Chattering and
squabbling.) The gentleman...
ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a moment... this gentleman
pays separate... who’s touching it? ... ow... mind who you’re pinching... are
you staying the night or a short time?... who did? ... you’re a liar, excuse me
... the gentleman paid down like a gentleman... drink... it’s long after
eleven.
Zoe: (lifting up her pettigown and folding a half
sovereign into the top of her stocking.) Hard earned on the flat of my back.
Lynch: (Lifting Kitty from the table.) Come!
Kitty:
Wait. (She clutches her two crowns.)
Florry:
And me?
Lynch:
Hoopla! (He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa.)
Bloom: (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table
between Bella and Florry.) So.
Allow me. (He takes up the pound note.) Three times ten. We’re square.
Bella: (Admiringly.) You’re such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss you.
Zoe: (Points.) Hum? Deep as a drawwell. (Lynch bends Kitty back over the sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with
the poundnote to Stephen.)
Bloom:
This is yours.
[Piano-playing,
dancing, singing; more fantasy apparitions. Stephen lifts his walking stick at
a phantom and smashes the chandelier.]
Lynch: (rushes forward and seizes Stephen’s hand.)
Here! Hold on! Don’t run amok!
Bella:
Police!
(Stephen flees from the room past the whores
at the door.)
Bella: (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch
and Kitty and Zoe stampede from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows,
returns.)
The
Whores: (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
Zoe: (Pointing.) There. There’s something up.
Bella:
Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes
Bloom’s coattail.) There. You were with him. The lamp’s broken.
Bloom: (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
Bella: (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity,
points.) Who’s to pay for
that? Ten shillings. You’re a witness.
Bloom:
Me? Ten shillings? Haven’t you lifted enough off him? Didn’t he...!
Bella: (Loudly) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn’t a brothel. A ten
shilling house.
Bloom: (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain.
The gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade.) Only the chimney’s
broken. There’s not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
Bella: Do you want me to call the police?
Bloom:
O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he’s a Trinity student. Patrons of your
establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. Know what I mean? You don’t want a
scandal.
Bella: (Angrily) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races and
paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I’ll charge him.
Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe!
Zoe!
Bloom: (urgently) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I know.
Bella: (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
Zoe: (In the doorway.) There’s a row on.
Bloom:
What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the
table and shouts.) That’s for the chimney. Where?
(He hurries out through the hall. On the
doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the
fog has cleared off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows in
front of the house. Bloom in the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is about
to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella
from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum
kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghostly lewd smile. The silent lechers
turn to pay the jarvey.)
[In the
street, Stephen is being berated by two soldiers and a street whore, surrounded
by a knot of noisy onlookers.]
Private
Carr: (To Cissy Cafferty.) Was he insulting you?
Voices:
No, he didn’t. The girl’s telling lies. He was in Mrs Cohen’s. What’s up? Soldiers and civilians.
Cissy
Cafferty: I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do-- you know
and the young man ran up behind me. But I’m faithful to the man that’s treating
me though I’m only a shilling whore.
Private
Carr: (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him
was having a piss?
Private
Compton: Biff him, Harry.
Private
Carr: (His cap awry, advancing to
Stephen.) Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
Stephen.
(Looks up at sky.) How? Very
unpleasant. Noble art of self-pretence. Personally, I detest action.
Bloom: (Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen’s
sleeve vigorously.) Come now,
professor, that carman is waiting.
Stephen:
(Turns, disengages himself.) Why should I not speak to him or any
human being who walks upright? (He points
his finger.) I’m not afraid of
what I can talk to if I see his eye. Retaining the perpendicular. (He
staggers a pace back.)
Bloom: (Propping him.) Retain your own.
Biddy
the Clap: Did you hear what the professor said? He’s a professor out of the
college.
Cunty
Kate: I did. I heard that.
Private
Carr: (Pulls himself free and comes
forward.) What’s that you’re
saying about my king?
Stephen:
(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.)
I understand your point of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. A
discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point. You die for your
country, I suppose. (He places his arm on
Private Carr’s sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: let my
country die for me. Damn death. Long live life!
Private
Compton: Eh, Harry, give him a
kick in the knackers.
Bloom: (To the privates, softly.) He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
Taking a little more than is good for him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right.
Private
Carr: I don’t give a bugger who he is.
Private
Compton: We don’t give a bugger who he is.
Bloom: (To Stephen.) Come home. You’ll get into trouble.
Stephen:
(Swaying.) I don’t avoid it. He provokes
my intelligence.
Private
Carr: Here. What are you saying about my king?
Stephen:
(Throws up his hands.) O, this is too
monotonous. He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for
some brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it to someone.
Private
Carr: Who wants your bleeding money?
Stephen:
(Tries to move off.) Will someone tell me where I am
least likely to meet these necessary evils? Ça
se voit aussi à Paris. Not
that I ...
Cissy
Cafferty (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting!
Private
Carr: (Tugging at his belt.) I’ll wring the neck of any bugger says
a word against my fucking king.
Bloom: (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure misunderstanding.
Private
Compton: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye.
Private
Carr: I’ll do him in.
Private
Compton: (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a bleeding
butcher’s shop of the bugger.
Cissy
Cafferty: They’re going to fight! For me!
Cunty
Kate: The brave and fair.
Private
Carr: (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I’ll wring the neck of any fucking
bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
Bloom: (Shakes Cissy Cafferty’s shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck dumb?
Cissy
Cafferty: (Alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s
sleeve.) Amn’t I with you?
Amn’t I your girl? Cissy’s your girl. (She
cries.) Police!
Voices:
Police!
Private
Carr: (With ferocious articulation.) I’ll do him in, so help me fucking
Christ! I’ll wring the bastard
fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!
Bloom: (Runs to Lynch.) Can’t you get him away?
Lynch:
Kitty! (To Bloom.) Get him away, you. He won’t listen to
me. (He drags Kitty away.)
Stephen:
(Points.) Exit Judas.
Bloom: (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now
before worse happens. Here’s your stick.
Stephen:
Stick, no. Reason. This is the feast of pure reason.
Cissy
Cafferty: (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you’re boosed. He insulted me,
but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.)
I forgive him for insulting me.
Bloom: (Over Stephen’s shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he’s incapable.
Private
Carr: (Breaks loose.) I’ll insult him.
(He rushes towards Stephen, fists
outstretched, and strikes him in the face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls
stunned.)
The
Crowd: Let him up! Don’t strike him
when he’s down! Air! Who? The soldier hit him. He’s a professor. Is he hurted?
Don’t manhandle him. He’s fainted!
A Hag:
What call had the recoat to strike the gentleman and he under the influence?
Let them go and fight the Boers!
The
Bawd: Listen to who’s talking!
Hasn’t the soldier a right to go with his girl? He gave him the coward’s blow.
(They grab each other’s hair, claw at each
other and spit.)
Bloom: (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back!
Private
Compton: (Tugging his comrade.)
Here bugger off, Harry. There’s the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the
group.)
First
Watch: What’s wrong here?
Private
Compton: We were with this lady and he insulted us and assaulted my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke?
Cissy
Cafferty: (With expectation.) Is he bleeding?
A Man: (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He’ll come to all right.
Bloom: (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him
to me. I can easily...
Second
Watch: Who are you? Do you know him?
Private
Carr: (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend.
Bloom: (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I’m a witness. Constable,
take his regimental number.
Second
Watch: I don’t want your instructions in the discharge of my duty.
Private
Compton: (Pulling his comrade.)
Here, bugger off, Harry. Or old Bennett’ll have you in the lockup.
Private
Carr: (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett! He’s a whitearsed
bugger. I don’t give a shit for him.
First
Watch: (Taking out his notebook.) What’s his name?
Bloom: (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me
a hand a second, sergeant...
First
Watch: Name and address.
(Corney Kelleher appears among the
bystanders.)
Bloom: (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He
whispers.) Simon Dedalus’ son. A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move
those loafers back.
Second
Watch: Night, Mr. Kelleher.
Corny
Kelleher: (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That’s all right. I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold
cup. (He laughs.) Twenty to one. Do you follow me?
First
Watch: (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at? Move
on out of that.
(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down
the lane.)
Corny
Kelleher: Leave it to me,
sergeant. That’ll be all right. (He
laughs, shaking his head.) We
were often as bad, ay or worse. What? Eh, what?
First
Watch: (Laughs.) I suppose so.
Corny
Kelleher: (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off the slate.
(He lilts, wagging his head.) With my
tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
Second
Watch: (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too.
Corny
Kelleher: (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I’ve a car round
there.
Second
Watch: All right, Mr. Kelleher. Good night.
Corny
Kelleher: I’ll see to that.
Bloom: (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very much gentlemen, thank
you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We
don’t want any scandal, you understand. Father is a well known, highly
respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand.
First
Watch: O, I understand, sir.
Second
Watch: That’s all right, sir.
First
Watch: It was only in case of corporal injuries I’d have had to report it at
the station.
Bloom: (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
Second
Watch: It’s our duty.
Corny
Kelleher: Good night, men.
The
Watch: (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with slow heavy tread.)
Bloom: (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car? ...
Corny
Kelleher: (Laughs, pointing his thumb
over his right shoulder to the car.)
Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet’s. Like princes,
faith. One of them lost two quid on the race. Drowning his grief and were on
for a go with the jolly girls. So
I landed them up on Behan’s car and down to Nighttown.
Bloom: I
was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
Corny
Kelleher: (Laughs.) Sure they wanted to me to join in with
the mots. No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs again and leers with lackluster
eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the house what, eh, do you follow
me? Hah! hah! hah!
Bloom: (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just visiting an old friend of
mine here, you don’t know him (poor fellow he’s laid up for the past week) and
we had a liquor together and I was just making my way home...
Corny
Kelleher: Sure it was Behan, our jarvey there, that told me after we left the
two commercials in Mrs Cohen’s and I told him to pull up and got off to see. (He laughs.) Will I give him a lift home? Where does he hang out?
Somewhere in Cabra, what?
Bloom:
No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny
Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down.)
Corny
Kelleher: (Scratches his nape.)
Sandycove! (He bends down and calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.)
Eh! He’s covered with
shavings anyhow. Take care they didn’t lift anything off him.
Bloom:
No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
Corny
Kelleher: Ah well, he’ll get over
it. No bones broken. Well I’ll
shove along. (He laughs.) I’ve a rendezvous in the morning. Safe
home!
Bloom:
Good night. I’ll just wait and take him along in a few...
Corny
Kelleher: (From the car, standing.)
Night.
Bloom:
Night.
(The horse and car back slowly, awkwardly and
turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth
at Bloom’s plight. The jarvey
joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom
shakes his head in mute mirthful reply...) [until the car is ought of
sight.]
 |
| James
Joyce about 1904 |
---------
Napoleon Never Slept: How Great Leaders Leverage Social Energy
Micro-sociological secrets of charismatic leaders from Jesus to Steve Jobs
----------
REFERENCES
Donald
Black. 1980. The Manners and Customs of
the Police.
Elizabeth
Bernstein. 2007. Temporarily Yours. Intimacy, Authenticity,
and the Commerce of Sex.
Randall
Collins 2008. Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory.
Randall
Collins, “Why does Sexual Repression Exist?”
http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2015_02_01_archive.html
Grazian,
David. 2008. On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife.
Jack
Katz. 1999. “Pissed Off in
L.A.” in How Emotions Work.
Mark
Levine, Paul Taylor, and Rachel Best. 2011. “Third parties, violence, and
conflict resolution: the role of group size and collective action in the micro-regulation
of violence.” Psychological Science
22: 406-412.
Jonathan
Rubinstein, 1973. City Police.
Viviana
Zelizer. 2005. The Purchase of Intimacy.
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