Ulysses(185)

VIRAG: (HEELS TOGETHER, BOWS) My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. (HE COUGHS THOUGHTFULLY, DRILY) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you perceived? Good.

BLOOM: Granpapachi. But ...

VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a word. Hippogriff. Am I right?

BLOOM: She is rather lean.

VIRAG: (NOT UNPLEASANTLY) Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today. Parallax! (WITH A NERVOUS TWITCH OF HIS HEAD) Did you hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax!

BLOOM: (AN ELBOW RESTING IN A HAND, A FOREFINGER AGAINST HIS CHEEK) She seems sad.

VIRAG: (CYNICALLY, HIS WEASEL TEETH BARED YELLOW, DRAWS DOWN HIS LEFT EYE WITH A FINGER AND BARKS HOARSELY) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (MORE GENIALLY) Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel.

BLOOM: (REGRETFULLY) When you come out without your gun.

VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either ...

BLOOM: With ...?

VIRAG: (HIS TONGUE UPCURLING) Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in it. Lycopodium. (HIS THROAT TWITCHES) Slapbang! There he goes again.

BLOOM: The stye I dislike.

VIRAG: (ARCHES HIS EYEBROWS) Contact with a goldring, they say. ARGUMENTUM AD FEMINAM, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve's sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. (HE TWITCHES) It is a funny sound. (HE COUGHS ENCOURAGINGLY) But possibly it is only a wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

BLOOM: (REFLECTING) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said ...

VIRAG: (SEVERELY, HIS NOSE HARDHUMPED, HIS SIDE EYE WINKING) Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten. Exercise your mnemotechnic. LA CAUSA E SANTA. Tara. Tara. (ASIDE) He will surely remember.

BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a deadhand cures. Mnemo?

VIRAG: (EXCITEDLY) I say so. I say so. E'en so. Technic. (HE TAPS HIS PARCHMENTROLL ENERGETICALLY) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? (WITH A DRY SNIGGER) You intended to devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? (HE CROWS DERISIVELY) Keekeereekee!