THE YEWS: Ssh! Sister, speak!
THE NYMPH: (Eyeless, in nun’s white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, with remote eyes.) Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha. Mount Carmel. The apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. (She reclines her head, sighing.) Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o’er the waters dull.
(Bloom half rises. His back trouserbutton snaps.)
THE BUTTON: Bip!
(Two sluts of the Coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)
THE SLUTS:
O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers
He didn’t know what to do,
To keep it up,
To keep it up.
BLOOM: (Coldly.) You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy but willing like an ass pissing.
THE YEWS: (Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms aging and swaying.) Deciduously!
THE NYMPH: (Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit.) Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! (A large moist stain appears on her robe.) Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman. (She clutches again in her robe.) Wait. Satan, you’ll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. (She draws a poniard and, clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins.) Nekum!