Iubilantium te virginum...

(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester’s dress of puce and yellow and clown’s cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)

BUCK MULLIGAN: She’s beastly dead.

The pity of it! Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi!

THE MOTHER: (With the subtle smile of death’s madness.) I was once the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.

STEPHEN: (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman’s trick is this?

BUCK MULLIGAN: (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket.