Page 497 (15.2806-2837) "I served my time... Empress!"

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I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellet's. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah!

(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.)

BLOOM
(Murmurs lovingly.) To be a shoefitter in Mansfield's was my love's young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris.




THE HOOF
Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.




BLOOM
(Crosslacing.) Too tight?




THE HOOF
If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you.




BLOOM
Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. That night she met... Now!

(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)

BLOOM
(Mumbles.) Awaiting your further orders, we remain, gentlemen...




BELLO
(With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice.) Hound of dishonour!




BLOOM
(Infatuated.) Empress!

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