Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/208

Rh cuckold too but that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there are no more marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife unto himself.

—Eureka!, Buck Mulligan cried. Eureka!

Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John Eglinton’s desk.

—May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi.

He began to scribble on a slip of paper.

Take some slips from the counter going out.

—Those who are married, Mr Best, douce, herald, said, all save one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.

He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor.

Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his variorum edition of The Taming of the Shrew.

—You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe your own theory?

—No, Stephen said promptly.

—Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a dialogue, don’t you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote.

John Eclection doubly smiled.

—Well, in that case, he said, I don’t see why you should expect payment for it since you don’t believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is some mystery in Hamlet but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man Piper met in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes that the secret is hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to visit the present duke, Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor wrote the plays. It will come as a surprise to his grace. But he believes his theory.

I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help me to unbelieve? Who helps to believe? Egomen. Who to unbelieve? Other chap.

—You are the only contributor to Dana who asks for pieces of silver. Then I don’t know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for an article on economics.

Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics.

—For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview.

Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing: and then gravely said, honeying malice: