ellen bloom (in pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, crinoline and bustle, widow twankey's blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her hairplaited in a crisping net, appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand and cries out in shrill alarm.) o blessed redeemer, what have they done to him! my smelling salts! (she hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. a phial, an agnus dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out.) sacred heart of mary, where were you at all, at all?
(bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in his filled pockets but desists, muttering.)a voice (sharply.) poldy!
bloom who? (he ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.) at your service.
(he looks up. beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in turkish costume stands before him. opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers and jacket slashed with gold. a wide yells cummerbund girdles her. a white yashmak violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her lace dark eyes and raven hair.)bloom molly!
marion welly? mrs marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. (satirically.) has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?
bloom (shifts from foot to foot.) no, no. not the least little bit.
(he breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper things to tell her excuses, desire, spellbound. a coin gleams on her forehead. on her feet are jewelled toerings. her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. beside her a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. a silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. he ambles near with disgruntled hindquarters. fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in moorish.)marion nebrakada! feminimum.
(the camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a lace mango fruit, offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof then droops his head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. bloom stoops his back for leapfrog.)bloom i can give you... i mean as your business menagerer mrs marion... if you...