Chapter 2

by James Joyce

　　Uncle Charles smoked such black twist that at last his nephew suggestedto him to enjoy his morning smoke in a little outhouse at the end ofthe garden.--Very good, Simon. All serene, Simon, said the old man tranquilly.Anywhere you like. The outhouse will do me nicely: it will be moresalubrious.--Damn me, said Mr Dedalus frankly, if I know how you can smoke suchvillainous awful tobacco. It's like gunpowder, by God.--It's very nice, Simon, replied the old man. Very cool andmollifying.Every morning, therefore, uncle Charles repaired to his outhouse butnot before he had greased and brushed scrupulously his back hair andbrushed and put on his tall hat. While he smoked the brim of his tallhat and the bowl of his pipe were just visible beyond the jambs of theouthouse door. His arbour, as he called the reeking outhouse which heshared with the cat and the garden tools, served him also as asounding-box: and every morning he hummed contentedly one of hisfavourite songs: O, TWINE ME A BOWER or BLUE EYES AND GOLDEN HAIR orTHE GROVES OF BLARNEY while the grey and blue coils of smoke roseslowly from his pipe and vanished in the pure air.During the first part of the summer in Blackrock uncle Charles wasStephen's constant companion. Uncle Charles was a hale old man with awell tanned skin, rugged features and white side whiskers. On week dayshe did messages between the house in Carysfort Avenue and those shopsin the main street of the town with which the family dealt. Stephen wasglad to go with him on these errands for uncle Charles helped him veryliberally to handfuls of whatever was exposed in open boxes and barrelsoutside the counter. He would seize a handful of grapes and sawdust orthree or four American apples and thrust them generously into hisgrandnephew's hand while the shopman smiled uneasily; and, on Stephen'sfeigning reluctance to take them, he would frown and say:--Take them, sir. Do you hear me, sir? They're good for your bowels.When the order list had been booked the two would go on to the parkwhere an old friend of Stephen's father, Mike Flynn, would be foundseated on a bench, waiting for them. Then would begin Stephen's runround the park. Mike Flynn would stand at the gate near the railwaystation, watch in hand, while Stephen ran round the track in the styleMike Flynn favoured, his head high lifted, his knees well lifted andhis hands held straight down by his sides. When the morning practicewas over the trainer would make his comments and sometimes illustratethem by shuffling along for a yard or so comically in an old pair ofblue canvas shoes. A small ring of wonderstruck children and nursemaidswould gather to watch him and linger even when he and uncle Charles hadsat down again and were talking athletics and politics. Though he hadheard his father say that Mike Flynn had put some of the best runnersof modern times through his hands Stephen often glanced at histrainer's flabby stubble-covered face, as it bent over the long stainedfingers through which he rolled his cigarette, and with pity at themild lustreless blue eyes which would look up suddenly from the taskand gaze vaguely into the blue distance while the long swollen fingersceased their rolling and grains and fibres of tobacco fell back intothe pouch.On the way home uncle Charles would often pay a visit to the chapeland, as the font was above Stephen's reach, the old man would dip hishand and then sprinkle the water briskly about Stephen's clothes and onthe floor of the porch. While he prayed he knelt on his redhandkerchief and read above his breath from a thumb blackened prayerbook wherein catchwords were printed at the foot of every page. Stephenknelt at his side respecting, though he did not share, his piety. Heoften wondered what his grand-uncle prayed for so seriously. Perhaps heprayed for the souls in purgatory or for the grace of a happy death orperhaps he prayed that God might send him back a part of the bigfortune he had squandered in Cork.On Sundays Stephen with his father and his grand-uncle took theirconstitutional. The old man was a nimble walker in spite of his cornsand often ten or twelve miles of the road were covered. The littlevillage of Stillorgan was the parting of the ways. Either they went tothe left towards the Dublin mountains or along the Goatstown road andthence into Dundrum, coming home by Sandyford. Trudging along the roador standing in some grimy wayside public house his elders spokeconstantly of the subjects nearer their hearts, of Irish politics, ofMunster and of the legends of their own family, to all of which Stephenlent an avid ear. Words which he did not understand he said over andover to himself till he had learnt them by heart: and through them hehad glimpses of the real world about them. The hour when he too wouldtake part in the life of that world seemed drawing near and in secrethe began to make ready for the great part which he felt awaited him thenature of which he only dimly apprehended.His evenings were his own; and he pored over a ragged translation ofTHE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. The figure of that dark avenger stood forthin his mind for whatever he had heard or divined in childhood of thestrange and terrible. At night he built up on the parlour table animage of the wonderful island cave out of transfers and paper flowersand coloured tissue paper and strips of the silver and golden paper inwhich chocolate is wrapped. When he had broken up this scenery, wearyof its tinsel, there would come to his mind the bright picture ofMarseille, of sunny trellises, and of Mercedes.Outside Blackrock, on the road that led to the mountains, stood a smallwhitewashed house in the garden of which grew many rosebushes: and inthis house, he told himself, another Mercedes lived. Both on theoutward and on the homeward journey he measured distance by thislandmark: and in his imagination he lived through a long train ofadventures, marvellous as those in the book itself, towards the closeof which there appeared an image of himself, grown older and sadder,standing in a moonlit garden with Mercedes who had so many years beforeslighted his love, and with a sadly proud gesture of refusal, saying:--Madam, I never eat muscatel grapes.He became the ally of a boy named Aubrey Mills and founded with him agang of adventurers in the avenue. Aubrey carried a whistle danglingfrom his buttonhole and a bicycle lamp attached to his belt while theothers had short sticks thrust daggerwise through theirs. Stephen, whohad read of Napoleon's plain style of dress, chose to remain unadornedand thereby heightened for himself the pleasure of taking counsel withhis lieutenant before giving orders. The gang made forays into thegardens of old maids or went down to the castle and fought a battle onthe shaggy weed-grown rocks, coming home after it weary stragglers withthe stale odours of the foreshore in their nostrils and the rank oilsof the seawrack upon their hands and in their hair.Aubrey and Stephen had a common milkman and often they drove out in themilk-car to Carrickmines where the cows were at grass. While the menwere milking the boys would take turns in riding the tractable mareround the field. But when autumn came the cows were driven home fromthe grass: and the first sight of the filthy cowyard at Stradbrook withits foul green puddles and clots of liquid dung and steaming brantroughs, sickened Stephen's heart. The cattle which had seemed sobeautiful in the country on sunny days revolted him and he could noteven look at the milk they yielded.The coming of September did not trouble him this year for he was not tobe sent back to Clongowes. The practice in the park came to an end whenMike Flynn went into hospital. Aubrey was at school and had only anhour or two free in the evening. The gang fell asunder and there wereno more nightly forays or battles on the rocks. Stephen sometimes wentround with the car which delivered the evening milk and these chillydrives blew away his memory of the filth of the cowyard and he felt norepugnance at seeing the cow hairs and hayseeds on the milkman's coat.Whenever the car drew up before a house he waited to catch a glimpse ofa well scrubbed kitchen or of a softly lighted hall and to see how theservant would hold the jug and how she would close the door. He thoughtit should be a pleasant life enough, driving along the roads everyevening to deliver milk, if he had warm gloves and a fat bag ofgingernuts in his pocket to eat from. But the same foreknowledge whichhad sickened his heart and made his legs sag suddenly as he raced roundthe park, the same intuition which had made him glance with mistrust athis trainer's flabby stubble-covered face as it bent heavily over his longstained fingers, dissipated any vision of the future. In a vague way heunderstood that his father was in trouble and that this was the reasonwhy he himself had not been sent back to Clongowes. For some time hehad felt the slight change in his house; and those changes in what hehad deemed unchangeable were so many slight shocks to his boyishconception of the world. The ambition which he felt astir at times inthe darkness of his soul sought no outlet. A dusk like that of theouter world obscured his mind as he heard the mare's hoofs clatteringalong the tramtrack on the Rock Road and the great can swaying andrattling behind him.He returned to Mercedes and, as he brooded upon her image, a strangeunrest crept into his blood. Sometimes a fever gathered within him andled him to rove alone in the evening along the quiet avenue. The peaceof the gardens and the kindly lights in the windows poured a tenderinfluence into his restless heart. The noise of children at playannoyed him and their silly voices made him feel, even more keenly thanhe had felt at Clongowes, that he was different from others. He did notwant to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantialimage which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where toseek it or how, but a premonition which led him on told him that thisimage would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They wouldmeet quietly as if they had known each other and had made their tryst,perhaps at one of the gates or in some more secret place. They would bealone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment ofsupreme tenderness he would be transfigured.He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in amoment he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperiencewould fall from him in that magic moment.Two great yellow caravans had halted one morning before the door andmen had come tramping into the house to dismantle it. The furniture hadbeen hustled out through the front garden which was strewn with wispsof straw and rope ends and into the huge vans at the gate. When all hadbeen safely stowed the vans had set off noisily down the avenue: andfrom the window of the railway carriage, in which he had sat with hisred-eyed mother, Stephen had seen them lumbering along the MerrionRoad.The parlour fire would not draw that evening and Mr Dedalus rested thepoker against the bars of the grate to attract the flame. Uncle Charlesdozed in a corner of the half furnished uncarpeted room and near himthe family portraits leaned against the wall. The lamp on the tableshed a weak light over the boarded floor, muddied by the feet of thevan-men. Stephen sat on a footstool beside his father listening to along and incoherent monologue. He understood little or nothing of it atfirst but he became slowly aware that his father had enemies and thatsome fight was going to take place. He felt, too, that he was beingenlisted for the fight, that some duty was being laid upon hisshoulders. The sudden flight from the comfort and revery of Blackrock,the passage through the gloomy foggy city, the thought of the barecheerless house in which they were now to live made his heart heavy,and again an intuition, a foreknowledge of the future came to him. Heunderstood also why the servants had often whispered together in thehall and why his father had often stood on the hearthrug with his backto the fire, talking loudly to uncle Charles who urged him to sit downand eat his dinner.--There's a crack of the whip left in me yet, Stephen, old chap, saidMr Dedalus, poking at the dull fire with fierce energy. We're not deadyet, sonny. No, by the Lord Jesus (God forgive me) not half dead.Dublin was a new and complex sensation. Uncle Charles had grown sowitless that he could no longer be sent out on errands and the disorderin settling in the new house left Stephen freer than he had been inBlackrock. In the beginning he contented himself with circling timidlyround the neighbouring square or, at most, going half way down one ofthe side streets but when he had made a skeleton map of the city in hismind he followed boldly one of its central lines until he reached thecustomhouse. He passed unchallenged among the docks and along the quayswondering at the multitude of corks that lay bobbing on the surface ofthe water in a thick yellow scum, at the crowds of quay porters and therumbling carts and the ill-dressed bearded policeman. The vastness andstrangeness of the life suggested to him by the bales of merchandisestocked along the walls or swung aloft out of the holds of steamerswakened again in him the unrest which had sent him wandering in theevening from garden to garden in search of Mercedes. And amid this newbustling life he might have fancied himself in another Marseille but thathe missed the bright sky and the sum-warmed trellises of the wineshops.A vague dissatisfaction grew up within him as he looked on the quays andon the river and on the lowering skies and yet he continued to wander upand down day after day as if he really sought someone that eluded him.He went once or twice with his mother to visit their relatives: andthough they passed a jovial array of shops lit up and adorned forChristmas his mood of embittered silence did not leave him. The causesof his embitterment were many, remote and near. He was angry withhimself for being young and the prey of restless foolish impulses,angry also with the change of fortune which was reshaping the worldabout him into a vision of squalor and insincerity. Yet his anger lentnothing to the vision. He chronicled with patience what he saw,detaching himself from it and tasting its mortifying flavour in secret.He was sitting on the backless chair in his aunt's kitchen. A lamp witha reflector hung on the japanned wall of the fireplace and by its lighthis aunt was reading the evening paper that lay on her knees. Shelooked a long time at a smiling picture that was set in it and saidmusingly:--The beautiful Mabel Hunter!A ringletted girl stood on tiptoe to peer at the picture and said softly:--What is she in, mud?--In a pantomime, love.The child leaned her ringletted head against her mother's sleeve,gazing on the picture, and murmured as if fascinated:--The beautiful Mabel Hunter!As if fascinated, her eyes rested long upon those demurely tauntingeyes and she murmured devotedly:--Isn't she an exquisite creature?And the boy who came in from the street, stamping crookedly under hisstone of coal, heard her words. He dropped his load promptly on thefloor and hurried to her side to see. He mauled the edges of the paperwith his reddened and blackened hands, shouldering her aside andcomplaining that he could not see.He was sitting in the narrow breakfast room high up in the olddark-windowed house. The firelight flickered on the wall and beyond thewindow a spectral dusk was gathering upon the river. Before the fire anold woman was busy making tea and, as she bustled at the task, she toldin a low voice of what the priest and the doctor had said. She told tooof certain changes they had seen in her of late and of her odd ways andsayings. He sat listening to the words and following the ways ofadventure that lay open in the coals, arches and vaults and windinggalleries and jagged caverns.Suddenly he became aware of something in the doorway. A skull appearedsuspended in the gloom of the doorway. A feeble creature like a monkeywas there, drawn thither by the sound of voices at the fire. A whiningvoice came from the door asking:--Is that Josephine?The old bustling woman answered cheerily from the fireplace:--No, Ellen, it's Stephen.--O... O, good evening, Stephen.He answered the greeting and saw a silly smile break over the face inthe doorway.--Do you want anything, Ellen? asked the old woman at the fire.But she did not answer the question and said:--I thought it was Josephine. I thought you were Josephine, Stephen.And, repeating this several times, she fell to laughing feebly.He was sitting in the midst of a children's party at Harold's Cross.His silent watchful manner had grown upon him and he took little partin the games. The children, wearing the spoils of their crackers,danced and romped noisily and, though he tried to share theirmerriment, he felt himself a gloomy figure amid the gay cocked hats andsunbonnets.But when he had sung his song and withdrawn into a snug corner of theroom he began to taste the joy of his loneliness. The mirth, which inthe beginning of the evening had seemed to him false and trivial, waslike a soothing air to him, passing gaily by his senses, hiding fromother eyes the feverish agitation of his blood while through thecircling of the dancers and amid the music and laughter her glancetravelled to his corner, flattering, taunting, searching, exciting hisheart.In the hall the children who had stayed latest were putting on theirthings: the party was over. She had thrown a shawl about her and, asthey went together towards the tram, sprays of her fresh warm breathflew gaily above her cowled head and her shoes tapped blithely on theglassy road.It was the last tram. The lank brown horses knew it and shook theirbells to the clear night in admonition. The conductor talked with thedriver, both nodding often in the green light of the lamp. On the emptyseats of the tram were scattered a few coloured tickets. No sound offootsteps came up or down the road. No sound broke the peace of thenight save when the lank brown horses rubbed their noses together andshook their bells.They seemed to listen, he on the upper step and she on the lower. Shecame up to his step many times and went down to hers again betweentheir phrases and once or twice stood close beside him for some momentson the upper step, forgetting to go down, and then went down. His heartdanced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what hereyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dimpast, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before. He sawher urge her vanities, her fine dress and sash and long blackstockings, and knew that he had yielded to them a thousand times. Yet avoice within him spoke above the noise of his dancing heart, asking himwould he take her gift to which he had only to stretch out his hand.And he remembered the day when he and Eileen had stood looking into thehotel grounds, watching the waiters running up a trail of bunting onthe flagstaff and the fox terrier scampering to and fro on the sunnylawn and how, all of a sudden, she had broken out into a peal oflaughter and had run down the sloping curve of the path. Now, as then,he stood listlessly in his place, seemingly a tranquil watcher of thescene before him.--She too wants me to catch hold of her, he thought. That's why shecame with me to the tram. I could easily catch hold of her when shecomes up to my step: nobody is looking. I could hold her and kiss her.But he did neither: and, when he was sitting alone in the desertedtram, he tore his ticket into shreds and stared gloomily at thecorrugated footboard.The next day he sat at his table in the bare upper room for many hours.Before him lay a new pen, a new bottle of ink and a new emeraldexercise. From force of habit he had written at the top of thefirst page the initial letters of the jesuit motto: A.M.D.G. On thefirst line of the page appeared the title of the verses he was tryingto write: To E-- C--. He knew it was right to begin so for he had seensimilar titles in the collected poems of Lord Byron. When he hadwritten this title and drawn an ornamental line underneath he fell intoa daydream and began to draw diagrams on the cover of the book. He sawhimself sitting at his table in Bray the morning after the discussionat the Christmas dinner table, trying to write a poem about Parnell onthe back of one of his father's second moiety notices. But his brainhad then refused to grapple with the theme and, desisting, he hadcovered the page with the names and addresses of certain of hisclassmates:Roderick Kickham

　　John Lawton

　　Anthony MacSwiney

　　Simon Moonan

　　Now it seemed as if he would fail again but, by dint of brooding on theincident, he thought himself into confidence. During this process allthose elements which he deemed common and insignificant fell out of thescene. There remained no trace of the tram itself nor of the tram-mennor of the horses: nor did he and she appear vividly. The verses toldonly of the night and the balmy breeze and the maiden lustre of themoon. Some undefined sorrow was hidden in the hearts of theprotagonists as they stood in silence beneath the leafless trees andwhen the moment of farewell had come the kiss, which had been withheldby one, was given by both. After this the letters L. D. S. were writtenat the foot of the page, and, having hidden the book, he went into hismother's bedroom and gazed at his face for a long time in the mirror ofher dressing-table.But his long spell of leisure and liberty was drawing to its end. Oneevening his father came home full of news which kept his tongue busyall through dinner. Stephen had been awaiting his father's return forthere had been mutton hash that day and he knew that his father wouldmake him dip his bread in the gravy. But he did not relish the hash forthe mention of Clongowes had coated his palate with a scum of disgust.--I walked bang into him, said Mr Dedalus for the fourth time, just atthe corner of the square.--Then I suppose, said Mrs Dedalus, he will be able to arrange it. Imean about Belvedere.--Of course he will, said Mr Dedalus. Don't I tell you he's provincialof the order now?--I never liked the idea of sending him to the christian brothersmyself, said Mrs Dedalus.--Christian brothers be damned! said Mr Dedalus. Is it with PaddyStink and Micky Mud? No, let him stick to the jesuits in God's namesince he began with them. They'll be of service to him in after years.Those are the fellows that can get you a position.--And they're a very rich order, aren't they, Simon?--Rather. They live well, I tell you. You saw their table atClongowes. Fed up, by God, like gamecocks.Mr Dedalus pushed his plate over to Stephen and bade him finish whatwas on it.--Now then, Stephen, he said, you must put your shoulder to the wheel,old chap. You've had a fine long holiday.--O, I'm sure he'll work very hard now, said Mrs Dedalus, especiallywhen he has Maurice with him.--O, Holy Paul, I forgot about Maurice, said Mr Dedalus. Here,Maurice! Come here, you thick-headed ruffian! Do you know I'm going tosend you to a college where they'll teach you to spell c.a.t. cat. AndI'll buy you a nice little penny handkerchief to keep your nose dry.Won't that be grand fun?Maurice grinned at his father and then at his brother.Mr Dedalus screwed his glass into his eye and stared hard at both hissons. Stephen mumbled his bread without answering his father's gaze.--By the bye, said Mr Dedalus at length, the rector, or provincialrather, was telling me that story about you and Father Dolan. You're animpudent thief, he said.--O, he didn't, Simon!--Not he! said Mr Dedalus. But he gave me a great account of the wholeaffair. We were chatting, you know, and one word borrowed another. And,by the way, who do you think he told me will get that job in thecorporation? But I'll tell you that after. Well, as I was saying, wewere chatting away quite friendly and he asked me did our friend herewear glasses still, and then he told me the whole story.--And was he annoyed, Simon?--Annoyed? Not he! MANLY LITTLE CHAP! he said.Mr Dedalus imitated the mincing nasal tone of the provincial.Father Dolan and I, when I told them all at dinner about it, FatherDolan and I had a great laugh over it. YOU BETTER MIND YOURSELF FATHERDOLAN, said I, OR YOUNG DEDALUS WILL SEND YOU UP FOR TWICE NINE. We hada famous laugh together over it. Ha! Ha! Ha!Mr Dedalus turned to his wife and interjected in his natural voice:--Shows you the spirit in which they take the boys there. O, a jesuitfor your life, for diplomacy!He reassumed the provincial's voice and repeated:--I TOLD THEM ALL AT DINNER ABOUT IT AND FATHER DOLAN AND I AND ALL OFUS WE HAD A HEARTY LAUGH TOGETHER OVER IT. HA! HA! HA!The night of the Whitsuntide play had come and Stephen from the windowof the dressing-room looked out on the small grass-plot across whichlines of Chinese lanterns were stretched. He watched the visitors comedown the steps from the house and pass into the theatre. Stewards inevening dress, old Belvedereans, loitered in groups about the entranceto the theatre and ushered in the visitors with ceremony. Under thesudden glow of a lantern he could recognize the smiling face of apriest.The Blessed Sacrament had been removed from the tabernacle and thefirst benches had been driven back so as to leave the dais of the altarand the space before it free. Against the walls stood companies ofbarbells and Indian clubs; the dumbbells were piled in one corner: andin the midst of countless hillocks of gymnasium shoes and sweaters andsinglets in untidy brown parcels there stood the stout leather-jacketedvaulting horse waiting its turn to be carried up on the stageand set in the middle of the winning team at the end of the gymnasticdisplay.Stephen, though in deference to his reputation for essay writing he hadbeen elected secretary to the gymnasium, had had no part in the firstsection of the programme but in the play which formed the secondsection he had the chief part, that of a farcical pedagogue. He hadbeen cast for it on account of his stature and grave manners for he wasnow at the end of his second year at Belvedere and in number two.A score of the younger boys in white knickers and singlets camepattering down from the stage, through the vestry and to the chapel.The vestry and chapel were peopled with eager masters and boys. Theplump bald sergeant major was testing with his foot the springboard ofthe vaulting horse. The lean young man in a long overcoat, who was togive a special display of intricate club swinging, stood near watchingwith interest, his silver-coated clubs peeping out of his deepside-pockets. The hollow rattle of the wooden dumbbells was heard asanother team made ready to go up on the stage: and in another moment theexcited prefect was hustling the boys through the vestry like a flock ofgeese, flapping the wings of his soutane nervously and crying to thelaggards to make haste. A little troop of Neapolitan peasants werepractising their steps at the end of the chapel, some circling their armsabove their heads, some swaying their baskets of paper violets andcurtsying. In a dark corner of the chapel at the gospel side of the altara stout old lady knelt amid her copious black skirts. When she stood up apink-dressed figure, wearing a curly golden wig and an old-fashioned strawsunbonnet, with black pencilled eyebrows and cheeks delicately rouged andpowdered, was discovered. A low murmur of curiosity ran round the chapelat the discovery of this girlish figure. One of the prefects, smiling andnodding his head, approached the dark corner and, having bowed to thestout old lady, said pleasantly:--Is this a beautiful young lady or a doll that you have here, MrsTallon?Then, bending down to peer at the smiling painted face under the leafof the bonnet, he exclaimed:--No! Upon my word I believe it's little Bertie Tallon after all!Stephen at his post by the window heard the old lady and the priestlaugh together and heard the boys' murmurs of admiration behind him asthey passed forward to see the little boy who had to dance thesunbonnet dance by himself. A movement of impatience escaped him. Helet the edge of the blind fall and, stepping down from the bench onwhich he had been standing, walked out of the chapel.He passed out of the schoolhouse and halted under the shed that flankedthe garden. From the theatre opposite came the muffled noise of theaudience and sudden brazen clashes of the soldiers' band. The lightspread upwards from the glass roof making the theatre seem a festiveark, anchored among the hulks of houses, her frail cables of lanternslooping her to her moorings. A side door of the theatre opened suddenlyand a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst ofmusic issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the sidedoor closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of themusic. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supplemovement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had been the cause ofall his day's unrest and of his impatient movement of a moment before.His unrest issued from him like a wave of sound: and on the tide offlowing music the ark was journeying, trailing her cables of lanternsin her wake. Then a noise like dwarf artillery broke the movement. Itwas the clapping that greeted the entry of the dumbbell team on thestage.At the far end of the shed near the street a speck of pink light showedin the darkness and as he walked towards it he became aware of a faintaromatic odour. Two boys were standing in the shelter of a doorway,smoking, and before he reached them he had recognised Heron by hisvoice.--Here comes the noble Dedalus! cried a high throaty voice. Welcome toour trusty friend!This welcome ended in a soft peal of mirthless laughter as Heronsalaamed and then began to poke the ground with his cane.--Here I am, said Stephen, halting and glancing from Heron to hisfriend.The latter was a stranger to him but in the darkness, by the aid of theglowing cigarette tips, he could make out a pale dandyish face overwhich a smile was travelling slowly, a tall overcoated figure and ahard hat. Heron did not trouble himself about an introduction but saidinstead:--I was just telling my friend Wallis what a lark it would be tonightif you took off the rector in the part of the schoolmaster. It would bea ripping good joke.Heron made a poor attempt to imitate for his friend Wallis the rector'spedantic bass and then, laughing at his failure, asked Stephen to doit.--Go on, Dedalus, he urged, you can take him off rippingly. HE THAT WILLNOT HEAR THE CHURCHA LET HIM BE TO THEEA AS THE HEATHENA AND THEPUBLICANA.The imitation was prevented by a mild expression of anger from Wallisin whose mouthpiece the cigarette had become too tightly wedged.--Damn this blankety blank holder, he said, taking it from his mouthand smiling and frowning upon it tolerantly. It's always getting stucklike that. Do you use a holder?--I don't smoke, answered Stephen.--No, said Heron, Dedalus is a model youth. He doesn't smoke and hedoesn't go to bazaars and he doesn't flirt and he doesn't damn anythingor damn all.Stephen shook his head and smiled in his rival's flushed and mobileface, beaked like a bird's. He had often thought it strange thatVincent Heron had a bird's face as well as a bird's name. A shock ofpale hair lay on the forehead like a ruffled crest: the forehead wasnarrow and bony and a thin hooked nose stood out between the close-setprominent eyes which were light and inexpressive. The rivals wereschool friends. They sat together in class, knelt together in thechapel, talked together after beads over their lunches. As the fellowsin number one were undistinguished dullards, Stephen and Heron had beenduring the year the virtual heads of the school. It was they who wentup to the rector together to ask for a free day or to get a fellow off.--O by the way, said Heron suddenly, I saw your governor going in.The smile waned on Stephen's face. Any allusion made to his father by afellow or by a master put his calm to rout in a moment. He waited intimorous silence to hear what Heron might say next. Heron, however,nudged him expressively with his elbow and said:--You're a sly dog.--Why so? said Stephen.--You'd think butter wouldn't melt in your mouth said Heron. But I'mafraid you're a sly dog.--Might I ask you what you are talking about? said Stephen urbanely.--Indeed you might, answered Heron. We saw her, Wallis, didn't we? Anddeucedly pretty she is too. And inquisitive! AND WHAT PART DOES STEPHENTAKE, MR DEDALUS? AND WILL STEPHEN NOT SING, MR DEDALUS? Your governorwas staring at her through that eyeglass of his for all he was worth sothat I think the old man has found you out too. I wouldn't care a bit,by Jove. She's ripping, isn't she, Wallis?--Not half bad, answered Wallis quietly as he placed his holder oncemore in a corner of his mouth.A shaft of momentary anger flew through Stephen's mind at theseindelicate allusions in the hearing of a stranger. For him there wasnothing amusing in a girl's interest and regard. All day he had thoughtof nothing but their leave-taking on the steps of the tram at Harold'sCross, the stream of moody emotions it had made to course through himand the poem he had written about it. All day he had imagined a newmeeting with her for he knew that she was to come to the play. The oldrestless moodiness had again filled his breast as it had done on thenight of the party, but had not found an outlet in verse. The growthand knowledge of two years of boyhood stood between then and now,forbidding such an outlet: and all day the stream of gloomy tendernesswithin him had started forth and returned upon itself in dark coursesand eddies, wearying him in the end until the pleasantry of the prefectand the painted little boy had drawn from him a movement of impatience.--So you may as well admit, Heron went on, that we've fairly found youout this time. You can't play the saint on me any more, that's one surefive.A soft peal of mirthless laughter escaped from his lips and, bendingdown as before, he struck Stephen lightly across the calf of the legwith his cane, as if in jesting reproof.Stephen's moment of anger had already passed. He was neither flatterednor confused, but simply wished the banter to end. He scarcely resentedwhat had seemed to him a silly indelicateness for he knew that theadventure in his mind stood in no danger from these words: and his facemirrored his rival's false smile.--Admit! repeated Heron, striking him again with his cane across thecalf of the leg.The stroke was playful but not so lightly given as the first one hadbeen. Stephen felt the skin tingle and glow slightly and almostpainlessly; and, bowing submissively, as if to meet his companion'sjesting mood, began to recite the CONFITEOR. The episode ended well,for both Heron and Wallis laughed indulgently at the irreverence.The confession came only from Stephen's lips and, while they spoke thewords, a sudden memory had carried him to another scene called up, asif by magic, at the moment when he had noted the faint cruel dimples atthe corners of Heron's smiling lips and had felt the familiar stroke ofthe cane against his calf and had heard the familiar word ofadmonition:--Admit.It was towards the close of his first term in the college when he wasin number six. His sensitive nature was still smarting under the lashesof an undivined and squalid way of life. His soul was still disquietedand cast down by the dull phenomenon of Dublin. He had emerged from atwo years' spell of revery to find himself in the midst of a new scene,every event and figure of which affected him intimately, disheartenedhim or allured and, whether alluring or disheartening, filled himalways with unrest and bitter thoughts. All the leisure which hisschool life left him was passed in the company of subversive writerswhose jibes and violence of speech set up a ferment in his brain beforethey passed out of it into his crude writings.The essay was for him the chief labour of his week and every Tuesday,as he marched from home to the school, he read his fate in theincidents of the way, pitting himself against some figure ahead of himand quickening his pace to outstrip it before a certain goal wasreached or planting his steps scrupulously in the spaces of thepatchwork of the pathway and telling himself that he would be first andnot first in the weekly essay.On a certain Tuesday the course of his triumphs was rudely broken. MrTate, the English master, pointed his finger at him and said bluntly:--This fellow has heresy in his essay.A hush fell on the class. Mr Tate did not break it but dug with hishand between his thighs while his heavily starched linen creaked abouthis neck and wrists. Stephen did not look up. It was a raw springmorning and his eyes were still smarting and weak. He was conscious offailure and of detection, of the squalor of his own mind and home, andfelt against his neck the raw edge of his turned and jagged collar.A short loud laugh from Mr Tate set the class more at ease.--Perhaps you didn't know that, he said.--Where? asked Stephen.Mr Tate withdrew his delving hand and spread out the essay.--Here. It's about the Creator and the soul. Rrm... rrm... rrm... Ah!WITHOUT A POSSIBILITY OF EVER APPROACHING NEARER. That's heresy.Stephen murmured:--I meant WITHOUT A POSSIBILITY OF EVER REACHING.It was a submission and Mr Tate, appeased, folded up the essay andpassed it across to him, saying:--O...Ah! EVER REACHING. That's another story.But the class was not so soon appeased. Though nobody spoke to him ofthe affair after class he could feel about him a vague generalmalignant joy.A few nights after this public chiding he was walking with a letteralong the Drumcondra Road when he heard a voice cry:--Halt!He turned and saw three boys of his own class coming towards him in thedusk. It was Heron who had called out and, as he marched forwardbetween his two attendants, he cleft the air before him with a thincane in time to their steps. Boland, his friend, marched beside him, alarge grin on his face, while Nash came on a few steps behind, blowingfrom the pace and wagging his great red head.As soon as the boys had turned into Clonliffe Road together they beganto speak about books and writers, saying what books they were readingand how many books there were in their fathers' bookcases at home.Stephen listened to them in some wonderment for Boland was the dunceand Nash the idler of the class. In fact, after some talk about theirfavourite writers, Nash declared for Captain Marryat who, he said, wasthe greatest writer.--Fudge! said Heron. Ask Dedalus. Who is the greatest writer, Dedalus?Stephen noted the mockery in the question and said:--Of prose do you mean?--Yes.--Newman, I think.--Is it Cardinal Newman? asked Boland.--Yes, answered Stephen.The grin broadened on Nash's freckled face as he turned to Stephen andsaid:--And do you like Cardinal Newman, Dedalus?--O, many say that Newman has the best prose style, Heron said to theother two in explanation, of course he's not a poet.--And who is the best poet, Heron? asked Boland.--Lord Tennyson, of course, answered Heron.--O, yes, Lord Tennyson, said Nash. We have all his poetry at home in abook.At this Stephen forgot the silent vows he had been making and burst out:--Tennyson a poet! Why, he's only a rhymester!--O, get out! said Heron. Everyone knows that Tennyson is the greatestpoet.--And who do you think is the greatest poet? asked Boland, nudging hisneighbour.--Byron, of course, answered Stephen.Heron gave the lead and all three joined in a scornful laugh.--What are you laughing at? asked Stephen.--You, said Heron. Byron the greatest poet! He's only a poet foruneducated people.--He must be a fine poet! said Boland.--You may keep your mouth shut, said Stephen, turning on him boldly.All you know about poetry is what you wrote up on the slates in theyard and were going to be sent to the loft for.Boland, in fact, was said to have written on the slates in the yard acouplet about a classmate of his who often rode home from the collegeon a pony:As Tyson was riding into JerusalemHe fell and hurt his Alec Kafoozelum.This thrust put the two lieutenants to silence but Heron went on:--In any case Byron was a heretic and immoral too.--I don't care what he was, cried Stephen hotly.--You don't care whether he was a heretic or not? said Nash.--What do you know about it? shouted Stephen. You never read a line ofanything in your life except a trans, or Boland either.--I know that Byron was a bad man, said Boland.--Here, catch hold of this heretic, Heron called out. In a momentStephen was a prisoner.--Tate made you buck up the other day, Heron went on, about the heresyin your essay.--I'll tell him tomorrow, said Boland.--Will you? said Stephen. You'd be afraid to open your lips.--Afraid?--Ay. Afraid of your life.--Behave yourself! cried Heron, cutting at Stephen's legs with hiscane.It was the signal for their onset. Nash pinioned his arms behind whileBoland seized a long cabbage stump which was lying in the gutter.Struggling and kicking under the cuts of the cane and the blows of theknotty stump Stephen was borne back against a barbed wire fence.--Admit that Byron was no good.--No.--Admit.--No.--Admit.--No. No.At last after a fury of plunges he wrenched himself free. Histormentors set off towards Jones's Road, laughing and jeering at him,while he, half blinded with tears, stumbled on, clenching his fistsmadly and sobbing.While he was still repeating the CONFITEOR amid the indulgent laughterof his hearers and while the scenes of that malignant episode werestill passing sharply and swiftly before his mind he wondered why hebore no malice now to those who had tormented him. He had not forgottena whit of their cowardice and cruelty but the memory of it called forthno anger from him. All the descriptions of fierce love and hatred whichhe had met in books had seemed to him therefore unreal. Even that nightas he stumbled homewards along Jones's Road he had felt that some powerwas divesting him of that sudden-woven anger as easily as a fruit isdivested of its soft ripe peel.He remained standing with his two companions at the end of the shedlistening idly to their talk or to the bursts of applause in thetheatre. She was sitting there among the others perhaps waiting for himto appear. He tried to recall her appearance but could not. He couldremember only that she had worn a shawl about her head like a cowl andthat her dark eyes had invited and unnerved him. He wondered had hebeen in her thoughts as she had been in his. Then in the dark andunseen by the other two he rested the tips of the fingers of one handupon the palm of the other hand, scarcely touching it lightly. But thepressure of her fingers had been lighter and steadier: and suddenly thememory of their touch traversed his brain and body like an invisiblewave.A boy came towards them, running along under the shed. He was excitedand breathless.--O, Dedalus, he cried, Doyle is in a great bake about you. You're togo in at once and get dressed for the play. Hurry up, you better.--He's coming now, said Heron to the messenger with a haughty drawl,when he wants to.The boy turned to Heron and repeated:--But Doyle is in an awful bake.--Will you tell Doyle with my best compliments that I damned his eyes?answered Heron.--Well, I must go now, said Stephen, who cared little for such pointsof honour.--I wouldn't, said Heron, damn me if I would. That's no way to sendfor one of the senior boys. In a bake, indeed! I think it's quiteenough that you're taking a part in his bally old play.This spirit of quarrelsome comradeship which he had observed lately inhis rival had not seduced Stephen from his habits of quiet obedience.He mistrusted the turbulence and doubted the sincerity of suchcomradeship which seemed to him a sorry anticipation of manhood. Thequestion of honour here raised was, like all such questions, trivial tohim. While his mind had been pursuing its intangible phantoms andturning in irresolution from such pursuit he had heard about him theconstant voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be agentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above allthings. These voices had now come to be hollow-sounding in his ears. Whenthe gymnasium had been opened he had heard another voice urging him to bestrong and manly and healthy and when the movement towards nationalrevival had begun to be felt in the college yet another voice had biddenhim be true to his country and help to raise up her language andtradition. In the profane world, as he foresaw, a worldly voice would bidhim raise up his father's fallen state by his labours and, meanwhile, thevoice of his school comrades urged him to be a decent fellow, to shieldothers from blame or to beg them off and to do his best to get free daysfor the school. And it was the din of all these hollow-sounding voicesthat made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms. He gave themear only for a time but he was happy only when he was far from them,beyond their call, alone or in the company of phantasmal comrades.In the vestry a plump fresh-faced jesuit and an elderly man, in shabbyblue clothes, were dabbling in a case of paints and chalks. The boyswho had been painted walked about or stood still awkwardly, touchingtheir faces in a gingerly fashion with their furtive fingertips. In themiddle of the vestry a young jesuit, who was then on a visit to thecollege, stood rocking himself rhythmically from the tips of his toesto his heels and back again, his hands thrust well forward into hisside-pockets. His small head set off with glossy red curls and hisnewly shaven face agreed well with the spotless decency of his soutaneand with his spotless shoes.As he watched this swaying form and tried to read for himself thelegend of the priest's mocking smile there came into Stephen's memory asaying which he had heard from his father before he had been sent toClongowes, that you could always tell a jesuit by the style of hisclothes. At the same moment he thought he saw a likeness between hisfather's mind and that of this smiling well-dressed priest: and he wasaware of some desecration of the priest's office or of the vestryitself whose silence was now routed by loud talk and joking and its airpungent with the smells of the gas-jets and the grease.While his forehead was being wrinkled and his jaws painted black andblue by the elderly man, he listened distractedly to the voice of theplump young jesuit which bade him speak up and make his points clearly.He could hear the band playing THE LILY OF KILLARNEY and knew that in afew moments the curtain would go up. He felt no stage fright but thethought of the part he had to play humiliated him. A remembrance ofsome of his lines made a sudden flush rise to his painted cheeks. Hesaw her serious alluring eyes watching him from among the audience andtheir image at once swept away his scruples, leaving his will compact.Another nature seemed to have been lent him: the infection of theexcitement and youth about him entered into and transformed his moodymistrustfulness. For one rare moment he seemed to be clothed in thereal apparel of boyhood: and, as he stood in the wings among the otherplayers, he shared the common mirth amid which the drop scene washauled upwards by two able-bodied priests with violent jerks and all awry.A few moments after he found himself on the stage amid the garish gasand the dim scenery, acting before the innumerable faces of the void.It surprised him to see that the play which he had known at rehearsalsfor a disjointed lifeless thing had suddenly assumed a life of its own.It seemed now to play itself, he and his fellow actors aiding it withtheir parts. When the curtain fell on the last scene he heard the voidfilled with applause and, through a rift in a side scene, saw thesimple body before which he had acted magically deformed, the void offaces breaking at all points and falling asunder into busy groups.He left the stage quickly and rid himself of his mummery and passed outthrough the chapel into the college garden. Now that the play was overhis nerves cried for some further adventure. He hurried onwards as ifto overtake it. The doors of the theatre were all open and the audiencehad emptied out. On the lines which he had fancied the moorings of anark a few lanterns swung in the night breeze, flickering cheerlessly.He mounted the steps from the garden in haste, eager that some preyshould not elude him, and forced his way through the crowd in the halland past the two jesuits who stood watching the exodus and bowing andshaking hands with the visitors. He pushed onward nervously, feigning astill greater haste and faintly conscious of the smiles and stares andnudges which his powdered head left in its wake.When he came out on the steps he saw his family waiting for him at thefirst lamp. In a glance he noted that every figure of the group wasfamiliar and ran down the steps angrily.--I have to leave a message down in George's Street, he said to hisfather quickly. I'll be home after you.Without waiting for his father's questions he ran across the road andbegan to walk at breakneck speed down the hill. He hardly knew where hewas walking. Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heartsent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind. Hestrode down the hill amid the tumult of sudden-risen vapours of woundedpride and fallen hope and baffled desire. They streamed upwards beforehis anguished eyes in dense and maddening fumes and passed away abovehim till at last the air was clear and cold again.A film still veiled his eyes but they burned no longer. A power, akinto that which had often made anger or resentment fall from him, broughthis steps to rest. He stood still and gazed up at the sombre porch ofthe morgue and from that to the dark cobbled laneway at its side. Hesaw the word LOTTS on the wall of the lane and breathed slowly the rankheavy air.That is horse piss and rotted straw, he thought. It is a good odour tobreathe. It will calm my heart. My heart is quite calm now. I will goback.Stephen was once again seated beside his father in the corner of arailway carriage at Kingsbridge. He was travelling with his father bythe night mail to Cork. As the train steamed out of the station herecalled his childish wonder of years before and every event of hisfirst day at Clongowes. But he felt no wonder now. He saw the darkeninglands slipping away past him, the silent telegraph-poles passing hiswindow swiftly every four seconds, the little glimmering stations,manned by a few silent sentries, flung by the mail behind her andtwinkling for a moment in the darkness like fiery grains flungbackwards by a runner.He listened without sympathy to his father's evocation of Cork and ofscenes of his youth, a tale broken by sighs or draughts from his pocketflask whenever the image of some dead friend appeared in it or wheneverthe evoker remembered suddenly the purpose of his actual visit. Stephenheard but could feel no pity. The images of the dead were all strangersto him save that of uncle Charles, an image which had lately beenfading out of memory. He knew, however, that his father's property wasgoing to be sold by auction, and in the manner of his own dispossessionhe felt the world give the lie rudely to his phantasy.At Maryborough he fell asleep. When he awoke the train had passed outof Mallow and his father was stretched asleep on the other seat. Thecold light of the dawn lay over the country, over the unpeopled fieldsand the closed cottages. The terror of sleep fascinated his mind as hewatched the silent country or heard from time to time his father's deepbreath or sudden sleepy movement. The neighbourhood of unseen sleepersfilled him with strange dread, as though they could harm him, and heprayed that the day might come quickly. His prayer, addressed neitherto God nor saint, began with a shiver, as the chilly morning breezecrept through the chink of the carriage door to his feet, and ended ina trail of foolish words which he made to fit the insistent rhythm ofthe train; and silently, at intervals of four seconds, thetelegraph-poles held the galloping notes of the music between punctualbars. This furious music allayed his dread and, leaning against thewindowledge, he let his eyelids close again.They drove in a jingle across Cork while it was still early morning andStephen finished his sleep in a bedroom of the Victoria Hotel. Thebright warm sunlight was streaming through the window and he could hearthe din of traffic. His father was standing before the dressing-table,examining his hair and face and moustache with great care, craning hisneck across the water-jug and drawing it back sideways to see the better.While he did so he sang softly to himself with quaint accent and phrasing:'Tis youth and folly

　　Makes young men marry,

　　So here, my love, I'll

　　No longer stay.

　　What can't be cured, sure,

　　Must be injured, sure,

　　So I'll go to

　　Amerikay.

　　My love she's handsome,

　　My love she's bony:

　　She's like good whisky

　　When it is new;

　　But when 'tis old

　　And growing cold

　　It fades and dies like

　　The mountain dew.

　　The consciousness of the warm sunny city outside his window and thetender tremors with which his father's voice festooned the strange sadhappy air, drove off all the mists of the night's ill humour fromStephen's brain. He got up quickly to dress and, when the song hadended, said:--That's much prettier than any of your other COME-ALL-YOUS.--Do you think so? asked Mr Dedalus.--I like it, said Stephen.--It's a pretty old air, said Mr Dedalus, twirling the points of hismoustache. Ah, but you should have heard Mick Lacy sing it! Poor MickLacy! He had little turns for it, grace notes that he used to put inthat I haven't got. That was the boy who could sing a COME-ALL-YOU, ifyou like.Mr Dedalus had ordered drisheens for breakfast and during the meal hecross-examined the waiter for local news. For the most part they spokeat cross purposes when a name was mentioned, the waiter having in mindthe present holder and Mr Dedalus his father or perhaps hisgrandfather.--Well, I hope they haven't moved the Queen's College anyhow, said MrDedalus, for I want to show it to this youngster of mine.Along the Mardyke the trees were in bloom. They entered the grounds ofthe college and were led by the garrulous porter across the quadrangle.But their progress across the gravel was brought to a halt after everydozen or so paces by some reply of the porter's.--Ah, do you tell me so? And is poor Pottlebelly dead?--Yes, sir. Dead, sir.During these halts Stephen stood awkwardly behind the two men, weary ofthe subject and waiting restlessly for the slow march to begin again.By the time they had crossed the quadrangle his restlessness had risento fever. He wondered how his father, whom he knew for a shrewdsuspicious man, could be duped by the servile manners of the porter;and the lively southern speech which had entertained him all themorning now irritated his ears.They passed into the anatomy theatre where Mr Dedalus, the porteraiding him, searched the desks for his initials. Stephen remained inthe background, depressed more than ever by the darkness and silence ofthe theatre and by the air it wore of jaded and formal study. On thedesk he read the word FOETUS cut several times in the dark stainedwood. The sudden legend startled his blood: he seemed to feel theabsent students of the college about him and to shrink from theircompany. A vision of their life, which his father's words had beenpowerless to evoke, sprang up before him out of the word cut in thedesk. A broad-shouldered student with a moustache was cutting in theletters with a jack-knife, seriously. Other students stood or sat nearhim laughing at his handiwork. One jogged his elbow. The big studentturned on him, frowning. He was dressed in loose grey clothes and hadtan boots.Stephen's name was called. He hurried down the steps of the theatre soas to be as far away from the vision as he could be and, peeringclosely at his father's initials, hid his flushed face.But the word and the vision capered before his eyes as he walked backacross the quadrangle and towards the college gate. It shocked him tofind in the outer world a trace of what he had deemed till then abrutish and individual malady of his own mind. His monstrous reveriescame thronging into his memory. They too had sprung up before him,suddenly and furiously, out of mere words. He had soon given in to themand allowed them to sweep across and abase his intellect, wonderingalways where they came from, from what den of monstrous images, andalways weak and humble towards others, restless and sickened of himselfwhen they had swept over him.--Ay, bedad! And there's the Groceries sure enough! cried Mr Dedalus.You often heard me speak of the Groceries, didn't you, Stephen. Many'sthe time we went down there when our names had been marked, a crowd ofus, Harry Peard and little Jack Mountain and Bob Dyas and MauriceMoriarty, the Frenchman, and Tom O'Grady and Mick Lacy that I told youof this morning and Joey Corbet and poor little good-hearted JohnnyKeevers of the Tantiles.The leaves of the trees along the Mardyke were astir and whispering inthe sunlight. A team of cricketers passed, agile young men in flannelsand blazers, one of them carrying the long green wicket-bag. In a quietbystreet a German band of five players in faded uniforms and withbattered brass instruments was playing to an audience of street arabsand leisurely messenger boys. A maid in a white cap and apron waswatering a box of plants on a sill which shone like a slab of limestonein the warm glare. From another window open to the air came the soundof a piano, scale after scale rising into the treble.Stephen walked on at his father's side, listening to stories he hadheard before, hearing again the names of the scattered and deadrevellers who had been the companions of his father's youth. And afaint sickness sighed in his heart.He recalled his own equivocal position in Belvedere, a free boy, aleader afraid of his own authority, proud and sensitive and suspicious,battling against the squalor of his life and against the riot of hismind. The letters cut in the stained wood of the desk stared upon him,mocking his bodily weakness and futile enthusiasms and making himloathe himself for his own mad and filthy orgies. The spittle in histhroat grew bitter and foul to swallow and the faint sickness climbedto his brain so that for a moment he closed his eyes and walked on indarkness.He could still hear his father's voice----When you kick out for yourself, Stephen--as I daresay you will oneof these days--remember, whatever you do, to mix with gentlemen. WhenI was a young fellow I tell you I enjoyed myself. I mixed with finedecent fellows. Everyone of us could do something. One fellow had agood voice, another fellow was a good actor, another could sing a goodcomic song, another was a good oarsman or a good racket player, anothercould tell a good story and so on. We kept the ball rolling anyhow andenjoyed ourselves and saw a bit of life and we were none the worse ofit either. But we were all gentlemen, Stephen--at least I hope we were--andbloody good honest Irishmen too. That's the kind of fellows I wantyou to associate with, fellows of the right kidney. I'm talking toyou as a friend, Stephen. I don't believe a son should be afraid of hisfather. No, I treat you as your grandfather treated me when I was ayoung chap. We were more like brothers than father and son. I'll neverforget the first day he caught me smoking. I was standing at the end ofthe South Terrace one day with some maneens like myself and sure wethought we were grand fellows because we had pipes stuck in the cornersof our mouths. Suddenly the governor passed. He didn't say a word, orstop even. But the next day, Sunday, we were out for a walk togetherand when we were coming home he took out his cigar case and said:--Bythe by, Simon, I didn't know you smoked, or something like that.--Ofcourse I tried to carry it off as best I could.--If you want a goodsmoke, he said, try one of these cigars. An American captain made me apresent of them last night in Queenstown.Stephen heard his father's voice break into a laugh which was almost asob.--He was the handsomest man in Cork at that time, by God he was! Thewomen used to stand to look after him in the street.He heard the sob passing loudly down his father's throat and opened hiseyes with a nervous impulse. The sunlight breaking suddenly on hissight turned the sky and clouds into a fantastic world of sombre masseswith lakelike spaces of dark rosy light. His very brain was sick andpowerless. He could scarcely interpret the letters of the signboards ofthe shops. By his monstrous way of life he seemed to have put himselfbeyond the limits of reality. Nothing moved him or spoke to him fromthe real world unless he heard in it an echo of the infuriated crieswithin him. He could respond to no earthly or human appeal, dumb andinsensible to the call of summer and gladness and companionship,wearied and dejected by his father's voice. He could scarcely recognizeas his own thoughts, and repeated slowly to himself:--I am Stephen Dedalus. I am walking beside my father whose name isSimon Dedalus. We are in Cork, in Ireland. Cork is a city. Our room isin the Victoria Hotel. Victoria and Stephen and Simon. Simon andStephen and Victoria. Names.The memory of his childhood suddenly grew dim. He tried to call forthsome of its vivid moments but could not. He recalled only names. Dante,Parnell, Clane, Clongowes. A little boy had been taught geography by anold woman who kept two brushes in her wardrobe. Then he had been sentaway from home to a college, he had made his first communion and eatenslim jim out of his cricket cap and watched the firelight leaping anddancing on the wall of a little bedroom in the infirmary and dreamed ofbeing dead, of mass being said for him by the rector in a black andgold cope, of being buried then in the little graveyard of thecommunity off the main avenue of limes. But he had not died then.Parnell had died. There had been no mass for the dead in the chapel andno procession. He had not died but he had faded out like a film in thesun. He had been lost or had wandered out of existence for he no longerexisted. How strange to think of him passing out of existence in such away, not by death but by fading out in the sun or by being lost andforgotten somewhere in the universe! It was strange to see his smallbody appear again for a moment: a little boy in a grey belted suit. Hishands were in his side-pockets and his trousers were tucked in at theknees by elastic bands.On the evening of the day on which the property was sold Stephenfollowed his father meekly about the city from bar to bar. To thesellers in the market, to the barmen and barmaids, to the beggars whoimportuned him for a lob Mr Dedalus told the same tale--that he was anold Corkonian, that he had been trying for thirty years to get rid ofhis Cork accent up in Dublin and that Peter Pickackafax beside him washis eldest son but that he was only a Dublin jackeen.They had set out early in the morning from Newcombe's coffee-house,where Mr Dedalus's cup had rattled noisily against its saucer, andStephen had tried to cover that shameful sign of his father's drinkingbout of the night before by moving his chair and coughing. Onehumiliation had succeeded another--the false smiles of the marketsellers, the curvetings and oglings of the barmaids with whom hisfather flirted, the compliments and encouraging words of his father'sfriends. They had told him that he had a great look of his grandfatherand Mr Dedalus had agreed that he was an ugly likeness. They hadunearthed traces of a Cork accent in his speech and made him admit thatthe Lee was a much finer river than the Liffey. One of them, in orderto put his Latin to the proof, had made him translate short passagesfrom Dilectus and asked him whether it was correct to say: TEMPORAMUTANTUR NOS ET MUTAMUR IN ILLIS or TEMPORA MUTANTUR ET NOS MUTAMUR INILLIS. Another, a brisk old man, whom Mr Dedalus called Johnny Cashman,had covered him with confusion by asking him to say which wereprettier, the Dublin girls or the Cork girls.--He's not that way built, said Mr Dedalus. Leave him alone. He's alevel-headed thinking boy who doesn't bother his head about that kindof nonsense.--Then he's not his father's son, said the little old man.--I don't know, I'm sure, said Mr Dedalus, smiling complacently.--Your father, said the little old man to Stephen, was the boldest flirtin the City of Cork in his day. Do you know that?Stephen looked down and studied the tiled floor of the bar into whichthey had drifted.--Now don't be putting ideas into his head, said Mr Dedalus. Leave himto his Maker.--Yerra, sure I wouldn't put any ideas into his head. I'm old enoughto be his grandfather. And I am a grandfather, said the little old manto Stephen. Do you know that?--Are you? asked Stephen.--Bedad I am, said the little old man. I have two bouncinggrandchildren out at Sunday's Well. Now, then! What age do you think Iam? And I remember seeing your grandfather in his red coat riding outto hounds. That was before you were born.--Ay, or thought of, said Mr Dedalus.--Bedad I did, repeated the little old man. And, more than that, I canremember even your great-grandfather, old John Stephen Dedalus, and afierce old fire-eater he was. Now, then! There's a memory for you!--That's three generations--four generations, said another of thecompany. Why, Johnny Cashman, you must be nearing the century.--Well, I'll tell you the truth, said the little old man. I'm justtwenty-seven years of age.--We're as old as we feel, Johnny, said Mr Dedalus. And just finishwhat you have there and we'll have another. Here, Tim or Tom orwhatever your name is, give us the same again here. By God, I don'tfeel more than eighteen myself. There's that son of mine there not halfmy age and I'm a better man than he is any day of the week.--Draw it mild now, Dedalus. I think it's time for you to take a backseat, said the gentleman who had spoken before.--No, by God! asserted Mr Dedalus. I'll sing a tenor song against himor I'll vault a five-barred gate against him or I'll run with him afterthe hounds across the country as I did thirty years ago along with theKerry Boy and the best man for it.--But he'll beat you here, said the little old man, tapping hisforehead and raising his glass to drain it.--Well, I hope he'll be as good a man as his father. That's all I cansay, said Mr Dedalus.--If he is, he'll do, said the little old man.--And thanks be to God, Johnny, said Mr Dedalus, that we lived so longand did so little harm.--But did so much good, Simon, said the little old man gravely. Thanksbe to God we lived so long and did so much good.Stephen watched the three glasses being raised from the counter as hisfather and his two cronies drank to the memory of their past. An abyssof fortune or of temperament sundered him from them. His mind seemedolder than theirs: it shone coldly on their strifes and happiness andregrets like a moon upon a younger earth. No life or youth stirred inhim as it had stirred in them. He had known neither the pleasure ofcompanionship with others nor the vigour of rude male health nor filialpiety. Nothing stirred within his soul but a cold and cruel andloveless lust. His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soulcapable of simple joys and he was drifting amid life like the barrenshell of the moon.Art thou pale for wearinessOf climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,Wandering companionless...?He repeated to himself the lines of Shelley's fragment. Its alternationof sad human ineffectiveness with vast inhuman cycles of activitychilled him and he forgot his own human and ineffectual grieving.Stephen's mother and his brother and one of his cousins waited at thecorner of quiet Foster Place while he and his father went up the stepsand along the colonnade where the Highland sentry was parading. Whenthey had passed into the great hall and stood at the counter Stephendrew forth his orders on the governor of the bank of Ireland for thirtyand three pounds; and these sums, the moneys of his exhibition andessay prize, were paid over to him rapidly by the teller in notes andin coin respectively. He bestowed them in his pockets with feignedcomposure and suffered the friendly teller, to whom his father chatted,to take his hand across the broad counter and wish him a brilliantcareer in after life. He was impatient of their voices and could notkeep his feet at rest. But the teller still deferred the serving ofothers to say he was living in changed times and that there was nothinglike giving a boy the best education that money could buy. Mr Dedaluslingered in the hall gazing about him and up at the roof and tellingStephen, who urged him to come out, that they were standing in thehouse of commons of the old Irish parliament.--God help us! he said piously, to think of the men of those times,Stephen, Hely Hutchinson and Flood and Henry Grattan and Charles KendalBushe, and the noblemen we have now, leaders of the Irish people athome and abroad. Why, by God, they wouldn't be seen dead in a ten-acrefield with them. No, Stephen, old chap, I'm sorry to say that they areonly as I roved out one fine May morning in the merry month of sweetJuly.A keen October wind was blowing round the bank. The three figuresstanding at the edge of the muddy path had pinched cheeks and wateryeyes. Stephen looked at his thinly clad mother and remembered that afew days before he had seen a mantle priced at twenty guineas in thewindows of Barnardo's.--Well that's done, said Mr Dedalus.--We had better go to dinner, said Stephen. Where?--Dinner? said Mr Dedalus. Well, I suppose we had better, what?--Some place that's not too dear, said Mrs Dedalus.--Underdone's?--Yes. Some quiet place.--Come along, said Stephen quickly. It doesn't matter about thedearness.He walked on before them with short nervous steps, smiling. They triedto keep up with him, smiling also at his eagerness.--Take it easy like a good young fellow, said his father. We're notout for the half mile, are we?For a swift season of merrymaking the money of his prizes ran throughStephen's fingers. Great parcels of groceries and delicacies and driedfruits arrived from the city. Every day he drew up a bill of fare forthe family and every night led a party of three or four to the theatreto see INGOMAR or THE LADY OF LYONS. In his coat pockets he carriedsquares of Vienna chocolate for his guests while his trousers' pocketbulged with masses of silver and copper coins. He bought presents foreveryone, overhauled his room, wrote out resolutions, marshalled hisbooks up and down their shelves, pored upon all kinds of price lists,drew up a form of commonwealth for the household by which every memberof it held some office, opened a loan bank for his family and pressedloans on willing borrowers so that he might have the pleasure of makingout receipts and reckoning the interests on the sums lent. When hecould do no more he drove up and down the city in trams. Then theseason of pleasure came to an end. The pot of pink enamel paint gave outand the wainscot of his bedroom remained with its unfinished andill-plastered coat.His household returned to its usual way of life. His mother had nofurther occasion to upbraid him for squandering his money. He tooreturned to his old life at school and all his novel enterprises fellto pieces. The commonwealth fell, the loan bank closed its coffers andits books on a sensible loss, the rules of life which he had drawnabout himself fell into desuetude.How foolish his aim had been! He had tried to build a break-water oforder and elegance against the sordid tide of life without him and todam up, by rules of conduct and active interest and new filialrelations, the powerful recurrence of the tides within him. Useless.From without as from within the waters had flowed over his barriers:their tides began once more to jostle fiercely above the crumbled mole.He saw clearly too his own futile isolation. He had not gone one stepnearer the lives he had sought to approach nor bridged the restlessshame and rancour that had divided him from mother and brother andsister. He felt that he was hardly of the one blood with them but stoodto them rather in the mystical kinship of fosterage, fosterchild andfosterbrother.He turned to appease the fierce longings of his heart before whicheverything else was idle and alien. He cared little that he was inmortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge andfalsehood. Beside the savage desire within him to realize theenormities which he brooded on nothing was sacred. He bore cynicallywith the shameful details of his secret riots in which he exulted todefile with patience whatever image had attracted his eyes. By day andby night he moved among distorted images of the outer world. A figurethat had seemed to him by day demure and innocent came towards him bynight through the winding darkness of sleep, her face transfigured by alecherous cunning, her eyes bright with brutish joy. Only the morningpained him with its dim memory of dark orgiastic riot, its keen andhumiliating sense of transgression.He returned to his wanderings. The veiled autumnal evenings led himfrom street to street as they had led him years before along the quietavenues of Blackrock. But no vision of trim front gardens or of kindlylights in the windows poured a tender influence upon him now. Only attimes, in the pauses of his desire, when the luxury that was wastinghim gave room to a softer languor, the image of Mercedes traversed thebackground of his memory. He saw again the small white house and thegarden of rose-bushes on the road that led to the mountains and heremembered the sadly proud gesture of refusal which he was to makethere, standing with her in the moonlit garden after years ofestrangement and adventure. At those moments the soft speeches ofClaude Melnotte rose to his lips and eased his unrest. A tenderpremonition touched him of the tryst he had then looked forward to and,in spite of the horrible reality which lay between his hope of then andnow, of the holy encounter he had then imagined at which weakness andtimidity and inexperience were to fall from him.Such moments passed and the wasting fires of lust sprang up again. Theverses passed from his lips and the inarticulate cries and the unspokenbrutal words rushed forth from his brain to force a passage. His bloodwas in revolt. He wandered up and down the dark slimy streets peeringinto the gloom of lanes and doorways, listening eagerly for any sound.He moaned to himself like some baffled prowling beast. He wanted to sinwith another of his kind, to force another being to sin with him and toexult with her in sin. He felt some dark presence moving irresistiblyupon him from the darkness, a presence subtle and murmurous as a floodfilling him wholly with itself. Its murmur besieged his ears like themurmur of some multitude in sleep; its subtle streams penetrated hisbeing. His hands clenched convulsively and his teeth set together as hesuffered the agony of its penetration. He stretched out his arms in thestreet to hold fast the frail swooning form that eluded him and incitedhim: and the cry that he had strangled for so long in his throat issuedfrom his lips. It broke from him like a wail of despair from a hell ofsufferers and died in a wail of furious entreaty, a cry for aniniquitous abandonment, a cry which was but the echo of an obscenescrawl which he had read on the oozing wall of a urinal.He had wandered into a maze of narrow and dirty streets. From the foullaneways he heard bursts of hoarse riot and wrangling and the drawlingof drunken singers. He walked onward, dismayed, wondering whether hehad strayed into the quarter of the Jews. Women and girls dressed inlong vivid gowns traversed the street from house to house. They wereleisurely and perfumed. A trembling seized him and his eyes grew dim.The yellow gas-flames arose before his troubled vision against thevapoury sky, burning as if before an altar. Before the doors and in thelighted halls groups were gathered arrayed as for some rite. He was inanother world: he had awakened from a slumber of centuries.He stood still in the middle of the roadway, his heart clamouringagainst his bosom in a tumult. A young woman dressed in a long pinkgown laid her hand on his arm to detain him and gazed into his face.She said gaily:--Good night, Willie dear!Her room was warm and lightsome. A huge doll sat with her legs apart inthe copious easy-chair beside the bed. He tried to bid his tongue speakthat he might seem at ease, watching her as she undid her gown, notingthe proud conscious movements of her perfumed head.As he stood silent in the middle of the room she came over to him andembraced him gaily and gravely. Her round arms held him firmly to herand he, seeing her face lifted to him in serious calm and feeling thewarm calm rise and fall of her breast, all but burst into hystericalweeping. Tears of joy and relief shone in his delighted eyes and hislips parted though they would not speak.She passed her tinkling hand through his hair, calling him a littlerascal.--Give me a kiss, she said.His lips would not bend to kiss her. He wanted to be held firmly in herarms, to be caressed slowly, slowly, slowly. In her arms he felt thathe had suddenly become strong and fearless and sure of himself. But hislips would not bend to kiss her.With a sudden movement she bowed his head and joined her lips to hisand he read the meaning of her movements in her frank uplifted eyes. Itwas too much for him. He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her,body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressureof her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon hislips as though they were the vehicle of a vague speech; and betweenthem he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon ofsin, softer than sound or odour.