A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

had been scooped out like a boghole and the pool under it brought back to his memory the dark turf-coloured water of the bath in Clongowes. The box of pawn tickets at his elbow had just

r Bus

. C

les and

n's

htfully at the lid of the box, speckle

is the clo

on its side in the middle of the mantelpiece until its dial sh

right time now is twenty past ten. The dear know

ace for me to wa

t the place for

t the place for

g for blue. Fill i

shing glove flung on the side of it he allowed his mother to scrub his neck and r

when a university student is so dir

u pleasure, said

rom upstairs and his mother thrust a

hurry out for th

ed angrily, brought one of the g

, fa

itch of a broth

, fa

ur

, fa

H

him to be quick and go out quietly b

of genders if he thin

his mother, and you'll live to rue the day you set y

Stephen, smiling and kissing th

it slowly, choosing his steps amid heaps of wet rubbish, he he

O Jesu

s mother's mutterings, the screech of an unseen maniac were to him now so many voices offending and threatening to humble the pride of his youth. He drove their echoes even out of his heart with an execration

egun, and he foreknew that as he passed the sloblands of Fairview he would think of the cloistral silver-veined prose of Newman; that as he walked along the North Strand Road, glancing idly at the windows of the provision shops, he would recall the dark humour of Guido Cavalcanti an

wearier wh

ethans. His mind, in the vesture of a doubting monk, stood often in shadow under the windows of that age, to hear the grave and mocking music of the lutenists or the frank l

it up at moments by the lightnings of intuition, but lightnings of so clear a splendour that in those moments the world perished about his feet as if it had been fire-consumed; and thereafter his tongue grew heavy and he met the eyes of others with unanswering eyes, for he felt that the spirit of beauty had folde

pan or two from him like a divining rod. It must be eleven, he thought, and peered into a dairy to see the time. The clock in the dairy told him that it was five minutes to five but, as he turned away, he heard a clock somewhere near him, but unseen

'm a democrat and I'll work and act for social liberty and equality amon

around the little class of students or out of the window across the desolate gardens of the green an odour assailed him of cheerless cellar-damp and decay. Another head than his, right before him in the first benches, was poised squarely above its bending fellows like the head of a priest appealing without humility to the tabernacle for the humble worshippers about him. Why was it that when he thought of Cranly he could never raise before his mind the entire image of his body but only the image of the head and face? Even now against the grey curtain of the morning he saw it before him like the phantom of a dream, the face of a severed head or death-mask, crowne

s and deadly exhalation and he found himself glancing from one casual word to another on his right or left in stolid wonder that they had been so silently emptied of instantaneous sense until every mean shop legend bound his mind like the words of a spell and

hines upo

nd twines up

w ivy upo

y up th

er heard of ivy whining on a wall? Yellow ivy; that was

rnt in Latin had run: INDIA MITTIT EBUR; and he recalled the shrewd northern face of the rector who had taught him to construe the Metamorphoses of Ovid in a courtly English, made w

or, variant in

o the touch even when his own fingers were cold; they were human pages and fifty years before they had been turned by the human fingers of John Duncan Inverarity and by his brother, William Malcolm Inverarity. Yes, those were noble names on the dusky flyleaf and, even for so poor a Latinist as he, the dusky verses were as fragrant as though they had lain all

umbrous ring, pulled his mind downward and while he was striving this way and that to free his feet fro

he folds of the cloak and around the servile head, it seemed humbly conscious of its indignity. It was a Firbolg in the borrowed cloak of a Mil

a hard head, you tell m

ting for his friend's simple ear the verses and cadences of others which were the veils of his own longing and dejection, the rude Firbolg mind of his listener had drawn his mind towards it and flung it back again, drawing it by a quiet inbred courtesy of attention or by a quaint turn of old English speech or by the for

ad taught him Irish and shaped his rude imagination by the broken lights of Irish myth. He stood towards the myth upon which no individual mind had ever drawn out a line of beauty and to its unwieldy tales that divided against themselves as they moved down the cycles in the same attitude as towards the Roman cath

was even a point of irritation in the name pointed against that very reluctance of speech and deed in his friend

aped from the cold silence of intellectual revolt, had called up before Stephen's mind a strange vision

ving soul and you are the first person now I ever told it to. I disremember if it was October o

riend's face, flattered by his confidence and won

day from my own pla

ripped to his buff that day minding cool for the Limericks but he was up with the forwards half the time and shouting like mad. I never will forget that day. One of the Crokes made a woeful wipe

id with a laugh, but surely that's no

sh to redden my pipe and only for the dew was thick I'd have stretched out there and slept. At last, after a bend of the road, I spied a little cottage with a light in the window. I went up and knocked at the door. A voice asked who was there and I answered I was over at the match in Buttevant and was walking back and that I'd be thankful for a glass of water. After a while a young woman opened the door and brought me out a big mug of milk. She was half undressed as if she was going to bed when I knocked and she had her hair hanging and I thought by her figure and by something in the look of her eyes that she must be carrying a child. She kept me in talk a long while at the door, and I thought it strange because her

m he had seen standing in the doorways at Clane as the college cars drove by, as a type of her race and of his own, a bat-like soul waking to the conscious

n his arm and a y

e first handsel today, gentleman. Buy

him at that instant images of guilelessness, and he halted till the image had va

Don't forget you

money, sa

ones, will you, s

hen, bending towards her. I told you

ay, sir, please God, the gir

tephen, but I don

h he walked, prolonged that moment of discouraged poverty. In the roadway at the head of the street a slab was set to the memory of Wolfe Tone and he remembered having been present with his father at its laying. He

uld from many hearts. The soul of the gallant venal city which his elders had told him of had shrunk with time to a faint mortal odour rising from the ear

dark and silent but not unwatchful. Why did he feel that it was not unwatchful? Was it because he had heard that in Buck Whaley's time there was a secret s

windows. A figure was crouching before the large grate and by its leanness and greyness he knew that it

ng, sir! Ca

ooked up qui

an art in lighting a fire. We have the liberal arts and

to learn it,

ean, working briskly at his ta

levite of the Lord. Like a levite's robe of plain linen the faded worn soutane draped the kneeling figure of one whom the canonicals or the bell-bordered ephod would irk and trouble. His very body had waxed old in lowly service of the Lord-in tending the fire upon the altar, in bearing tidings secretly, in waiting upon worldlings, in striking swiftly when bidden-and yet had

rs and watched the sticks catch.

could not l

g up and blinking his pale eyes. The object of the artist is the cr

slowly and drily o

that question

ephen, says PULCRA SU

ean, will be pleasing to the eye

n, it will be beautiful. But Aquinas also says BONUM EST IN QUOD TENDIT APPETITUS. In so far

n, you have certainly h

nt towards the door,

id to be a help

btle wisdom, had not fired his soul with the energy of apostleship. It seemed as if he used the shifts and lore and cunning of the world, as bidden to do, for the greater glory of God, without joy in their handling or hatred of that in them which was evil but turning them, with a firm gesture of obedience back upon themselves and for all this si

the hearth and bega

something from you on the

nishment. I stumble on an idea

the cliffs of Moher into the depths. Many go down into the depths and never come up. Only th

m sure that there is no such thing as free thinking i

H

present by the light of one or tw

quite see

for myself by their light. If the lamp smokes or smells I shall try to t

for a fancy price after his death. It was the lamp he wr

oarsely, who said that the soul i

he gods and that a thief stole the lamp. What did the philosopher do? He reflected that it was in the

s voice, too, had a hard jingling tone. Stephen's mind halted by instinct, checked by the strange tone and the imagery and by the priest's face which seemed like an unlit lamp or a ref

ent kind of lamp,

dly, said

according to the tradition of the marketplace. I remember a sentence of Newman's in which he says of the Blessed Virgin that she was

ast, said the

Stephen, smi

he dean quickly, I quite

s under jaw and utte

em. You must choose the pure oil and you must be careful when you pour

nel? aske

which you pour the

s that called a funnel

is a t

The...

Ireland? asked the dean. I ne

rumcondra, said Stephen, laughing,

That is a most interesting word. I mus

but given through-a late-comer, a tardy spirit. From what had he set out? Perhaps he had been born and bred among serious dissenters, seeing salvation in Jesus only and abhorring the vain pomps of the establishment. Had he felt the need of an implicit faith amid the welter of sectarianism and the jargon of its turbulent schisms, six principle men, peculiar people, seed and snake baptists, supralapsarian dogmati

eated the wo

l now, that i

interesting. What is that beauty which the artist strug

ainst this courteous and vigilant foe. He felt with a smart of dejection tha

d on mine! I cannot speak or write these words without unrest of spirit. His language, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for

uish between moral beauty and material beauty. And to inquire what kind of beauty is

one, was silent; and through the silence a distant noise

e your degree. Set that before you as your first aim. Then, little by little, you will see your way. I mean in every sense, your way in

his talent, said

ever can say what is in us. I most certainly

t towards the landing to oversee t

for this faithful serving-man of the knightly Loyola, for this half-brother of the clergy, more venal than they in speech, more steadfast of soul than they, one whom he would never call his ghostly father; and he thought how this man and hi

ts who sat on the highest tier of the gloomy theatre under the grey cobwebbed windows. The calling of the rol

er

om the upper tier, followed by cough

in his reading and

ra

ans

Cr

hen's face as he thought

said a voice from

on the grey light, was impassive. A formula was given out. Amid

me paper fo

that? asked Moyniha

is scribbler and passe

sity any layman o

's mind. He had heard some say that the old professor was an atheist freemason. O the grey dull day! It seemed a limbo of painless patient consciousness through which souls of mathematicians mi

of you gentlemen may be familiar with the works of Mr W. S. Gilbert. In o

cloth

twist

ical billi

f the ellipsoid of the principal a

wn towards Stephen

l balls! chase me, lad

ttle priest with feathery hair who wrote devout verses, the squat peasant form of the professor of economics, the tall form of the young professor of mental science discussing on the landing a case of conscience with his class like a giraffe cropping high leafage among a herd of antelopes, the grave troubled prefect of the sodality, the plump round-headed professor of Italia

y the dust from many points and, bearing it carefully to the table, held a finger on it while he proceeded with his lec

and surname of the discoverer.

Fresh Wa

h weary humour, if he wants a subjec

his bench and, clacking noiselessly the fingers of his rig

s boy is after sayin

temperature. The platinoid wire is insulated and the covering of silk that insulates it is wound on the ebonite bobbins just where m

ce said from the b

be asked questions

d science. A heavy-built student, wearing gold spectacles, stared with some

r a devil for hi

f the questioner offended him and he allowed the offence to carry him towards wilful unkindness, bidding his mind think that the st

t of thought and yet the shaft came back to its bowstri

titude by whom the soul of your race was bartered and its elect betrayed-by the questioner or by the mocker? Patience. Remember Epictetus.

ound and round the coils it spoke of, doubling, trebling, quadruplin

led from behind in e

g time,

earing an irregular tail of signatures. MacCann went briskly to and fro among the students, talking rapidly, answering rebuffs and leading one af

irresolutely. From under the wide falling leaf o

signed? St

ipped mouth, communed with hi

O H

is i

UO

is i

face to Stephen and sai

X UNIVE

to the Tsar's ph

face of a be

rought Cranly's eyes back from a c

annoyed?

swered

u in ba

N

S, said Cranly, QUIA FACIES VOSTRA MON

y to the table, sai

hed the last drop. Brand new world. No

onfidence and, when Moynihan had passe

said, why he pours his soul s

stared at the table where Moynihan had bent to

sug

HUMORE, said Ste

e brooded sourly on his judgement a

ody sugar, tha

quagmire. Stephen saw it sink as he had seen many another, feeling its heaviness depress his heart. Cranly's speech, unlike that of Davin, had neither rare phrases of Elizabethan English nor quaintly turn

ace as MacCann marched briskly toward

e! said MacC

am! said

mbine the progressive tendency

t of order, said Ste

to hear the war of wits. A lean student with olive skin and lank black hair thrust his face between the two, glancing from one to the other at each phrase and seeming

ess? said M

roadly and tugged twice at the straw-colou

ess is to sign

anything if I sig

were an idealis

ut him and addressed the onlooker

tion. I consider that notio

is words. He turned his olive face, equine in expre

international disputes, of the signs of the times, of the new humanity and the new gospel of life which would make it the

ponded to the close o

for universa

t ruddy student near him. I

said Temple, glancing about him out of his

tly to check his tongue, sm

easy,

s arm but continued, his mo

d the freedom of thought was Collins. Two hundred years ago. He denounced pri

m the verge of t

p!

ured beside S

John Anthony's p

lins lost

kindly len

nihan, pleased with the

ob each way on Joh

your answer, sai

east, said Stephen wearily. You know tha

macking his lips. You

e, Stephen asked, when you

MacCann bluntly

ide. MacCann stood his ground

ove such trivial questions as t

handball between the two students

OTUM SANGUIN

jerked his shoulder angrily in the

ust have a Jesus let us

student to those about him, that's a fine

were gulping down the phrase and, fumbling at th

you mean by that expres

d by the students near

ow now what he mean

to Stephen and s

you believe in man. I admire you, sir. I admire the mind of man indep

dent, returning, as was his wont, to his

e explained to Stephen, because I

into those of Stephen a

NUM BALLUM

d away, caught sight of MacCann

e said politely. You are right to

od fellow but you have yet to learn the dignity of al

ice

y is better out of th

tion of the voice. Cranly pushed solemnly through the throng of students, linking S

ly across Cranly'

h is jealous of you. Did you see that? I bet Cra

om he had been conversing. He stood at the foot of the staircase, a foot on the lowest step, his thread

Mr Hackett! Very fin

rnestly, in a soft querulous voice, with a boarder. As he spoke he wrinkled a

first arts' men are pretty sure. Second ar

s they were passing through the do

fore they converted him. He has a wife and children somewhere.

. The moment they were through the doorway Cranly

g bible there isn't a bigger bloody ape, do you

still with sly content, while Cranly

flaring b

nd of the walk he halted before turning and raised his eyes. The students saluted, Temple fumbling as before at the peak of his cap. They walked forward in silence

h Davin sat to follow the game. Temple, after a

, do you believe that Jean-Jacq

the broken stave of a cask from the grass a

say another word, do you know, to anybody

fancy, said Stephe

Sure, you might as well be talking, do you know, to a flaming chambe

ut of reach of the uplifted stave and pointing at Stephen. He's t

Cranly. Go home, blast you, fo

That's quite rightly expressed. An

ling slyly. Cranly watched him

d. Did you ever see

eyes. The laugh, pitched in a high key and coming from a so muscular frame, seemed like the whinny of an elephan

awake, s

ightened himself and th

hest, said Stephen, a

lf sonorously on

hing to say a

d flushed with the struggle they drew apart, panting. Stephen bent down towa

e tame goose? he ask

odded a

you,

shook

said Davin, taking the short p

versal peace, said Stephen, I suppose you will

answer, Stephen

incline, fianna! Fianna, b

n Irish nationalist, first and foremost. But th

s, said Stephen, and want the indispensable inform

against English literature. Now you talk against the Irish inf

of arms and I will show you the

you learn Irish? Why did you drop out of

reason why, an

d his head

in young lady and Father Moran? But that's all in your

aid a friendly hand

he way to the matriculation class, putting a very strong stress on the first syllable. You remember? Then you

eet those things about your private life, honest to God, Stevie, I was not able to eat my di

tephen. You mea

But I wish you

neath the calm surface o

this life produced me, he said

vin. In heart you are an Irish ma

. They allowed a handful of foreigners to subject them. Do you fancy

freedom,

ctions from the days of Tone to those of Parnell, but you sold him to the enemy or failed him in need

, Stevie, said Davin. Our d

is own thought, was

sterious than the birth of the body. When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it

d the ashes

an's country comes first. Ireland first, S

Stephen with cold violence. Ireland

h Cranly and the two players who had finished their game. A match of four was arranged, Cranly insisting, however, that his ball should be used.

ur

egan to rise. Then he plucked him by the

go, as Cra

led at this

er was pinning up a hall notice in the frame. At the foot of the steps they halted an

u are poor

low insolence,

Lynch's culture mad

culture, he said, when you made

and turned to the right. A

defined pity and te

ed and sai

. I was out last night on a yell

en we

an sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in t

t, sai

ted the defin

er of a street the shaft of a lorry shivered the window of the hansom in the shape of a star. A long fine needle of the shivered glass pierced her heart

r the dramatic emotion is. The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. The art

you that one day I wrote my name in pencil on the backside

told me that when you were a boy in that charming

and again rubbed both his hands over his gro

! I did!

The long slender flattened skull beneath the long pointed cap brought before Stephen's mind the image of a hooded reptile. The eyes, too, were reptile-like in glint

polite parenthesis, we are all

e, said

t only because they are kinetic in character but also because they are not more than physical. Our flesh shrinks from what it dreads and responds to the

, said Lync

sed by the artist cannot awaken in us an emotion which is kinetic or a sensation which is purely physical. It awakens, or ought to awaken, or induces, or ough

at exactly?

t to part in any esthetic whole or of an esthetic whole to its part

u call beauty; and, please remember, though I did e

ng. Then, blushing slightly, he laid h

stood it, to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, fr

e trees. A crude grey light, mirrored in the sluggish water and a smell of wet

estion, said Lynch. What is art?

tephen, when I began to try to think out the matter for myself. Do you reme

He told us about them f

ntelligible matter for an esthetic end. You remember the pigs

mace at the raw

arette. I don't care about it. I don't even care about women. Damn you and

cigarettes. Lynch took the last

oce

s that is beautiful the app

h no

e said, PULCRA SUNT

nsion. This word, though it is vague, is clear enough to keep away good and evil which excite desire and loathing. It means certainly a stasis and not a ki

me the hypotenuse of t

on which is appeased by the most satisfying relations of the sensible. The first step in the direction of truth is to understand the frame and scope of the intellect itself, to comprehend the act itself of intellection. Aristotle's entire system of philosophy rests upon his book of psychology and that, I think

ut with another definition. Something we see an

e woman, sa

her! said Lyn

on with the manifold functions of women for the propagation of the species. It may be so. The world, it seems, is drearier than even you, Lynch, imagined. For my part I dislike that way out. It leads to eugenics rather than to esthetic. It leads you out of the maze into a new gaudy lecture-room where

lphur-yellow liar, sa

ther way out, said

t? sai

thesis, St

he harsh roar of jangled and rattling metal. Lynch closed his ears and gave out oath after oath till the dray had passed. Then

d in it certain relations which satisfy and coincide with the stages themselves of all esthetic apprehension. These relations of the sensible, visible to you through one

h la

quoting him time after time like a jolly ro

philosophy extends, Aquinas will carry me all along the line. When we come to the phenomena of artistic concep

actly a good round friar. But you will tell me about the new personal experi

rsday. It begins with the words PANGE LINGUA GLORIOSI. They say it is the highest glory of the hymnal. It is an intricate and soothing hymn.

softly and solemnly

SUNT QUA

FIDELI

O NATI

T A LIG

e said, well ple

teps from the corner a fat young man, wearin

nn are through the home civil. Moonan got fifth place in the Indian. O'Shaughnessy got

advanced through his tidings of success, his small fat-encircled ey

s his eyes and his voice came fort

nd I'm taking constitutional history. There are twenty subjects

nd placed a plump woollen-gloved hand on his breast fr

ns the next time you go out, sai

laughed indulg

e in the field club. Last Saturday w

, Donovan?

id his hand on h

sition of knowledge.

riting some essay

a vague gestu

assical school and the romantic school and all that. The Laocoon interested m

spoke. Donovan took

spicion, amounting almost to a conviction, that my sister inten

his wake. Don't forget the

curling in slow scorn till hi

excrement can get a good job, he said at l

wards Merrion Square and w

istic apprehension. Find these and you find the qualities of universal beauty. Aquinas says: AD PULCRITUDINEM TRIA REQUIRUNTUR INTEGRITAS, CONSONANTIA, CLARITA

I have an excrementitious intelligence run

which a butcher's boy had

hat basket

it, sai

of the visible universe which is not the basket. The first phase of apprehension is a bounding line dr

e is first luminously apprehended as selfbounded and selfcontained upon the immeasurable background of space or time whi

said Lynch, l

structure. In other words, the synthesis of immediate perception is followed by the analysis of apprehension. Having first felt that it is ONE thing you feel now that

wittily. Tell me now what is C

image a universal one, make it outshine its proper conditions. But that is literary talk. I understand it so. When you have apprehended that basket as one thing and have then analysed it according to its form and apprehended it as a thing you make the only synthesis which is logically and esthetically permissible. You see that it is that thing which it is and no other thing. The radiance of which he speaks in the scholastic QUIDDITAS, the WHATNESS of a thing. This supreme quality is felt by the artist when the esthetic image is first conce

d not speak, felt that his words had called

t itself and by the form of that art. The image, it is clear, must be set between the mind or senses of the artist himself and the mind or senses of others. If you bear this in memory you will see that art necessarily divides itself into three forms progressing from one to the next. These forms

hts ago, said Lynch, and we

finding the answers to them I found the theory of esthetic which I am trying to explain. Here are some questions I set m

eed? said Lyn

Stephen continued, MAKE THERE AN IMAGE OF A CO

ynch, laughing again. That h

hen the artist prolongs and broods upon himself as the centre of an epical event and this form progresses till the centre of emotional gravity is equidistant from the artist himself and from others. The narrative is no longer purely personal. The personality of the artist passes into the narration itself, flowing round and round the persons and the action like a vital sea. This progress you will see easily in that old English ballad TURPIN HERO which begins in the first person and ends in the third person. The dramatic form is reached when the vitality which has flowed and eddied round each person fills every per

hem also out of exi

sky and they turned into the duke's lawn to rea

magination in this miserable Godforsaken island? No wonder the artist ret

tering under the arcade of the library. Cranly, leaning against a pillar, was picking his teeth with a sharpe

eloved

s her from time to time. She too stood silently among her companions. She has no priest to flirt with, he thought with conscious bitte

friends who had passed the final medical examination, of the cha

e. An Irish country

e says the same. A frightful hole he sa

ve a job here in the country than in a

. He got through by

plenty of money to be mad

on the

SIMPLICITER ATROX, SIMPLICITER S

distance in interrupted pulsation. She wa

forth by the blackened earth. Their trim boots prattled as they stood on the steps of the colonnade, talking quietly and gaily, glancing

, her life simple and strange as a bird's life, gay in the morning, restles

nd was waking slowly to a tremulous morning knowledge, a morning inspiration. A spirit filled him, pure as the purest water, sweet as dew, moving as music. But how faintly it was inbreathed, how passionlessly, as if the

dream or vision he had known the ecstasy of seraphic life. Was i

tance confused form was veiling softly its afterglow. O! In the virgin womb of the imagination the word was made flesh. Gabriel the seraph had come to the virgin's chamber. An afterglow deepened within his spirit, whence the white flame had passed, deepening to a

weary of a

he fallen

re of ench

lle pass through them. The rose-like glow sent forth its rays of rhyme; ways, days, blaze, praise, raise. Its ra

ve set man's

e had your

weary of a

n again to move and beat. And then? Smoke, i

lame the sm

rom ocean

re of ench

ll of incense, an ellipsoidal fall. The rhythm died out at once; the cry of his heart was broken. His lips began to murmur the first

g. A bell beat faintly very far away. A bird twittered; two birds, three. The bell and the bird ceased; and

s of tallow and its paper socket, singed by the last flame. He stretched his arm wearily towards the foot of the bed, groping with his hand in the pockets of the coat that hung there. His fingers found a pencil and th

ve the untenanted sideboard. He saw her approach him in a lull of the talk and beg him to sing one of his curious songs. Then he saw himself sitting at the old piano, striking chords softly from its speckled keys and singing, amid the talk which had risen again in the room, to her who leaned beside the mantelpiece a dainty song of the Elizabethans, a sad

the carnival ball, her white dress a little lifted, a white spray nodding in her hair. She danced lightly in the round. She was dancing towards him and, as she c

great str

s born to

id you are

u much

lightly and discreetly, giving herself to none. The white spray nodded t

c franciscan, willing and willing not to serve, spinning like Gherardino

iest in whose company he had seen her last, looking at him out

us. I can see it every day. The ladies are

hurch, Fat

o. The work is going ahead there

lute her on the steps of the library! He had done well to leave her to flirt w

coarse hair and a hoyden's face who had called herself his own girl and begged his handsel, the kitchen-girl in the next house who sang over the clatter of her plates, with the drawl of a country singer, the first bars of BY KILLARNEY'S LAKES AND FELLS, a girl who had l

seen of me, straight h

f the womanhood of her country, a bat-like soul waking to the consciousness of itself in darkness and secrecy and loneliness, tarrying awhile, loveless and sinless, with her mild lover and leaving him to whisper of innocent transgressions in the latticed ear of a priest. His anger against her found vent in coarse railing at her paramour, whose name and voice and features

an instant his bitter and despairing thoughts, thei

cries and m

ne euchar

weary of a

ificing ha

e flowing

re of ench

suffused his mind, turning it to quiet indulgence; then copied them painf

ng from that life he turned towards the wall, making a cowl of the blanket and staring at the great overblown scarlet flowers of the tattered wallpaper. He tried to warm hi

ing along his spine from his closely cowled head. He felt it des

the last tram; the lank brown horses knew it and shook their bells to the clear night in admonition. The conductor talked with the driver, both nodding often in the green light of the lamp. They stood on the steps of

of egg-shells. Folly indeed! Her brothers would laugh and try to wrest the page from each other with their strong hard fingers. The s

nt her the verses she would not show

in, an innocence which she too had not understood while she was innocent or before the strange humiliation of her nature had first come upon her. Then first her soul had begun to live

Might it be, in the mysterious ways of spiritual life, that her soul

rk and with a look of languor, were opening to his eyes. Her nakedness yielded to him, radiant, warm, odorous and lavish-limbed, enfolded him like a shining cloud, enfolded him like

weary of a

he fallen

re of ench

ve set man's

e had your

weary of a

lame the sm

om ocean r

re of ench

cries and m

ne euchar

weary of a

ificing ha

e flowing

re of ench

ou hold our

ous look and

weary of a

re of ench

round and round the jutting shoulder of a house in Molesworth Street. The air of the late March evening made clear thei

dies passed: six, ten, eleven: and wondered were they odd or even in number. Twelve, thirteen: for two came wheeling down from the upper sky. They

and shrill and whirring, unlike the cry of vermin, falling a third or a fourth and trilled as the flying beaks clove t

stently and the dark frail quivering bodies wheeling and fluttering and swerving round an ai

flew through his mind and then there flew hither and thither shapeless thoughts from Swedenborg on the correspondence of birds to things of the intellect and of how the cr

wearily of the curved stick of an augur. A sense of fear of the unknown moved in the heart of his weariness, a fear of symbols and portents, of the hawk-like man whose name

arm's length, and he knew that he would not have remembered the god's name but that it was like an Irish oath. It was folly. But was it for this fo

ey? He thought that they must be swallows who had come back from the south. Then he was to go away for they were birds ever going

ur faces, Oo

them as the

st under th

r the lo

n his heart the soft peace of silent spaces of fading tenuous sky above the waters,

haking the white bells of their waves in mute chime and mute peal, and soft low swooning cry; and he felt that the augury he had sought in t

eatre. He was alone at the side of the balcony, looking out of jaded eyes at the culture of Dublin in the stalls and at the tawdry scene-cloths and human dolls framed by the garish lamps of the

el on

in G

asp

r sold o

woman ev

no amateu

o budding

lamps had been switched on in the reader's room. He turned into the pillared hall,

chair, inclining his ear like that of a confessor to the face of the medical student who was reading to him a problem from the chess page of a j

and vaguely. The medical stud

o king'

said Stephen in warning.

ournal and rose wi

etired in

inting to the titlepage of Cranly's book

ugh a lane of the t

want to s

nd passed out, his well-shod feet sounding flatly on the floor.

ing's bloo

way if you li

anners and on a finger of his plump clean

r the dome of his tiny hat his unshaven face began to smile with pleasure

men, said the stubble

said Cranly. They have

sh, monkey-puckered face pursed its human mo

her for March. S

adies upstairs, captain, ti

led and sa

e love: sir Walter Scott

w, captain? Dixon asked.

, I think he writes something lovely. The

n the air in time to his praise and his thin

by errors, and, listening to it, he wondered was the story true and was the th

rainy light, the wet silent trees, the shield-like witnessing lake, the swans. They embraced without joy or passion, his arm about his sister's neck. A grey woollen cloak was wrapped athwart her from her shoulder to her waist and her fair head was ben

es at the Bantry gang leaped out of his memory. He held them at a distance and brooded uneasily on his own t

th Dixon, leaving Cranly to tak

nding in the midst of a little gro

ill you hear. Templ

on him his d

. And Dixon is a smiler. By hell, I th

looking in Stephen

lighted with tha

o stood below them

tress, Temple. We wan

ed man too. And all the priests used to be dini

ing a hack to spare t

e said, how many quarts o

is in that phrase, O'Keeffe,

ing gait round the gro

Forsters are the king

rance hall, his hat thrust back on the nape

said Temple. Do you know

a figseed from his teeth on the point of h

ester and Forster are the same name. A descendant of Baldwin the First, captain Francis Forster, settled in Ireland and

anly repeated, rooting again deliber

k up all that hist

emple said, turning to Stephen. Do you know wh

in too? asked a tall consum

peated, sucking at a

ETUSTA FAMILIA, Tem

on the steps farted briefly. Dixon turn

n ange

and said vehemently

lamingest dirty devil

at, Goggins answered firmly. I

t it was not of the kind known to

r? said Temple, turning right and

ot deaf, said the

below him. Then, with a snort of disgust

rudely. Go away, you stink

t once returned to his place with good humo

ve in the law

e you trying to say? asked Cranly, facing

id with enthusiasm, is the sentence at the end of t

timidly at the elbo

ofound that is beca

ted his lon

ith scorn to the others

and gesture. Temple turn

hat. But I am as good as you any day. Do you know

y, you are incapable, do you know

t on, what I think of you an

tout student cried from the

left, making sudden feeb

his head in despair. I am and I kn

ghtly on the should

you every c

is a ballocks, too, like me. Only he doesn't

rds. But he turned again to Stephe

ing word. That's the only Eng

tephen sa

d passed over it like foul water poured over an old stone image, patient of injuries; and, as he watched him, he

to Cranly's greeting. He also? Was there not a slight flush on Cranly's cheek

his rudeness also in himself. And he remembered an evening when he had dismounted from a borrowed creaking bicycle to pray to God in a wood near Malahide. He had lifted up his arms and spoken in ecstasy to the sombre nave of t

t he could wait. The talk about him ceased for a moment and a soft hiss fell again from a window above. Bu

ilent save for one soft hiss that fell. And therefore the to

falls fro

around him. But why? Her passage through the darkening air or the

the stone softly with his stick to hide his revery from the students whom he had lef

mantled the cesspool of the court of a slobbering Stuart. And he tasted in the language of memory ambered wines, dying fallings of sweet airs, the proud pavan, and saw with the eyes of memory kind g

That was not the way to think of her. It was not even the way in which he thought of her. Could his mind then not trust

more sharply he smelt her body. A conscious unrest seethed in his blood. Yes, it was her body he smelt, a wild and languid smell, t

it live or die. There came to his mind a curious phrase from CORNELIUS A LAPIDE which said that the lice born of human sweat were not created by God with the other animals on the sixth day. But the tickling of the skin of his neck made his mind raw and red. The life of his bo

falls fro

e images it had awakened were false. His mind bred ver

en, let her go and be damned to her! She could love some clean athlete who wash

ack, his cap pulled down on his sleepy eyes. A squat young man came out of the porch, a leather portfolio tucked under his armpit. He marched towards th

evenin

t nervous movement. The tall consumptive student and Dixon and O'Keeffe wer

ng, particu

red again. Cranly, who was still chewing the

It is a go

im seriously and shook his um

that you are about to

f the half chewed fig and jerking it towards the

g his special humour, said gravely, still titt

intend

tly to the munched pulp of

ude to

ly said a

uat student said, as IPSO FACTO

side from his

the Adelphi to look for you and Moynihan. What have you

give them monthly examinations to see

portfolio and cough

mean the barefooted children that are taug

t of the fig and f

ldren to come unto m

eated with emphasis, and

, pushing past Cran

, is from the new testament about

gain, Temple,

and if Jesus suffered the children to come why does the chur

rself, Temple? the con

us said they were all to come? Temple

with difficulty the nervous titter in his

is thus, I ask emphatically

s cruel like all old

x on that point, Templ

ed children going to hell, Temple answere

ut I had the impression that

y. Don't talk to him or look at him. Lead him hom

. That's a fine inve

pleasantness lef

ling to the o

the opinions of all pr

a firm tone. On that p

his umbrella on the sto

the grey spouse of Satan. Hell is Roman, like the wa

e perambulator, Cranl

ds Temple, halted, stamping hi

oo

oved awa

cried. Do you know what we call

! Cranly cried, c

! Temple cried out scornfully

t stick here

n pursuit, fled through the dusk like a wild creature, nimble and fleet-footed. Cranly's heavy boots were hear

k back into Stephen's hand. Stephen felt that his anger had another ca

u I wanted to spea

him for a few m

N

said. We can't sp

ll from SIEGFRIED whistled softly followed them from the steps of

ws off to? What abou

a colourless polished wood, and its colourless front stung him like a glance of polite disdain. He stared angrily back at the softly lit drawing-room of the hotel in which he imagined the sleek lives of the patricians of Ireland housed in calm. They

eepened dusk he felt the thoughts and desires of the race to which he belonged flitting like bats across the dark country lanes, under trees by the edges of streams and near the pool-mottled bogs. A woman had w

n a strong grip and

us ek

ward in silence.

ear to Moses, do you know, that I'll

d Stephen wondered was he thinking o

d on as before. When they had gon

n unpleasant qua

people? C

my m

t rel

tephen

ause Cran

e is you

id. She wishes me to

wil

not, Ste

t? Cran

serve, answe

made before, Cr

hind now, said

ed Stephen's

You're an excitable b

nd, looking up into Stephen's face

hat you are an

, said Stephen,

seemed suddenly to have been

in the euchari

t, Steph

disbelie

it nor disbelieve in

, yet they overcome them or put them aside, Cranl

o overcome them,

ok another fig from his pocket and w

iscuss this question with yo

he halted. Then he smelt it with both nostrils, bit a tiny

it as it la

ye cursed, into

arm, he went on

e words may be spoken to y

? Stephen asked. An eternity of bliss

said, that he wo

itterly, bright, agile, impa

your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you dis

Stephen

ranly asked softly, happier t

aid, and often unhappy.

What do you mean

at I was not myself as I

become, Cranly repeated. Let me ask y

ook his he

t your words mean

r loved anyone

u mean

in a colder tone. I ask you if you eve

e his friend, staring g

ery difficult. I tried to unite my will with the will of God instant by

him short

other had a

know? St

children

Stephen answer

hen said: I don't want to pry into your family affairs. But was your

Stephe

Cranly asked

umerate glibly his

ndlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good fellow, a story-teller, somebody's secretary, so

ening his grip on Ste

illery is

else you want to

od circumstanc

t? Stephen a

n musingly, you were bo

technical expressions, as if he wished his hearer to un

suffering, he said then. Would you not try to sav

n said, that would

. What is it for you? You disbelieve in it. It is a

mained silent. Then, as if giving utterance

in her body. What do we know about what she feels? But whatever she feels, it, at least, must be real. It must be. What are our ideas or ambi

the unspoken speech behind the wo

d not suffer his mother to kiss him

s a pig, s

think, was of the sam

other pig then

s him a saint, S

anyone calls him, Cranly said ru

the words neatly in

scant courtesy in public but Suarez, a jesuit theol

u, Cranly asked, that Jesus wa

hat idea occurred, Stephen

that he was himself a conscious hypocrite, what he called the jews of his ti

red. But I am curious to know are you trying t

saw there a raw smile which some force o

ddenly in a pla

Were you at all sh

t, Steph

the same tone, if you feel sure that our religio

tephen said. He is more like a

re of that too, because you feel that the host, too, may be the body and blood

quietly, I feel tha

, Cran

of closure, reopened the d

ire-arms, the sea, thunder-storms, m

you fear a b

there is a malevolent reality b

f the Roman catholics would strike you dead and

an that the chemical action which would be set up in my soul by a false homage

er, commit that particular sacrilege? For

the past, Stephen r

you do not intend to

elf-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity whi

he villas soothed their minds. The air of wealth and repose diffused about them seemed to comfort their neediness. Behind a hedge of laurel a

e O'

ped to list

ER CA

their minds was quelled. The figure of a woman as she appears in the liturgy of the church passed silently through the darkness: a white-robed figure, small and slender as a boy, and with a f

JESU GALI

ing like a young star, shining clearer as the voice inton

ther, Cranly repeating in strongly st

we are

happy w

sweet Ros

O'Grady

y for you, he said.

at Stephen with a st

poetry? Or do you kn

e Rosie first

to find, C

d his large dark eyes. Yes. His face was handsome and his body was strong and hard. He had spoken of a mother's love. He felt then the su

t, bidding him go and telling him that his friendship was coming to an end

shall go a

Cranly

can, Step

difficult for you to live here

go, Steph

believers who think as you do. Would that surprise you? The church is not the stone building nor even the clergy and their dogmas. It is the whole m

bering thoughts in connexion with places. The night you spent half an ho

the way from Sallygap to Larras? Or what does he know about anythi

nto a loud

said. Do you re

it. To discover the mode of life or of art whereby yo

his hat in ac

are not free enough yet to commit

g first, St

ot nothing, w

t answer. Apply to the jesuit theologian, Juan Mariana de Talavera, who will also explain to you in what circumstances you may lawfully kill your king and whether you had better hand him his poison in a gob

would

it would pain me as much

, Cran

to clean the crevice between two

mple, would you d

itely, is that not the ambit

our point of vi

f charcoal and disheartening, excited Stephen

l not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some

ead him back towards Leeson Park. He laughed almost sl

e said. Is it you?

id, thrilled by his touch, as I have confes

d, Cranly sai

ear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afr

e again, slowed

you know what that word means? Not only to be separ

the risk, s

who would be more than a friend, more even tha

, of himself as he was or wished to be? Stephen watched his face for some moments in silenc

speaking? Stephen

did not

with Cranly on the s

n. Can see him. Strong farmer type. Pepper and salt suit. Square feet. Unkempt, grizzled beard. Probably attends coursing matches. Pays his dues regularly but not plentifully to Father Dwyer of Larras. Sometimes talks to g

sor. Item: he eats chiefly belly bacon and dried figs. Read locusts and wild honey. Also, when thinking of him, saw always a stern severed head or death mask as if outlined on a g

fancy free. Let the dead bury the dea

ble hospital nurse. Lynch's idea. Dislike it. Tw

ts at the fire perhaps with mamma's shawl on her shoulde

religion was not a lying-in hospital. Mother indulgent. Said I have a queer mind and have read too much. Not true. Have read little and understood less. Then she said I would come back to faith

o was a terrible heretic. I said he was terribly burned. He agreed to this with some sorrow. Then gave me recipe for what he calls RISOTTO ALLA BERGAMASCA. When he pronou

at Cranly the other night called our religion. A quartet of them, soldiers of the ninety-seventh i

. Useless. She is not out yet. Am I alarmed?

e wr

William Bo

edly he i

poor W

res of big nobs. Among them William Ewart Gladstone, just

of clod

bled night of dreams. Wan

ges of fabulous kings, set in stone. Their hands are folded upon their knees in token of wearin

eem to stand quite apart from another. Their faces are phosphorescent, with darker

mother let her child fall into the Nile. Still harping on the mother. A crocodile seized the child. Mother aske

ay, is indeed bred out of your

ot too? Then into

pprove of thi

saw her as we passed. He tells me Cranly was invited there by brother. Did he bring his crocodile? Is he the

d. Just then my father came up. Introduction. Father polite and observant. Asked Davin if he might offer him some refreshment. Davin could not, was going to a meeting. When we came away father told me he had a go

ch apple-trees have cast down their delicate flowers. Eyes of girls among the leaves.

I was ever a child. The past is consumed in the present and the present is living only because it brings forth the future. Sta

nd, he presses in his arms the loveliness which has long faded from the world. Not this. No

d of hoofs upon the road. Not so faintly now as they come near the bridge; and in a moment, as they pass the darkened windows, the silence is cloven by alarm as by an arr

words for a vague emotion. Would she like it?

sh and good old blunt English too. Damn the dean of studies and his funnel! What did he come

he met an old man there in a mountain cabin. Old man had red eyes and short pipe. Old man spoke Irish. Mulrennan spoke Irish. Then

le queer creatures at the

all through this night till day come, till he or I lie dead, gripping him by

sked her. This confused her more and I felt sorry and mean. Turned off that valve at once and opened the spiritual-heroic refrigerating apparatus, invented and patented in all countries by Dante Alighieri. Talked rapidly of myself and my plans. In the midst

hat friendly

ling to me. Then, in that case, all the rest, all that I thought I thought and all that

6. Away

moon, their tale of distant nations. They are held out to say: We are alone-come. And the voices say with them: We are your kinsmen. And the

and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter fo

d artificer, stand me no

in,

ste,