A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (wasted)

his nephew suggested to him to enjoy his morning

ld man tranquilly. Anywhere you like. The outhou

know how you can smoke such villainous a

replied the old man. V

bowl of his pipe were just visible beyond the jambs of the outhouse door. His arbour, as he called the reeking outhouse which he shared with the cat and the garden tools, served him also as a sounding-box: and every morn

rt Avenue and those shops in the main street of the town with which the family dealt. Stephen was glad to go with him on these errands for uncle Charles helped him very liberally to handfuls of whatever was exposed in open boxes and barrels outside the

u hear me, sir? They'r

y his sides. When the morning practice was over the trainer would make his comments and sometimes illustrate them by shuffling along for a yard or so comically in an old pair of blue canvas shoes. A small ring of wonderstruck children and nursemaids would gather to watch him and linger even when he and uncle Charles had sat down again and were talking athletics and politics. Though he had heard his father say that Mike Flynn had put some

he prayed he knelt on his red handkerchief and read above his breath from a thumb blackened prayer book wherein catchwords were printed at the foot of every page. Stephen knelt at his side respecting, though he did not share, his piety. He

d and thence into Dundrum, coming home by Sandyford. Trudging along the road or standing in some grimy wayside public house his elders spoke constantly of the subjects nearer their hearts, of Irish politics, of Munster and of the legends of their own family, to all of which Stephen lent an avid ear. Words which he did not understand he

d of the strange and terrible. At night he built up on the parlour table an image of the wonderful island cave out of transfers and paper flowers and coloured tissue paper and strips of the silver and

outward and on the homeward journey he measured distance by this landmark: and in his imagination he lived through a long train of adventures, marvellous as those in the book itself, towards the close of w

ver eat musc

through theirs. Stephen, who had read of Napoleon's plain style of dress, chose to remain unadorned and thereby heightened for himself the pleasure of taking counsel with his lieutenant before giving orders. The gang made forays into the gardens of ol

ractable mare round the field. But when autumn came the cows were driven home from the grass: and the first sight of the filthy cowyard at Stradbrook with its foul green puddles and clots of liqu

to catch a glimpse of a well scrubbed kitchen or of a softly lighted hall and to see how the servant would hold the jug and how she would close the door. He thought it should be a pleasant life enough, driving along the roads every evening to deliver milk, if he had warm gloves and a fat bag of gingernuts in his pocket to eat from. But the same foreknowledge which had sickened his heart and made his legs sag suddenly as he raced round the park, the same intuition which had made him glance with mistrust at his trainer's flabby stubble-covered face as it bent heavily over his long stained fingers, dissipate

play annoyed him and their silly voices made him feel, even more keenly than he had felt at Clongowes, that he was different from others. He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where to seek it or how, but a premonition which led him on t

hen in a moment he would be transfigured. Weakness and timid

h the front garden which was strewn with wisps of straw and rope ends and into the huge vans at the gate. When all had been safely stowed the vans had set off noisi

her listening to a long and incoherent monologue. He understood little or nothing of it at first but he became slowly aware that his father had enemies and that some fight was going to take place. He felt, too, that he was being enlisted for the fight, that some duty was being laid upon his shoulders. The sudden flight from the comfort and revery of Blackrock, the passage through the gloomy foggy

Mr Dedalus, poking at the dull fire with fierce energy. We're not d

til he reached the customhouse. He passed unchallenged among the docks and along the quays wondering at the multitude of corks that lay bobbing on the surface of the water in a thick yellow scum, at the crowds of quay porters and the rumbling carts and the ill-dressed bearded policeman. The vastness and strangeness of the life suggested to him by the bales of merchandise stocked along the walls or swung aloft out of the holds of steamers wakened again in him the unre

of his embitterment were many, remote and near. He was angry with himself for being young and the prey of restless foolish impulses, angry also with the change of fortune which was reshaping the world ab

japanned wall of the fireplace and by its light his aunt was reading the evening paper that la

tiful Mab

on tiptoe to peer at the

s she i

antomim

ainst her mother's sleeve, gazing on th

tiful Mab

long upon those demurely tauntin

an exquisit

He dropped his load promptly on the floor and hurried to her side to see. He mauled the edges of the p

the fire an old woman was busy making tea and, as she bustled at the task, she told in a low voice of what the priest and the doctor had said. She told too of certain changes they had seen in her

in the gloom of the doorway. A feeble creature like a monkey was there, drawn thi

at Jos

an answered cheerily

en, it's

ood evenin

d saw a silly smile break o

g, Ellen? asked the

answer the que

phine. I thought you w

everal times, she fel

nd he took little part in the games. The children, wearing the spoils of their crackers, danced and romped noisily a

vening had seemed to him false and trivial, was like a soothing air to him, passing gaily by his senses, hiding from other eyes the feverish agitation of his bloo

She had thrown a shawl about her and, as they went together towards the tram, sprays of her fre

both nodding often in the green light of the lamp. On the empty seats of the tram were scattered a few coloured tickets. No sound of footsteps c

that in some dim past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before. He saw her urge her vanities, her fine dress and sash and long black stockings, and knew that he had yielded to them a thousand times. Yet a voice within him spoke above the noise of his dancing heart, asking him would he take her gift to which he had only to stretch out his hand. And he remembered the day when he

ame with me to the tram. I could easily catch hold of her when she c

in the deserted tram, he tore his ticket into shr

s he was trying to write: To E- C-. He knew it was right to begin so for he had seen similar titles in the collected poems of Lord Byron. When he had written this title and drawn an ornamental line underneath he fell into a daydream and began to draw diagrams on the cover of the book. He saw himself sitting at his table

ick K

n L

ny Ma

n Mo

or of the horses: nor did he and she appear vividly. The verses told only of the night and the balmy breeze and the maiden lustre of the moon. Some undefined sorrow was hidden in the hearts of the protagonists as they stood in silence beneath the leafless trees and when the moment of

ll through dinner. Stephen had been awaiting his father's return for there had been mutton hash that day and he knew that his father would m

r Dedalus for the fourth time,

alus, he will be able to arra

edalus. Don't I tell you he's

ding him to the christian brot

? No, let him stick to the jesuits in God's name since he began with them. They'll b

ry rich order, ar

u. You saw their table at Clongowe

e over to Stephen and bade

put your shoulder to the wheel, old

d now, said Mrs Dedalus, especia

ruffian! Do you know I'm going to send you to a college where they'll teach you to spell c.a.t. cat

his father and th

stared hard at both his sons. Stephen mumbled

provincial rather, was telling me that story about yo

didn't,

r. And, by the way, who do you think he told me will get that job in the corporation? But I'll tell you that after. Well, as I was say

he annoye

e! MANLY LITTLE

the mincing nasal to

great laugh over it. YOU BETTER MIND YOURSELF FATHER DOLAN, said I, OR YOUNG DEDALUS

is wife and interjecte

hey take the boys there. O, a je

provincial's vo

ATHER DOLAN AND I AND ALL OF US WE HAD A

s were stretched. He watched the visitors come down the steps from the house and pass into the theatre. Stewards in evening dress, old Belvedereans, loitered in gro

stood companies of barbells and Indian clubs; the dumbbells were piled in one corner: and in the midst of countless hillocks of gymnasium shoes and sweaters and singlets in untidy brown

irst section of the programme but in the play which formed the second section he had the chief part, that of a farcical pedagogue. He had

tle of the wooden dumbbells was heard as another team made ready to go up on the stage: and in another moment the excited prefect was hustling the boys through the vestry like a flock of geese, flapping the wings of his soutane nervously and crying to the laggards to make haste. A little troop of Neapolitan peasants were practising their steps at the end of the chapel, some circling their arms above their heads, some swaying their baskets of paper violets and curtsying. In a dark corner of the chape

ng lady or a doll that y

e smiling painted face under the

elieve it's little Be

d him as they passed forward to see the little boy who had to dance the sunbonnet dance by himself. A movement of impatience escap

ngs. A side door of the theatre opened suddenly and a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst of music issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the side door closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of the music. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supple movement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had

he walked towards it he became aware of a faint aromatic odour. Two boys were standing in the

! cried a high throaty voice.

thless laughter as Heron salaamed and th

, halting and glancing f

he could make out a pale dandyish face over which a smile was travelling slowly, a tall overco

ould be tonight if you took off the rector in the par

end Wallis the rector's pedantic bass and then,

ippingly. HE THAT WILL NOT HEAR THE CHURCHA LET H

sion of anger from Wallis in whose mouthpiec

m his mouth and smiling and frowning upon it tolerantly.

oke, answer

n't smoke and he doesn't go to bazaars and he does

: the forehead was narrow and bony and a thin hooked nose stood out between the close-set prominent eyes which were light and inexpressive. The rivals were school friends. They sat together in class, knelt together in the chapel, talked together after

eron suddenly, I saw

a master put his calm to rout in a moment. He waited in timorous silence to hear what

e a sl

? said

elt in your mouth said Heron.

you are talking about?

S STEPHEN TAKE, MR DEDALUS? AND WILL STEPHEN NOT SING, MR DEDALUS? Your governor was staring at her through that eyeglass of his for

uietly as he placed his holder o

to course through him and the poem he had written about it. All day he had imagined a new meeting with her for he knew that she was to come to the play. The old restless moodiness had again filled his breast as it had done on the night of the party, but had not found an outlet in verse. The growth and knowledge of two year

've fairly found you out this time. You can't pla

, bending down as before, he struck Stephen lightly across

e banter to end. He scarcely resented what had seemed to him a silly indelicateness for he knew that the

king him again with his cane

w slightly and almost painlessly; and, bowing submissively, as if to meet his companion's jesting mood, began t

r scene called up, as if by magic, at the moment when he had noted the faint cruel dimples at the corners of Heron's sm

dm

n of Dublin. He had emerged from a two years' spell of revery to find himself in the midst of a new scene, every event and figure of which affected him intimately, disheartened him or allured and, whether alluring or disheartening, filled him alway

the way, pitting himself against some figure ahead of him and quickening his pace to outstrip it before a certain goal was reached or planting h

s was rudely broken. Mr Tate, the English mast

has heresy

his neck and wrists. Stephen did not look up. It was a raw spring morning and his eyes were still smarting and weak. He was conscious of

from Mr Tate set th

didn't know t

asked

s delving hand and

Rrm... rrm... rrm... Ah! WITHOUT A POSSIBILI

en mu

A POSSIBILITY O

appeased, folded up the essay and

EACHING. That's

body spoke to him of the affair after class he co

e was walking with a letter along the Dr

al

orward between his two attendants, he cleft the air before him with a thin cane in time to their steps. Boland, his friend, marche

ow many books there were in their fathers' bookcases at home. Stephen listened to them in some wonderment for Boland was the dunce and Nash the id

Dedalus. Who is the gr

mockery in the q

se do y

Y

an, I

nal Newman?

nswered

h's freckled face as he t

ke Cardinal Ne

ose style, Heron said to the other two i

best poet, Her

, of course, a

aid Nash. We have all his

he silent vows he had be

t! Why, he's on

Everyone knows that Tenny

he greatest poet? asked Bo

ourse, answe

and all three joined

laughing at?

greatest poet! He's only a

a fine poet!

oldly. All you know about poetry is what you wrote up on the

lates in the yard a couplet about a classmate of h

Jerusalem He fell and h

wo lieutenants to sil

on was a heretic

hat he was, cri

ther he was a heret

en. You never read a line of anything in

ron was a bad m

etic, Heron called out. In a

ther day, Heron went on, abo

im tomorrow,

phen. You'd be afra

fr

aid of y

Heron, cutting at Step

g cabbage stump which was lying in the gutter. Struggling and kicking under the cuts of th

t Byron wa

N

dm

N

dm

o.

set off towards Jones's Road, laughing and jeering at him, while he, ha

now to those who had tormented him. He had not forgotten a whit of their cowardice and cruelty but the memory of it called forth no anger from him. All the descriptions of fierce love and hatred which he had met in books h

ould not. He could remember only that she had worn a shawl about her head like a cowl and that her dark eyes had invited and unnerved him. He wondered had he been in her thoughts as she had been in his. Then in the dark and unseen by the other two he rest

ning along under the shed. H

ake about you. You're to go in at once and g

to the messenger with a hau

ed to Heron

is in an

best compliments that I dam

Stephen, who cared little

send for one of the senior boys. In a bake, indeed! I think it

his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things. These voices had now come to be hollow-sounding in his ears. When the gymnasium had been opened he had heard another voice urging him to be strong and manly and healthy and when the movement towards national revival had begun to be felt in the college yet another voice had bidden him be true to his country and help to raise up her language and tradition. In the profane world, as he foresaw, a world

ces in a gingerly fashion with their furtive fingertips. In the middle of the vestry a young jesuit, who was then on a visit to the college, stood rocking himself rhythmically from the tips of his toes to his heels an

t to Clongowes, that you could always tell a jesuit by the style of his clothes. At the same moment he thought he saw a likeness between his father's mind and that of this smiling well-dressed priest: a

the thought of the part he had to play humiliated him. A remembrance of some of his lines made a sudden flush rise to his painted cheeks. He saw her serious alluring eyes watching him from among the audience and their image at once swept away his scruples, leaving his will compact. Another nature seemed to have been lent him: the infection of the

ls for 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 with their parts. When the curtain fell on the last scene he heard t

audience had emptied out. On the lines which he had fancied the moorings of an ark a few lanterns swung in the night breeze, flickering cheerlessly. He mounted the steps from the garden in haste, eager that some prey should not elude him, and forced his way through the crow

him at the first lamp. In a glance he noted that every fig

George's Street, he said to his fat

like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind. He strode down the hill amid the tumult of sudden-risen vapours of wounded pride an

ll from him, brought his steps to rest. He stood still and gazed up at the sombre porch of the morgue and from that to th

It is a good odour to breathe. It will calm my

ed his childish wonder of years before and every event of his first day at Clongowes. But he felt no wonder now. He saw the darkening lands slipping away past him, the silent telegraph-poles passing his window

enever the evoker remembered suddenly the purpose of his actual visit. Stephen heard but could feel no pity. The images of the dead were all strangers to him save that of uncle Charles, an image which had la

father's deep breath or sudden sleepy movement. The neighbourhood of unseen sleepers filled him with strange dread, as though they could harm him, and he prayed that the day might come quickly. His prayer, addressed neither to God nor saint, began with a shiver, as the chilly morning breeze crept through the chink of the carriage door

eaming through the window and he could hear the din of traffic. His father was standing before the dressing-table, examining his hair and face and moustache with great

outh a

oung me

, my lo

nger

't be cu

injure

'll

rik

she's

e she'

ike goo

it is

hen '

rowin

s and d

ounta

his father's voice festooned the strange sad happy air, drove off all the mists of the night's

er than any of your

nk so? aske

it, said

ld have heard Mick Lacy sing it! Poor Mick Lacy! He had little turns for it, grace notes that h

r for local news. For the most part they spoke at cross purposes when a name was mentioned, th

's College anyhow, said Mr Dedalus, for I

were led by the garrulous porter across the quadrangle. But their progress across the g

me so? And is poo

ir. Dea

e time they had crossed the quadrangle his restlessness had risen to fever. He wondered how his father, whom he knew for a shrewd suspicious man, c

OETUS cut several times in the dark stained wood. The sudden legend startled his blood: he seemed to feel the absent students of the college about him and to shrink from their company. A vision of their life, which his father's words had been powerless to evoke, sprang up before him out of the word

atre so as to be as far away from the vision as he could be and

individual malady of his own mind. His monstrous reveries came thronging into his memory. They too had sprung up before him, suddenly and furiously, out of mere words. He had soon given in to them and allowed them to

me we went down there when our names had been marked, a crowd of us, Harry Peard and little Jack Mountain and Bob Dyas and Maurice Moriarty, the F

In a quiet bystreet a German band of five players in faded uniforms and with battered brass instruments was playing to an audience of street arabs and leisurely messenger boys. A maid in a white cap and

re, hearing again the names of the scattered and dead revellers who had been t

inst the riot of his mind. The letters cut in the stained wood of the desk stared upon him, mocking his bodily weakness and futile enthusiasms and making him loathe himself for his own ma

l hear his fa

worse of it either. But we were all gentlemen, Stephen-at least I hope we were-and bloody good honest Irishmen too. That's the kind of fellows I want you to associate with, fellows of the right kidney. I'm talking to you as a friend, Stephen. I don't believe a son should be afraid of his father. No, I treat you as your grandfather treated me when I was a young chap. We were more like brothers than father and son. I'll never forget the first day he caught me smoking. I was standing at the end of the South Terrace one day with some maneens lik

s voice break into a laug

at time, by God he was! The women used t

ick and powerless. He could scarcely interpret the letters of the signboards of the shops. By his monstrous way of life he seemed to have put himself beyond the limits of reality. Nothing moved him or spoke to him from the real world unless he heard in it an echo of the i

lus. We are in Cork, in Ireland. Cork is a city. Our room is in the Victoria

ncing on the wall of a little bedroom in the infirmary and dreamed of being dead, of mass being said for him by the rector in a black and gold cope, of being buried then in the little graveyard of the community 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 and no procession. He had not died but he had faded out like a film in the sun. He had been

o the barmen and barmaids, to the beggars who importuned him for a lob Mr Dedalus told the same tale-that he was an old Corkonian, that he had been trying

armaids with whom his father flirted, the compliments and encouraging words of his father's friends. They had told him that he had a great look of his grandfather and Mr Dedalus had agreed that he was an ugly likeness. They had unearthed traces of a Cork accent in his speech and made him admit that the Lee was a much finer river than the Liffey. One of them, in order to put h

him alone. He's a level-headed thinking boy who d

father's son, said

re, said Mr Dedalus,

Stephen, was the boldest flirt in the C

ed the tiled floor of the bar

into his head, said Mr Ded

old enough to be his grandfather. And I am a grandfathe

? asked

unday's Well. Now, then! What age do you think I am? And I remember seeing your

ght of, said

n remember even your great-grandfather, old John Stephen Dedalus, an

, said another of the company. Why, Johnny

, said the little old man. I'm

Here, Tim or Tom or whatever your name is, give us the same again here. By God, I don't feel more than eighte

's time for you to take a back seat, s

a five-barred gate against him or I'll run with him after the hounds across the c

little old man, tapping his forehea

a man as his father. That's a

l do, said the

said Mr Dedalus, that we lived

little old man gravely. Thanks be to Go

ne coldly on their strifes and happiness and regrets like a moon upon a younger earth. No life or youth stirred in him as it had stirred in them. He had known neither the pleasure of companionship with others nor the vigour of rude male

pale for

aven and gazin

companio

tion of sad human ineffectiveness with vast inhuman cycles of activ

the moneys of his exhibition and essay prize, were paid over to him rapidly by the teller in notes and in coin respectively. He bestowed them in his pockets with feigned composure and suffered the friendly teller, to whom his father chatted, to take his hand across the broad counter and wish him a brilliant career in after life. He was impatient of their voices and could not keep

she, and the noblemen we have now, leaders of the Irish people at home and abroad. Why, by God, they wouldn't be seen dead in a ten-acre fiel

y path had pinched cheeks and watery eyes. Stephen looked at his thinly clad mother and remembered

s done, sai

o to dinner, sai

alus. Well, I suppos

's not too dear,

erdo

ome qui

n quickly. It doesn't ma

ous steps, smiling. They tried to keep u

fellow, said his father. We're n

for his guests while his trousers' pocket bulged with masses of silver and copper coins. He bought presents for everyone, overhauled his room, wrote out resolutions, marshalled his books up and down their shelves, pored upon all kinds of price lists, drew up a form of commonwealth for the household by which every member of it held some office, opened a loan bank for his fam

He too returned to his old life at school and all his novel enterprises fell to pieces. The commonwealth fell, the loan bank

o dam up, by rules of conduct and active interest and new filial relations, the powerful recurrence of the tides within him. Useless. Fro

dged the restless shame and rancour that had divided him from mother and brother and sister. He felt that he was hardly

rooded on nothing was sacred. He bore cynically with the shameful details of his secret riots in which he exulted to defile with patience whatever image had attracted his eyes. By day and by night he moved among distorted images of the outer world. A figure that had seemed to him by da

oom to a softer languor, the image of Mercedes traversed the background of his memory. He saw again the small white house and the garden of rose-bushes on the road that led to the mountains and he remembered the sadly proud gesture of refusal which he was to make there, standing with her in the moonlit garden after years of estrangement and adventure. At th

f his kind, to force another being to sin with him and to exult with her in sin. He felt some dark presence moving irresistibly upon him from the darkness, a presence subtle and murmurous as a flood filling him wholly with itself. Its murmur besieged his ears like the murmur of some multitude in sleep; its subtle streams penetrated his being. His hands clenched convulsively and his teeth set together as he suffered the agony of its penet

he quarter of the Jews. Women and girls dressed in long vivid gowns traversed the street from house to house. They were leisurely and perfumed. A trembling seized him and his eyes grew dim. The yellow gas-flames arose before his

t his bosom in a tumult. A young woman dressed in a long pink gown laid

ght, Wil

-chair beside the bed. He tried to bid his tongue speak that he might seem at ease, watc

mly to her and he, seeing her face lifted to him in serious calm and feeling the warm calm rise and fall of her breast, all but b

and through his hair, cal

a kiss,

e caressed slowly, slowly, slowly. In her arms he felt that he had suddenly become

his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon