Stephen Hero

by James Joyce

  — And what did he advise you to do?

  — He said if there were any young children in the house he would advise me to get * out away from there as quickly as I could.

  — Very nice! said Stephen angrily. That’s a pretty thing for you to come and say to a son of yours!

  — I am simply telling you what the priest advised me to do, said his mother quietly.

  — These fellows, said Stephen, know nothing of the world. You might as well say that a rat in a sewer knew the world. Anyway you won’t repeat what I say to your confessor in future because I won’t say anything. And the next time he asks you “What is that mistaken young man, that unfortunate boy, doing?” you can answer “I don’t know, father. I asked him and he said I was to tell the priest he was making a torpedo.”

  The general attitude of women towards religion puzzled and often maddened Stephen. His nature was incapable of achieving such an attitude of insincerity or stupidity. By brooding constantly upon this he ended by anathemising (sic) Emma as the most deceptive and cowardly of marsupials. He discovered that it was a menial fear and no spirit of chastity which had prevented her from granting his request. Her eyes, he thought, must look strange when upraised to some holy image and her lips when poised for the reception of the host. He cursed her burgher cowardice and her beauty and he said to himself that though her eyes might cajole the half-witted God of the Roman Catholics they would not cajole him. In every stray image of the streets he saw her soul manifest itself and every such manifestation renewed the intensity of his disapproval. It did not strike him that the attitude of women towards holy things really implied a more genuine emancipation than his own and he condemned them out of a purely suppositious (sic) conscience. He exaggerated their iniquities and evil influence and returned them their antipathy in full measure. He toyed also with a theory of dualism which would symbolise the twin eternities of spirit and nature in the twin eternities of male and female and even thought of explaining the audacities of his verse as symbolical allusions. It was hard for him to compel his head to preserve the strict temperature of classicism. More than he had ever done before he longed for the season to lift and for spring — the misty Irish spring — to be over and gone. He was passing through Eccles’ St one evening, one misty evening, with all these thoughts dancing the dance of unrest in his brain when a trivial incident set him composing some ardent verses which he entitled a “Vilanelle of the Temptress.” A young lady was standing on the steps of one of those brown brick houses which seem the very incarnation of Irish paralysis. A young gentleman was leaning on the rusty railings of the area. Stephen as he passed on his quest heard the following fragment of colloquy out of which he received an impression keen enough to afflict his sensitiveness very severely.

  The Young Lady — (drawling discreetly) … O, yes … I was … at the … cha … pel …

  The Young Gentleman — (inaudibly) … I … (again inaudibly) … I …

  The Young Lady — (softly) … O … but you’re … ve … ry … wick … ed …

  This triviality made him think of collecting many such moments together in a book of epiphanies. By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself. He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments. He told Cranly that the clock of the Ballast Office was capable of an epiphany. Cranly questioned the inscrutable dial of the Ballast Office with his no less inscrutable countenance:

  — Yes, said Stephen. I will pass it time after time, allude to it, refer to it, catch a glimpse of it. It is only an item in the catalogue of Dublin’s street furniture. Then all at once I see it and I know at once what it is: epiphany.

  — What?

  — Imagine my glimpses at that clock as the gropings of a spiritual eye which seeks to adjust its vision to an exact focus. The moment the focus is reached the object is epiphanised. It is just in this epiphany that I find the third, the supreme quality of beauty.

  — Yes? said Cranly absently.

  — No esthetic theory, pursued Stephen relentlessly, is of any value which investigates with the aid of the lantern of tradition. What we symbolise in black the Chinaman may symbolise in yellow: each has his own tradition. Greek beauty laughs at Coptic beauty and the American Indian derides them both. It is almost impossible to reconcile all tradition whereas it is by no means impossible to find the justification of every form of beauty which has ever been adored on the earth by an examination into the mechanism of esthetic apprehension whether it be dressed in red, white, yellow or black. We have no reason for thinking that the Chinaman has a different system of digestion from that which we have though our diets are quite dissimilar. The apprehensive faculty must be scrutinised in action.

  — Yes …

  — You know what Aquinas says: The three things requisite for beauty are, integrity, a wholeness, symmetry and radiance. Some day I will expand that sentence into a treatise. Consider the performance of your own mind when confronted with any object, hypothetically beautiful. Your mind to apprehend that object divides the entire universe into two parts, the object, and the void which is not the object. To apprehend it you must lift it away from everything else: and then you perceive that it is one integral thing, that is a thing. You recognise its integrity. Isn’t that so?

  — And then?

  — That is the first quality of beauty: it is declared in a simple sudden synthesis of the faculty which apprehends. What then? Analysis then. The mind considers the object in whole and in part, in relation to itself and to other objects, examines the balance of its parts, contemplates the form of the object, traverses every cranny of the structure. So the mind receives the impression of the symmetry of the object. The mind recognises that the object is in the strict sense of the word, a thing, a definitely constituted entity. You see?

  — Let us turn back, said Cranly.

  They had reached the corner of Grafton St and as the footpath was overcrowded they turned back northwards. Cranly had an inclination to watch the antics of a drunkard who had been ejected from a bar in Suffolk St but Stephen took his arm summarily and led him away.

  — Now for the third quality. For a long time I couldn’t make out what Aquinas meant. He uses a figurative word (a very unusual thing for him) but I have solved it. Claritas is quidditas. After the analysis which discovers the second quality the mind makes the only logically possible synthesis and discovers the third quality. This is the moment which I call epiphany. First we recognise that the object is one integral thing, then we recognise that it is an organised composite structure, a thing in fact: finally, when the relation of the parts is exquisite, when the parts are adjusted to the special point, we recognise that it is that thing which it is. Its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant. The object achieves its epiphany.

  Having finished his argument Stephen walked on in silence. He felt Cranly’s hostility and he accused himself of having cheapened the eternal images of beauty. For the first time, too, he felt slightly awkward in his friend’s company and to restore a mood of flippant familiarity he glanced up at the clock of the Ballast Office and smiled:

  — It has not epiphanised yet, he said.

  Cranly stared stolidly down the river and held his peace for a few minutes during which the expounder of the new esthetic repeated his theory to himself all over again. A clock at the far side of the bridge chimed and simultaneously Cranly’s thin lips parted for speech:

  — I wonder, he said …

  — What?

  Cranly continued to stare towards the mouth of the Liffey like a man in a trance. Stephen waited for the sentence to be finished and then he said again “What?” Cranly then faced about suddenly and said with flat emphasis:

  — « I wonder d
id that bloody boat, the Sea-Queen ever start? » *

  Stephen had now completed a series of hymns in honour of extravagant beauty and these he published privately in a manuscript edition of one copy. His last interview with Cranly had been so unsatisfactory that he hesitated to show the manuscript to him. He kept the manuscript by him and its presence tormented him. He wanted to show it to his parents but the examination was approaching and he knew that their sympathy would be incomplete. He wanted to show it to Maurice but he was conscious that his brother resented having been forsaken for plebeian companions. He wanted to show it to Lynch but he dreaded the physical labour of urging that torpid young man into a condition of receptiveness. He even thought for a moment of McCann and Madden. He saw Madden rarely; the salute which the young patriot gave him on those rare occasions was not unlike the salute which [one] a friend who has failed gives to a friend who has succeeded. Madden spent the greater part of his day in Cooney’s tobacco-shop, sampling and discussing camàns, smoking very heavy tobacco and speaking Irish with [one] newly arrived provincials. McCann was still busily occupied in editing his magazine [for] to which he had himself contributed an article entitled “Rationalism in Practice.” In this article he expressed the hope that mankind in the not too distant future would use mineral, [as] instead of animal [and] or vegetable diet. The tone of the editor’s writing had become much more orthodox than his speech had been wont to be. In the report of the general meeting of the College Sodality which occupied a column and a half of the College magazine it was stated that Mr McCann, in a forcible speech, had [suggested] made many valuable suggestions for the working of the society on a more practical basis. Stephen was surprised at this and when one day, [when Mc] walking through Nassau St with Cranly, he encountered the editor striding vigorously towards the Library he said to Cranly:

  — What is Bonny Dundee at?

  — How — at?

  — I mean … this sodality business he’s mixing himself up in. He can’t be stupid enough to think he can use the sodality for any good purpose.

  Cranly eyed Stephen quizzically but, after considering the matter, decided to make no remark.

  The examination resulted in Cranly’s being ‘stuck’ again and in Stephen’s securing a low pass. Stephen did not think it necessary to take the results of these examinations very bitterly to heart inasmuch as he [judged] knew that Father Artifoni, who had presented himself for the matriculation examination, had been awarded higher marks for his English paper than for his Italian paper, having been tested in the latter language by a polyglot examiner who examined in French, Italian, Arabic, [Jewish] Hebrew, Spanish and German. Stephen sympathised with his teacher who was ingenuous enough to express his astonishment. One evening during the examinations Stephen was talking to Cranly under the arcade of the University when Emma passed them. Cranly raised his ancient straw hat (which he had once more resurrected) and Stephen followed suit. In reply she bowed very politely across Stephen at his friend. Cranly replaced his hat and proceeded to meditate in the shade of it for a few minutes.

  — Why did she do that? he said.

  — An invitation, perhaps, said Stephen.

  Cranly stared continuously at the air through which she had passed: and Stephen said smilingly:

  — Perhaps she meant it as an invitation.

  — Perhaps.

  — You’re incomplete without a woman, said Stephen.

  — Only she’s so flamin’ fat, said Cranly, d’ye know … Stephen kept silent. He was not pleased that anyone else should speak against her and he did not smile when Cranly took his arm saying “Let us eke go” which [he] was always intended as an « old English expression » inviting departure. Stephen had long ago debated with himself the advisability of telling Cranly that the expression should be amended but Cranly’s persistent emphasis of the word ‘eke’ acted as a deterrent.

  The announcement of the result of the examination led to a domestic squabble. Mr Daedalus ransacked his vocabulary in search of abusive terms and ended by asking Stephen what were his plans for the future.

  — I have no plans.

  — Well then the sooner you clear out the better. You’ve been having us I see. However with the help of God and His Holy Mother I’ll write to Mullingar the first thing in the morning. There’s no use in your god-father wasting any more of his money on you.

  — Simon, said Mrs Daedalus, you always go to the fair with the story. Can’t you be reasonable?

  — Reasonable be damned. Don’t I know the set he has got into — lousy-looking patriots and that football chap in the knickerbockers. To tell you the God’s truth, Stephen, I thought you’d have more pride than to associate with such canaille.

  — I don’t think Stephen has done so badly in his examination: he hasn’t failed and after all …

  — She will put in her word, you know, said Mr Daedalus to his son. That’s a little hereditary habit. Her family, you know, by God they know anything you can ask them down to the making of the mainspring of a watch. Fact.

  — You oughtn’t to run away with the story, Simon. Many fathers would be glad to have such a son.

  — You needn’t interfere between me and my son. We understand each other. I’m not saying anything to him; but I want to know what he has been doing for twelve months.

  Stephen continued tapping the blade of his knife on the edge of his plate.

  — What have you been doing?

  — Thinking.

  — Thinking? Is that all?

  — And writing a little.

  — Hm. I see. Wasting your time, in fact.

  — I don’t consider it waste of time to think.

  — Hm. I see. You see I know these Bohemian chaps, these poets, who don’t consider it waste of time to think. But at the same time they’re damn glad to borrow an odd shilling now and then to buy chops with. How will you like thinking when you have no chops? Can’t you go for something definite, some good appointment in a government office and then, by Christ, you can think as much as you like. Study for some first-class appointment, there are plenty of them, and you can write at your leisure. Unless, perhaps, you would prefer to be a loafer eating orange-peels and sleeping in the Park.

  Stephen made no reply. When the harangue had been repeated five or six times he got up and went out. He went over to the Library to look for Cranly and, not finding him in the reading-room or in the porch, went to the Adelphi Hotel. It was a Saturday night and the rooms were crowded with clerks. [and] The clerk from the Agricultural Board Office was sitting in the corner of the bar with his hat pushed well back from his forehead and at once Stephen recognised the dark ooze which was threatening to emerge upon his heated face. He was occupied in twirling his moustache in the crook of his index finger, and in glancing between the barmaid’s face and the label of his bottle of stout. The billiard-room was very noisy: all the tables were engaged and the balls hopped on to the floor every minute or so. Some of the players played in their shirt-sleeves.

  Cranly was sitting stolidly on the seat that ran alongside the tables, watching a game [of]. Stephen sat beside him in silence, also watching the game. It was a three-handed game. An elderly clerk, evidently in a patronising mood, was playing two of his junior colleagues. The elderly clerk was a tall stout man who wore gilt spectacles on a face like a red shrivelled apple. He was in his shirt-sleeves and he played and spoke so briskly as to suggest that he was drilling rather than playing. The young clerks were both clean shaven. One of them was a thickset young man who played doggedly without speaking, the other was an effervescent young man with white eyebrows and a nervous manner. Cranly and Stephen watched the game progress, creep from point to point. The heavy young man put his ball on to the floor three times in succession and the scoring was so slow that the marker came and stood by the table as a reminder that the twenty minutes had passed. The players chalked their cues oftener than before and, seeing that they were in earnest about finishing the game, the marker did not say anything about th
e time. But his presence acted upon them. The elderly clerk jerked his cue at his ball, making a bad stroke, and stood back from the table blinking his eyes and saying “Missed that time.” The effervescent young clerk hurried to his ball, made a bad stroke and, looking along his cue, said “Ah!” The dogged young man shot his ball straight into the top pocket, a fact which the marker registered at once on the broken marking-board. The elderly clerk peered for a few critical seconds over the rim of his glasses, made another bad stroke and, at once proceeding to chalk his cue [briskly], said briefly and sharply to the effervescent young man “Come on now, White. Hurry up now.”

  The hopeless pretence of those three lives before him, their unredeemable servility, made the back of Stephen’s eyes feel burning hot. He laid his [arm] hand on Cranly’s shoulder and said impetuously:

  — We must go out at once. I can’t stand it any longer.

  They crossed the room together and Stephen said:

  — If I had remained another minute I think I would have begun to cry.

  — Yes, it is bloody awful, said Cranly.

  — O, hopeless! hopeless! said Stephen clenching his fists.

  * Written in pencil on the margin of this page is the sentence: “Stephen wished to avenge himself on Irish women who, he says, are the cause of all the moral suicide in the island.”

  * Among Joyce’s notes printed by Gorman [p. 135] is the phrase — in quotation marks — “I got the highest marks in mathematics of any man that ever went in.”

  * “You” or “them” omitted?

  * Among Joyce’s notes [Gorman, p. 137], under the heading ‘Byrne’ (Cranly) is the phrase “Did that bloody boat the Seaqueen ever start?”

  -XXVI-

  A few nights before Cranly went to the country to [recruit] refresh himself in body after his failure in the examination, Stephen said to him:

  — I believe this will be an important season for me. I intend to come to some decision as to my course of action.

  — But you will go for Second Arts next year?