Stephen Hero

by James Joyce

  — Me grandson Johnny done that the time the circus was in the town. He seen the pictures on the walls and began pesterin’ his mother for fourpence to see th’ elephants. But sure when he got in an’ all divil elephant was in it. But it was him drew that there.

  The young lady laughed and the old man blinked his red eyes at the fire and went on smoking evenly and talking to himself:

  — I’ve heerd tell them elephants is most natural things, that they has the notions of a Christian … I wanse seen meself a picture of niggers riding on wan of ’em—aye and beating blazes out of ’im with a stick. Begorra ye’d have more trouble with the childre * is in it now that † with one of thim big fellows.

  The young lady who was much amused began to tell the peasant about the animals of prehistoric times. The old man heard her out in silence and then said slowly:

  — Aw, there must be terrible quare craythurs at the latther ind of the world.‡

  Stephen thought that the officer told this story very well and he joined in the laugh that followed it. But Mr Fulham was not of his opinion and spoke out against the moral of the story rather sententiously.

  — It is easy to laugh at the peasant. He is ignorant of many things which the world thinks important. But we mustn’t forget at the same time, Captain Starkie, that the peasant [is] stands perhaps nearer to the true ideal of a Christian life than many of us who condemn him.

  — I do not condemn him, answered Captain Starkie, but I am amused.

  — Our Irish peasantry, continued Mr Fulham with conviction, is the backbone of the nation.

  Backbone or not, it was in the constant observance of the peasantry that Stephen chiefly delighted. Physically, they were almost Mongolian types, tall, angular and oblique-eyed. Stephen whenever he walked behind a peasant always looked first for the prominent cheek-bones that seemed to cut the air and the peasants in their turn must have recognised metropolitan features for they stared very hard at the youth as if he were some rare animal[s]. One day Dan was sent into the town to buy some medicine at the druggist’s and Stephen went in with him. The trap stopped in the main street before the druggist’s and Dan handed down the order to a ragged boy telling him to take it into the shop. The ragged boy first showed the paper to an equally ragged friend and then went into the shop. When they came out they stood at the door of the shop gazing alternately from Stephen to the horse’s tail and back again. While they were thus gazing they were confronted by a lame beggar who advanced towards them gripping his stick:

  — It was yous called out names after me yestherday. The two children huddling in the doorway, gazed at him and answered:

  — No, sir.

  — O yes it was, though.

  The beggar thrust his malign face down at their faces and began moving his stick up and down.

  — But mind what I’m tellin’ you. D’ye see that stick?

  — Yes, sir.

  — Well, if ye call out after me the next time I’ll cut [yous] yez open with that stick. I’ll cut the livers out of ye.

  He proceeded to explain himself to the frightened children.

  — D’ye hear me now? I’ll cut yez open with that stick. I’ll cut the livers and the lights out of ye.

  This incident was stolidly admired by a few bystanders who made way for the beggar as he limped along the footpath. Dan, who had watched the scene from the trap, now descended to the ground and asking Stephen to look to the horse went into a very dirty public-house. Stephen sat alone in the car thinking of the beggar’s face. He had never before seen such evil expressed in a face. He had sometimes watched the faces of prefects as they ‘pandied’ boys with a broad leather bat but those faces had seemed to him less malicious than stupid, dutifully inflamed faces. The recollection of the beggar’s sharp eyes struck a fine chord of terror in the youth and he set himself to whistle away the keen throb of it.

  After a few moments a fat young man with a very red head came out of the druggist’s shop holding two neat parcels. Stephen recognised Nash and Nash testified that he recognised Stephen by changing complexion very painfully. Stephen could have enjoyed his old enemy’s discomfiture had he chosen but disdaining to do so he held out his hand instead. Nash was junior assistant in the shop and when he learned that Stephen was on a visit to Mr Fulham his manner was tinged with discreet respectfulness. Stephen, however, soon put him at his ease and when Dan emerged from the grimy public-house the two were engaged in familiar chat. Nash said Mullingar was the last place God made, a God-forgotten hole, and asked Stephen how he could stick it.

  — I only wish I was back again in Dublin, that’s all I know.

  — How do you amuse yourself here? asked Stephen.

  — Amuse yourself! You can’t. There’s nothing here.

  — But haven’t you concerts sometimes. The first day I came here I saw some bills up about a concert.

  — O, that’s off. Father Lohan put the boots on that—the P.P.* you know.

  — Why did he?

  — O, you better ask him that. He says his parishioners don’t want comic songs and skirt dances. If they want a decent concert, he says, they can get one up in the school-house, — O, he bosses them, I tell you.

  — O, is that the way?

  — They’re afraid of their life * of him. If he hears any dancing in a house at night he raps at the window and pouf! out goes the candle.

  — By Jove!

  — Fact. You know he has a collection of girl’s hats.

  — Girl’s hats!

  — Yes. Of an evening when the girls go out walking with the soldiers he goes out too and any girl he catches hold of he snaps off her hat and takes it back with him to the priest’s house then if the girl goes to ask him for it he gives her a proper blowing-up.

  — Good man! … Well, we must be off now. I suppose I’ll see you again.

  — Come in tomorrow, will you: it’s a short day. And I’ll tell you I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine here — very decent sort — on the Examiner. You’ll like him.

  — Very good. Until then!

  — So long! About two o’clock.

  As they drove home together Stephen asked Dan some questions which Dan pretended not to hear and when Stephen pressed him for answers he gave the shortest possible answers. It was plain that he did not care to discuss his spiritual superior and Stephen had to desist.

  That evening at dinner Mr Fulham was in genial spirits and began to address his conversation pointedly to Stephen. Mr Fulham’s method of ‘drawing’ his interlocutor was not a very delicate method but Stephen saw what was expected of him and merely waited till he was directly addressed. A neighbour had come to dinner, a Mr Heffernan. Mr Heffernan was not at all of his host’s way of thinking and therefore the evening brought out some lively disputes. Mr Heffernan’s son was learning Irish because he believed that the Irish people should speak their own language and not the language of their conquerors.

  — But the people of the United States who are more emancipated than Ireland is ever likely to be are content to speak English, said Mr Fulham.

  — The Americans are different. They have no language to revive.

  — For my part I am content with my conquerors.

  — Because you occupy a good position under them. You are not a labourer. You enjoy the fruits of Nationalist agitation.

  — Perhaps you are going to tell me that all men are equal, said Mr Fulham satirically.

  — In a sense they may be.

  — Nonsense, my dear sir. Our countrymen know nothing of the Reformation, as they call it, and I hope [it] they will know nothing of the French Revolution either.

  Mr Heffernan returned to the charge.

  — But surely it is no harm for them to know something about their country — its traditions, its local history, its language!

  — For those who have leisure it may be good. But you know I am a great enemy of disloyal movements. Our lot is thrown in with England.

  — The young generation is not
of your opinion. My son, Pat, is studying at Clonliffe at present and he tells me all the young students there, those who are to be our priests afterwards, have these ideas.

  — The Catholic Church, my dear sir, will never incite to rebellion. But here is one of the young generation. Let him speak.

  — I care nothing for these principles of nationalism, said Stephen. I have enough bodily liberty.

  — But do you feel no duty to your mother-country, no love for her? asked Mr Heffernan.

  — Honestly, I don’t.

  — You live then like an animal without reason! exclaimed Mr Heffernan.

  — My own mind, answered Stephen, is more interesting to me than the entire country.

  — Perhaps you think your mind is more important than Ireland!

  — I do, certainly.

  — These are strange ideas of your godson’s, Mr Fulham. May I ask did the Jesuits teach you them.

  — The Jesuits taught me other things, reading and writing.

  — And religion also?

  — Naturally. “What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul?”

  — Nothing, of course. That is quite so. But humanity has claims on us. We have a duty to our neighbour. We have received a commandment of charity.

  —I hear so, said Stephen, at Christmas. Mr Fulham laughed at this and Mr Heffernan was stung.

  — I may not have read as much as you, Mr Fulham, or even as much as you, young man, but I believe that the noblest love a man can have, of course after the love of God, is love of his native land.

  — Jesus was not of your opinion, Mr Heffernan, said Stephen.

  — You speak very boldly, young man, said Mr Heffernan reprovingly.

  — I am not afraid to speak openly, answered Stephen, even of the parish priest.

  — You use the Holy Name glibly for one so young.

  — Not in execration. I mean what I say. The ideal presented to mankind by Jesus is one of self-denial, of purity, and of solitude; the ideal you present to us is one of revenge, of passion and of immersion in worldly affairs.

  — It seems to me that Stephen is right, said Miss Howard.

  — I can see, said Mr Fulham, what these movements tend to.

  — It is impossible for us all to live the lives of hermits! exclaimed Mr Heffernan desperately.

  — We can combine the two lives by living as a Catholic should, doing our duty to God first and then the duties of our station in life, said Mr Fulham, leaning comfortably on the last phrase.

  — You can be a patriot, Mr Heffernan, said Stephen, without accusing those who do not agree with you of irreligion.

  — I never accused …

  — Come now, said Mr Fulham genially, we all understand each other.

  Stephen had enjoyed this little skirmish: it had been a pastime for him to turn the guns of orthodoxy upon the orthodox ranks and see how they would stand the fire. Mr Heffernan seemed to him a typical Irishman of the provinces; assertive and fearful, sentimental and rancourous, idealist in speech and realist in conduct. Mr Fulham was harder to understand. His championing of the Irish peasant was full of zealous patronage, his ardour for the Church was implicit with his respect for feudal distinctions, and his natural submission to what he regarded as the dispenser of these distinctions. He would enforce his aristocratic notions in a homely way:

  — Come now, Mr So and So, you buy cattle on fair-day in the town?

  —Yes.

  — And you go * the racecourse and make a bet or two as you fancy?

  — I must admit I do.

  — And you pride yourself on knowing a thing or two about coursing?

  — I think I do.

  — Then how can you say there is no aristocracy of breed in men since you know it exists in animals?

  Mr Fulham’s pride was the pride of the burgher in the costly burdensome canopy which he has exerted * and loves to sustain. He had affection for the feudal machinery and desired nothing better than that it should crush him — a common wish of the human adorer whether he cast himself under Juggernaut or pray God with tears of affection to mortify him or swoon under the hand of his mistress. To the sensitive inferior his charity would have offered intolerable pain of mind and yet the giver would use neither the air nor the language of the self-righteous. His conceptions of human relations [would] might perhaps have passed for a progressive conception in the ages when the earth was thought to be scaphoid and had he lived then he might have been reputed the most [tender-hearted] enlightened of slave-owners. As Stephen watched the old man gravely handing his snuff-box to Mr Heffernan, and the latter perforce appeased, inserting a large hand therein [Stephen] he thought: [to]

  — My godfather is the Papal ambassador to Westmeath.

  Nash was waiting for him at the door of the shop and they walked down the main street together towards the Examiner office. In the window [was] a white fox-terrier’s [muzzle] head could be seen over a dirty brown blind and his intelligent eyes were the only signs of life in the office. Mr Garvey was sent for and presently sent in word that his two visitors were to come into the Greville Arms. Mr Garvey was found sitting at the bar with his hat pushed far back from a glowing forehead. He was “chaffing” the barmaid but when his visitors entered he stood up and shook hands with them. Then he insisted on their joining him in a drink. The barmaid was “chaffed” again by Mr Garvey and by Nash but always within limits. She was a genteel young person of a very tempting figure. While she was polishing glasses she indulged in flirty, gossipy conversation with the young men: she seemed to have the life of the town at her fingers’ ends. She reproved Mr Garvey once or twice for levity and asked Stephen wasn’t it a shame for a married man. Stephen said it was and began to count the buttons of her blouse. The barmaid said Stephen was a nice sensible young man not a gadabout fellow and smiled very sweetly over her brisk napkin. After a while the young men left the bar, first touching the fingertips of the barmaid and raising their hats.

  Mr Garvey whistled the terrier out of the office and they set out for a walk. Mr Garvey wore heavy boots and he plodded along sturdily in them, tapping the road with his stick. The road and the actual sultry day had made him sensible and he gave the younger men some sound advice.

  — After all, there’s nothing like marriage for making a fellow steady. Before I got this sit on the Examiner here I used * knock about with the lads and boose [a] † bit … You know, he said to Nash — [Na]sh † nodded.

  — Now I’ve a good house, said Mr Garvey, and … I go home in the evening and if I want a drink … well, I can have it. My advice to every young fellow that can afford it is: marry young.

  — There’s something in that, said Nash, when you’ve had your fling, that is.

  — O, yes, said Mr Garvey. By the bye I hope you’ll come and see me some evening and bring your friend. You’ll come, Mr Daedalus? The missus’ll be glad to see you: she plays a bit, you know.

  Stephen mumbled his thanks and decided that he would endure severe bodily pain rather than visit Mr Garvey.

  Mr Garvey began then to tell some press stories. When he heard from Nash that Stephen was inclined for writing he said:

  — You take my tip: shorthand.

  He told many stories illustrating his own smartness at his business and said that he had once got a ‘par’ into a London morning paper and got paid well for it by return of post.

  — These English chaps, you know, they know how to do business. Pay good money too.

  The day was very hot and the town seemed dozing in the heat but when the young men came to the canal bridge they noticed a crowd collected some fifty yards off on the canal bank. A butcher’s boy was telling a circle of workmen about it.

  — I seen her first. I noticed something — a long-looking green thing lying among the weeds and I went for Joe Coghlan. Him and me tried to get it up but it was too heavy. So then what did we do but I thought if we could only get the lend of a pole off someone. So Joe and me, then, went down
to the back of Slater’s yard …

  A pace or two from the brink of the water a thing was lying on the bank partly covered by a brown sack. It was the body of a woman: the face was to the ground and from the thick black hair a pool of water had oozed out. The body was curved upwards with legs abroad but over [word torn away] someone had drawn down the [word torn away] nightdress. The woman had esca[ped] * from the asylum the night before and Stephen hea[rd] * many criticisms of the nurses.

  — It’s be better for ’em mind the patients than traipsing about with every Tom, Dick and Harry of a doctor.

  — It’s them has the style.

  Mr Garvey’s dog wanted to sniff the body but Mr Garvey kicked him heavily and the dog curled up yelping. Then there was silence for some time, everyone remaining at his post watching the corpse, until a voice said ‘Here’s the doctor!’ A stout well-dressed man came down the path quickly without acknowledging the salutes of the people and after a few moments Stephen heard him saying the woman was dead and telling the people to get a cart and have the body taken away. The three young men then continued their walk but Stephen had to be waited for and called to. He remained behind gazing into the canal near the feet of the body, looking at a fragment of paper on which was printed: The Lamp a [mazn] magazine for … the rest was torn away and several other pieces of paper were floating about in the water.

  The afternoon was well advanced before the young men separated. Stephen bade his friends goodbye, promising to renew acquaintance very soon, and took a path through the fields. The ground was very treacherous and he slipped often into bog-water. However he found a broad highway over the bog and here he was as secure as on the road. The sun was declining and against the deep gold of the western sky the figures of some bending turf-cutters were outlined. He reached Mr Fulham’s house by a back road and climbing over the fence came up through a little wood. As he walked on the soft grass he made no noise. At the edge of the wood he stood still. Miss Howard was leaning on the high painted gate facing the sunset. The full glow of the sunset had covered her sombre vesture with streaks of rust and scattered spangles of rust upon her sombre hair. Stephen came towards her but when he was a few paces