by Unknown
— You consider the profession of arms a disreputable one. Why then have you Sarsfield Clubs, Hugh O’Neill Clubs, Red Hugh Clubs?
— O, fighting for freedom is different. But it is quite another matter to take service meanly under your tyrant, to make yourself his slave.
— And, tell me, how many of your Gaelic Leaguers are studying for the Second Division and looking for advancement in the Civil Service?
— That’s different. They are only civil servants: they’re not . . .
— Civil be danmed! They are pledged to the Government, and paid by the Government.
— O, well, of course if you like to look at it that way . . .
— And how many relatives of Gaelic Leaguers are in the police and the constabulary? Even I know nearly ten of your friends [that] who are sons of Police inspectors.
— It is unfair to accuse a man because his father was so-and-so. A son and a father often have different ideas.
— But Irishmen are fond of boasting that they are true to the traditions they receive in youth. How faithful all you fellows are to Mother Church! Why would you not be as faithful to the tradition of the helmet as to that of the tonsure?
— We remain true to the Church because it is our national Church, the Church our people have suffered for and would suffer for again. The police are different. We look upon them as aliens, traitors, oppressors of the people.
— The old peasant down the country doesn’t seem to be of your opinion when he counts over his greasy notes and says “I’ll put the priest on Tom an’ I’ll put the polisman on Mickey.”
— I suppose you heard that sentence in some ‘stage-Irishman’ play. It’s a libel on our countrymen.
— No, no, it is Irish peasant wisdom: he balances the priest against the polisman and a very nice balance it is for they are both of a good girth. A compensative system!
— No West-Briton could speak worse of his countrymen. You are simply giving vent to old stale libels — the drunken Irishman, the baboon-faced Irishman that we see in Punch.
— What I say I see about me. The publicans and the pawn-brokers who live on the miseries of the people spend part of the money they make in sending their sons and daughters into religion to pray for them. One of your professors in the Medical School who teaches you Sanitary Science or Forensic Medicine or something — God knows what — is at the same time the landlord of a whole streetful of brothels not a mile away from where we are standing.
— Who told you that?
— A little robin-redbreast.
— It’s a lie!
— Yes, it’s a contradiction in terms, what I call a systematic compensation.
Stephen’s conversations with the patriots were not all of this severe type. Every Friday evening he met Miss Clery, or, as he had now returned to the Christian name, Emma. She lived near Portobello and any evening that the meeting was over early she walked home. She often delayed a long time chatting with a low-sized young priest, a Father Moran, who had a neat head of curly black hair and expressive black eyes. This young priest was a pianist and sang sentimental songs and was for many reasons a great favourite with the ladies. Stephen often watched Emma and Father Moran. Father Moran, who sang tenor, had once complimented Stephen saying he had heard many people speak highly of his voice and hoping he would have the pleasure of hearing him some time. Stephen had said the same thing to the priest adding that Miss Clery had told him great things of
— There is a song now, beautiful, full of lovely melody and yet — religious. It has the religious sentiment, a touching a melody, power — soul, in fact.
Stephen watching this young priest and Emma together usually worked himself into a state of unsettled rage. It was not so much that he suffered personally as that the spectacle seemed to him typical of Irish ineffectualness. Often he felt his fingers itch. Father Moran’s eyes were so clear and tender-looking, Emma stood to his gaze in such a poise of bold careless pride of the flesh that Stephen longed to precipitate the two into each other’s arms and shock the room even though he knew the pain this impersonal generosity would cause himself. Emma allowed him to see her home several times but she did not seem to have reserved herself for him. The youth was piqued at this for above all things he hated to be compared with others and, had it not been that her body seemed so compact of pleasure, he would have preferred to have been ignominiously left behind Her loud forced manners shocked him at first until his mind had thoroughly mastered the stupidity of hers. She criticised the Miss Daniels very sharply, assuming, much to Stephen’s discomfort, an identical temper in him. She coquetted with knowledge, asking Stephen could he not persuade the President of his College to admit women to the college. Stephen told her to apply to McCann who was the champion of women. She laughed at this and said with genuine dismay “Well, honestly, isn’t he a dreadful-looking artist?” She treated femininely everything that young men are supposed to regard as serious but she made polite exception for Stephen himself and for the Gaelic Revival. She asked him wasn’t he reading a paper and what was it on. She would give anything to go and hear him: she was awfully fond of the theatre herself and a gypsy woman had once read her hand and told her she would be an actress. She had been three times to the pantomime and asked Stephen what he liked best in pantomime. Stephen said he liked a good clown but she said that she preferred ballets. Then she wanted to know did he go out much to dances and pressed him to join an Irish dancing-class of which she was a member. Her eyes had begun to imitate the expression of Father Moran’s — an expression of tender significance when the conversation was at the lowest level of banality. Often as he walked beside her Stephen wondered how she had employed her time since he had last seen her and he congratulated himself that he had caught an impression of her when she was at her finest moment. In his heart he deplored the change in her for he would have liked nothing so well as an adventure with her now but he felt that even that warm ample body could hardly compensate him for her distressing pertness and middle-class affectations. In the centre of her attitude towards him he thought he discerned a point of defiant illwill and he thought he understood the cause of it. He had swept the moment into his memory, the figure and the landscape into his treasure-room, and conjuring with all three had brought forth some pages of sorry verse. One rainy night when the streets were too bad for walking she took the Rathmines tram at the Pillar and as she held down her hand to him from the step, thanking him for his kindness and wishing him good-night, that episode of their childhood seemed to magnetise the minds of both at the same instant. The change of circumstances had reversed their positions, giving her the upper hand. He took her hand caressingly, caressing one after another the three lines on the a back of her kid glove and numbering her knuckles, caressing also his own past towards which this inconsistent hater of [antiquity] inheritances was always lenient. They smiled at each other; and again in the centre of her amiableness he di
scerned a [centre] point of illwill and he suspected that by her code of honour she was obliged to insist on the forbearance of the male and to despise him for forbearing.
XVIII
Stephen’s paper was fixed for the second Saturday in March. Between Christmas and that date he had therefore an ample space of time wherein to perform preparative abstinences. His forty days were consumed in aimless solitary walks during which he forged out his sentences. In this manner he had his whole essay in his mind a from the first word to the last before he had put any morsel of it on paper. In thinking or constructing the form of the essay he found himself much a hampered by the sitting posture. His body disturbed him and he adopted the expedient of appeasing it by gentle promenading. Sometimes during his walks he lost the train of his thought and whenever the void of his mind seemed irreclaimable he forced order upon it by ejaculatory fervours. His morning walks were critical, his evening walks imaginative and whatever had seemed plausible in the evening was always rigorously examined in the light of day. These wanderings in the desert were reported from different points and Mr Daedalus once asked his son what the hell had brought him out to a Dolphin’s Barn. Stephen said he had [been] gone part of the way home with a fellow from the college whereupon Mr Daedalus remarked that the fellow from the college [must] should have gone all the way into the county Meath to live as his hand was in. Any acquaintances that were encountered during these walks were never allowed to intrude on the young man’s meditations by commonplace conversation — a fact which they seemed to recognise in advance by a deferent salute. Stephen was therefore very much surprised one evening as he was walking past the Christian Brothers’ School in North Richmond St to feel his arm seized from behind and to hear a voice say somewhat blatantly:
— Hello, Daedalus, old man, is that you?
Stephen turned round and saw a tall young man with many eruptions on his face dressed completely in heavy black. He stared for a few moments, trying to recall the face.
— Don’t you remember me? I knew you at once.
— O, yes now I do, said Stephen. But you’ve changed.
— Think so?
— I wouldn’t know you . . . Are you . . . in mourning?
Wells laughed.
— By Jove, that’s a good one. Evidently a you don’t know your Church when you see it.
— What? You don’t mean to say . . . ?
— Fact, old man. I’m in Clonliffe at present. Been down in Balbriggan today on leave: the boss is very bad. Poor old chap!
— O, indeed!
— You’re over in the Green now, Boland told me. Do you know him? He said you were at Belvedere with him.
— Is he in too? Yes I know him.
— He has a great opinion of you. He says you’re a litterateur now.
Stephen smiled and did not know what subject to suggest next. He wondered how far this loud-voiced student intended to accompany him.
— See me down a bit of the way, will you? I’ve just come off the train at Amiens St. I’m making for dinner.
— Certainly.
So they walked on side by side.
— Well, and what have you been doing with yourself? Having a good time, I suppose? Down in Bray?
— Ah, the usual thing, said Stephen.
— I know: I know. After the esplanade girls, isn’t that it? Silly game, old man, silly game! Get tired of it.
— You have, evidently.
— Should think so: time too . . . Ever see any of the Clongowes fellows?
— Never one.
— That’s the way. We all lose sight of each other after we leave. You remember Roth?
— Yes.
— Out in Australia now — bushranger or something. You’re going in for literature, I suppose.
— I don’t know really what I’m going in for.
— I know: I know. On the loose, isn’t that it? a I’ve been there myself.
— Well, not exactly . . . began Stephen.
— O, of course not! said Wells quickly with a loud laugh.
Passing down Jones’s Road they saw a gaudy advertisement in strong colours for a melodramatic play. Wells asked Stephen had he read
— Haven’t you? Famous book, you know; style would suit you, I think. Of course it’s a bit . . . blue.
— How is that?
— O, well, you know . . . Paris, you know . . . artists.
— O, is that the kind of book it is?
— Nothing very wrong in it that I could see. Still some people think it’s a bit immoral.
— You haven’t it in the library in Clonliffe?
— No, not likely . . . Don’t I wish I was out of the show!
— Are you thinking of leaving?
— Next year — perhaps this year — I go to Paris for my theology.
— You won’t be sorry, I suppose.
— You bet. Rotten show, this place. Food is not so bad but so dull, you know.
— Are there many students in it now?
— O, yes . . . I don’t mix much with them, you know . . . There are a good lot.
— I suppose you’ll be a parish priest one of these days.
— I hope so. You must come and see me when I am.
— Very good.
— When you’re a great writer yourself — as the author of a second
— Is it allowed?
— O, with me . . . you come in, never mind.
The two young men went into the grounds of the College and along the circular carriage-drive. It was a damp evening and rather dark. In the uncertain light a few of the more adventurous were to be seen vigorously playing handball in a little side-alley, the smack of the wet ball against the concrete wall of the alley alternating with their lusty shouts. For the most part the students were walking in little groups through the ground, some with their berretas [
— Can you go with anyone you like? asked Stephen.
— Companions are not allowed. You must join the first group you meet.
— Why didn’t you go to the Jesuit order?
— Not likely, my boy. Sixteen years of noviciate and no chance of ever settling down. Here today, there tomorrow.
As Stephen looked at the big square block of masonry looming before them through the faint daylight, he re-entered again in thought the seminarist life which he had led for so many years, to the understanding of the narrow activities of which he could now in a moment bring the spirit of an acute sympathetic alien. He recognised at once the martial mind of the Irish Church in the style of this ecclesiastical barracks. He looked in vain at the faces and figures which passed him for a token of moral elevation: all were cowed without being humble, modish without being simple-mannered. Some of the students saluted Wells but got scanty thanks for the courtesy. Wells wished Stephen to gather that he despised his fellow-students and that it was not his fault if they regarded him as an important person. At the foot of the stone steps he turned to Stephen:
— I must go in to see the Dean for a minute. I’m afraid it’s too late for me to show you round the show this evening . . .
— O, not at all. Another time.
— Well, will you wait for me. Stroll along there towards the chapel. I won’t be a minute.
He nodded at Stephen for a temporary farewell and sprang up the steps. [Wells] Stephen wandered on towards the chapel meditatively kicking a white flat stone along the grey pebbly path. He was not likely to be deceived by Wells’ words into an acceptance of that young man as a quite vicious person. He knew that Wells had exaggerated his airs in order to hide his internal sense of mortification at meeting one who had not forsaken the world, the flesh and the devil and he suspected that, if there were any tendency to oscillation in the soul of the free-spoken young student, the iron hand of the discipline of the Churc
h would firmly intervene to restore equipoise. At the same time Stephen felt somewhat indignant that anyone should expect him to entrust spiritual difficulties to such a confessor or to receive with pious feelings any sacrament or benediction from the hands of the young students whom he saw walking through the grounds. It was not any personal pride which would prevent him but a recognition of the incompatibility of two natures, one trained to repressive enforcement of a creed, the other equipped with a vision the angle of which would never adjust itself for the reception of hallucinations and with an intelligence which was as much in love with laughter as with combat.
The mist of the evening had begun to thicken into slow fine rain and Stephen halted at the end of a narrow path beside a few laurel bushes, watching at the end of a leaf a tiny point of rain form and twinkle and hesitate and finally take the plunge into the sodden clay beneath. He wondered was it raining in Westmeath, [were the cattle standing together patiently in the shelter of the hedges]. He remembered seeing the cattle standing together patiently in the hedges and reeking in the rain. A little band of students passed at the other side of the laurel bushes: they were talking among themselves:
— But did you see Mrs Bergin?
— O, I saw her . . . with a black and white boa.
— And the two Miss Kennedys were there.
— Where?
— Right behind the Archbishop’s Throne.
— O, I saw her — one of them. Hadn’t she a grey hat with a bird in it?
— That was her! She’s very lady-like, isn’t she.
The little band went down the path. In a few minutes another little band passed behind the bushes. One student was talking and the others were listening.
— Yes and an astronomer too: that’s why he had [built] that observatory built over there at the side of the palace. I heard a priest say once that the three greatest men in Europe were Gladstone, Bismarck (the great German statesman) and our own Archbishop — as all-round men. He knew him at Maynooth. He said that in Maynooth . . .
The speaker’s words were lost in the crunch of the heavy boots on the gravel. The rain was spreading and increasing and the vagrant bands of students were all turning their steps towards the college. Stephen still waited at his post and at last saw Wells coming down the path quickly: he had changed his outdoor dress for a soutane. He was very apologetic and not quite so familiar in manner. Stephen wanted him to go in with the others but he insisted on seeing his visitor to the gate. They took a short cut down beside the wall and were soon opposite the lodge. The [gate] side-door was shut and Wells called out loudly to the lodge-woman to open it and let the gentleman out. Then he shook hands with Stephen and pressed him to come again. The lodge-woman opened the side-door and Wells looked out for a second or two almost enviously. Then he said:
