Complete Works of James Joyce

by Unknown

  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.

  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?

  — My godfather may not pay. They expected I would get an exhibition.

  — And why didn’t you? said Cranly.

  — I will think things out, said Stephen, and see what I can do.

  — There are a hundred things you can do.

  — Are there, faith? We’ll see . . . I might want to write to you. What is your address?

  Cranly affected not to hear this question. He was picking his teeth with a match, very deliberately and scrupulously, occasionally halting to insert his tongue carefully into some crevice before continuing the process of picking. He spat out what he dislodged. His straw hat rested mainly on the nape of his neck and his feet were planted far apart. After a considerable pause he returned to his last phrase, as if he had been inwardly reviewing it:

  — Ay, hundreds of things.

  Stephen said:

  — What is your address in the country?

  — My address? . . . O . . . You see . . . it’s really impossible, d’ye know, to say what my address would be. But you won’t come to any decision before I come back . . . I’m almost sure I’ll go in the morning but I want to see at what time there’s a train.

  — We looked before, said Stephen. Half past nine.

  — No . . . I think I must go up to Harcourt St to see what time there’s a train.

  They walked slowly in the direction of Harcourt St. Stephen, refusing to nurse ill-feeling, said:

  — What mysterious purpose is concealed under your impossible prosiness? Please tell me that. Have you anything in your mind’s eye?

  — If I had a mysterious purpose, said Cranly, I wouldn’t be likely to tell you, (would I?), what it was.

  — I have told you a great deal, said Stephen.

  — Most people have some purpose or other in their lives. Aristotle says that the end of every being is its greatest good. We all act in view of some good.

  — Couldn’t you be a bit more precise? You don’t wish me to write gospels about you, do you? . . . Are you really thinking of being a pork-butcher?

  — Yes, really. Would you not think of it. You could wrap your sausages in your love-poems.

  Stephen laughed.

  — You mustn’t think you can impose on me, Cranly, he said. I know you are damnably romantic.

  At Harcourt St Station they went up to the time-table and after a glance at it Stephen said mischieviously []:

  — Half past nine, as I told you. You see you wouldn’t take a fool’s word for it.

  — That’s another train, said Cranly impatiently.

  Stephen smiled with enjoyment while Cranly began to examine the chart, murmuring the names of the stations to himself and calculating time. In the end he seemed to arrive at some decision for he said to Stephen “Let us eke go.” Outside the station Stephen pulled his friend’s coat-sleeve and pointed to a newsbill which was exposed to public gaze on the roadway, held down at the corners by four stones.

  — Have you seen this?

  [Cranly] They stopped to read the [items] bill and four or five people also stopped to read it. Cranly read out the items in his flattest accent, beginning at the headline:

  EVENING TELEGRAPH

  [Meeting]

  Nationalist Meeting at Ballinrobe.

  Important Speeches.

  Main Drainage Scheme.

  Breezy Discussion.

  Death of a Well-known Solicitor

  Mad Cow at Cabra,

  Literature &.

  — Do you think it requires great ability to live that life successfully? asked Stephen when they were once more on the way.

  — I suppose you consider literature the most important thing

  — You take up that view of the world, I am sure, out of pure perversity. You try to prove me abnormal and diseased but it is as easy to prove that the well-known solicitor was diseased and abnormal. Insensibility is a mark of disease.

  — He may have been what you would call an artist.

  — Yes, of course . . . And as for the temptation which Satan was allowed to dangle before the eyes of Jesus it is, in reality, the most ineffectual temptation to offer to any man of genius. That well-known solicitor might succumb to it but for Jesus the kingdom of this world must have been a very empty phrase indeed — at least when he had outgrown a romantic youth. Satan, really, is the romantic youth of Jesus re-appearing for a moment. I had a romantic youth, too, when I thought it must be a grand thing to be a material Messias: that was the will of my father who will never be in heaven. But now such a thought arises in my mind only in moments of great physical weakness. So I regard that view of life as the abnormal view — for me. A few days ago I walked out to Howth for a swim and while I was going round the side of the Head I had to take a little ribbon of a path that hung high over the rocks .

  — What side of Howth?

  — Near the Bailey . . . Very good. As I looked down on those rocks beneath me the thought arose in my mind to cast myself down upon them. The thought made me shiver with pleasure for a moment but, of course, I recognised our old friend. All these temptations are of a piece. To Jesus, to me, to the excitable person who adopts brigandage or suicide after taking the suggestions of literature too seriously, Satan offers a monstrous life. It is monstrous because the seat of the spiritual principle of a man is not transferable to a material object. A man only pretends to think his hat more important than his head. That view of life, I consider, is abnormal.

  — You cannot call that abnormal which everyone does.

  — Does everyone jump off the Hill of Howth? Does everyone join secret societies? Does everyone sacrifice happiness and pleasure and peace to honour in the world? Father Artifoni told me of a society of mutual assistance in Italy the members of which had the right to be thrown into the Arno by their fellow-members on signing a paper proving that their case was past curing.

  At Noblett’s corner where they always halted, they found Temple declaiming to a little ring of young men. The young men were laughing very much at Temple who was very drunk. Stephen kept his eyes fixed on Temple’s shapeless mouth which at moments was flecked with a thin foam as it strove to enunciate a difficult word. Cranly stared at the group and said:

  — I’ll take my dyin’ bible Temple has been standing those medicals drinks . . . The bloody fool! . . .

  Temple caught sight of them and at once broke off his discourse to come over to them. One or two of the medicals followed him.

  — Good evening, said Temple, fumbling at his cap.

  — .

  The two medicals laughed while Temple began to search his pockets. During the search his mouth fell asunder.

  — Who has the money? said Cranly.

  The two medicals laughed and nodded towards Temple who desisted from his search disconsolately, saying:

  — Ah, by hell, . . . I was going to stand a drink . . . Ah, by hell! . . . Where’s the other bob I had? . . .

  One of the medicals said:

  — You changed it in Connery’s.

  The other medical said:

  — He got stuck in his first today. That’s why he went on the beer
tonight.

  — And where did you raise the money? said Cranly to Temple, who began to search his pockets again.

  — He popped his watch for ten bob.

  — It mustn’t be a bad watch, said Cranly, if he got ten bob on it. Where did he get ten bob?

  — Ah no! said the second medical. I popped it for him. I know a chap named Larkin in Granby Row.

  The big medical student who had had the political discussion in the with the clerk from the Agricultural Board Office came over to them and said:

  — Well, Temple, are you going to take us down to the kips?

  — Ah, blazes, said Temple, all my money’s gone . . . Ah, by hell, I must have a woman . . . By hell, I’ll ask for a woman on tick.

  The big student roared laughing and turning to Cranly, against whom he had a grudge on account of the affair in the he said:

  — Will you have a woman too if I stand?

  Cranly’s chastity was famous but the young men were not quite impressed by it. At the same time the [little] group did not betray its opinion by laughing at the big student’s invitation. Cranly did not answer; and so the second medical student said:

  — Mac got through!

  — What Mac? said Cranly.

  — Mac . . . you know . . . the Gaelic League chap. He brought us down to the kips last night.

  — And had you all women?

  — No . . .

  — What did you go there for?

  — He suggested we’d walk through. Fine tarts there, too. They were running after us, man: it was fine skit. Ay, and one of them hit Mac because she said he insulted her.

  — What did he do?

  — I don’t know. He said “Gellong, you dirty [whore] hure” or something like that.

  — And what did Mac say?

  — Said he’d charge her if she followed him any further.

  — Well, I’ll stand women all round if Cranly has one, said the big student who was in the habit of making a single inspiration serve him for a half-hour’s conversation.

  — Ah, by hell, said Temple suddenly, have you heard the new parable . . . about the monkeys in Barbary? . . . Mar . . . vellous parable . . . Flanagan told me . . . O, (he said to Stephen) he wants to be introduced to you . . . wants to know . . . Fine fellow . . . doesn’t care a damn for religion or priests . . . By hell, I’m a freethinker . . .

  — What is the parable? said Stephen.

  Temple took off his cap and, bareheaded, he began to recite after the fashion of a country priest, prolonging all the vowels [and] jerking out the phrases, and dropping his voice at every pause:

  — Dearly beloved Brethren: There was once a tribe of monkeys in Barbary. And . . . these monkeys were as numerous as the sands of the sea. They lived together in the woods in polygamous . . . intercourse . . . and reproduced . . . their species . . . But, behold there came into Barbary . . . the holy missionaries, the holy men of God . . . to redeem the people of Barbary. And these holy men preached to the people . . . and then . . . they went into the woods . . . far away into the woods . . . to pray to God. And they lived as hermits . . . in the woods . . . and praying to God. And, behold, the monkeys of Barbary who were in the trees . . . saw these holy men living as hermits . . . as lonely hermits . . . praying to God. And the monkeys who, my dearly beloved brethren, are imitative creatures . . . began to imitate the actions . . . of these holy men . . . and began to do likewise. And so . . . they [left their wives] separated from one another . . . and went away far away, to pray to God . . . and they did as they had seen the holy men do . . . and prayed to God . . . And . . . they did not return . . . any more . . . nor try to reproduce the species . . . And so . . . gradually. . . these po . . . or monkeys. . . grew fewer and fewer . . . and fewer and fewer . . . And today . . . there is no monkey in all Barbary.

  Temple crossed himself and replaced his hat while the audience began to clap their hands together. Just then a policeman moved on the group. Stephen said to Cranly:

  — Who is this Flanagan?

  Cranly did not answer but followed Temple and his companions, walking emphatically and saying “ ‘M, yes” to himself. They could hear Temple bemoaning his poverty to his companions and repeating snatches of his parable.

  — Who is this Flanagan? said Stephen again to Cranly.

  — Another bloody fool, said Cranly in a tone which left the comparison open.

  A few days later Cranly went to Wicklow. Stephen spent his summer with Maurice. He told his brother what troubles he anticipated when the college term reopened and together they discussed plans for living. Maurice suggested that the verses should be sent to a publisher.

  — I cannot send them to a publisher, said Stephen, because I have burned them.

  — Burned them!

  — Yes, said Stephen curtly, they were romantic.

  In the end they decided that it would be best to wait until Mr Fulham made his intentions known. Mrs Daedalus called one day to see Father Butt. She did not report her interview fully but Stephen understood that Father Butt had at first prescribed a clerkship in Guinness’s as a solution of the young man’s difficult case and, when Mrs Daedalus had shaken her head incredulously, he had asked to see Stephen. He had thrown out hints about some new arrangement of the college which would necessitate new appointments. These hints were fed upon by Stephen’s parents. The next day Stephen called to the college to see Father Butt.

  — O, come in, my dear boy, said Father Butt when Stephen appeared at the door of the little uncarpeted bedroom.

  Father Butt began to talk a great deal about general topics, without saying anything definite but asking Stephen over and over again for an expression of opinion which was always studiously withheld. The young man was very much bewildered. At last, after much rubbing of his chin and many blinkings of the eyes, Father Butt asked what were Stephen’s intentions .

  — Literature, said Stephen.

  — Yes, yes . . . of course . . . but meanwhile, I mean. . . of course you will continue your course until you have got a degree — that is the important point.

  — I may not be able, said Stephen, I suppose you know that my father is unable to . . .

  — Now, said Father Butt joyfully, I’m so glad you’ve come to the point . . . That is just it. The question is whether we can find anything for you to enable you to finish your course here. That is the question.

  Stephen said nothing. He was convinced that Father Butt had some offer or suggestion to make but he was determined not to help him in bringing it out. Father Butt continued blinking his eyes and rubbing his chin and murmuring to himself “That is the difficulty, you see.” In the end, as Stephen held his peace sacredly, Father Butt said:

  — There might be . . . it has just occurred to me . . . an appointment here in the college. One or two hours a day . . . that would be nothing . . . I think, yes . . . we shall be . . . let me see now . . . It would be no trouble to you . . . no teaching or drudgery, just an hour or so in the office here in the morning . . .

  Stephen said nothing. Father Butt rubbed his hands together and said:

  — Otherwise there would be a danger of your perishing . . . by inanition . . . Yes, a capital idea . . . I shall speak to Father Dillon this very night.

  Stephen, somewhat taken by surprise though he had anticipated some such proposal, murmured his thanks and Father Butt promised to send him a letter in the course of a day or two.

  Stephen did not give a very full account of this interview to his father and mother: he said that Father Butt had been vague and had suggested that he should look for tuitions. Mr. Daedalus thought this a highly practical notion:

  — If you will only keep your head straight you can get on. Keep in touch with those chaps, I tell you, those Jesuits: they can get you on fast enough. I am a few years older than you.

  — I am sure they will do their best to help you, said Mrs Daedalus.

  — I don’t want their help, said Stephen bitterly.

&
nbsp; Mr Daedalus put up his eyeglass and stared at his son and at his wife. His wife began an apology:

  — Give it up, woman, he said. I know the groove he has got into. But he’s not going to fool me nor his godfather, either. With the help of God I won’t be long till I let him know what a bloody nice atheist this fellow has turned out. Hold hard now a moment and leave it to me.

  Stephen answered that he did not want his godfather’s help either.

  — I know the groove you’re in, said his father. Didn’t I see you the morning of your poor sister’s funeral — don’t forget that? Unnatural bloody ruffian. By Christ I was ashamed of you that morning. You couldn’t behave like a gentleman or talk or do a bloody thing only slink over in a corner with the hearsedrivers and mutes by God. Who taught you to drink pints of plain porter, might I ask? Is that considered the proper thing for an a . . . artist to do?

  Stephen clasped his hands together and looked across at Maurice who was convulsed with laughter.