Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow
coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the
road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a
glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty
Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.
O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.
He sang that song. That was his song.
O, the green wothe botheth.
When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His
mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.
His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the
piano the sailor's hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:
Tralala lala
Tralala tralaladdy
Tralala lala
Tralala lala.
Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father
and mother but uncle Charles was older than Dante.
Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon
velvet back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet
back was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a
piece of tissue paper.
The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and
mother. They were Eileen's father and mother. When they were grown up he
was going to marry Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother said:
``O, Stephen will apologise.''
Dante said:
``O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes.''
Pull out his eyes,
Apologise,
Apologise,
Pull out his eyes.
Apologise,
Pull out his eyes,
Pull out his eyes,
Apologise.
* * *
Jack Lawton looked over from his side. The little silk badge with
the red rose on it looked very rich because he had a blue sailor top on.
Stephen felt his own face red too, thinking of all the bets about who
would get first place in elements, Jack Lawton or he. Some weeks Jack
Lawton got the card for first and some weeks he got the card for first.
His white silk badge fluttered and fluttered as he worked at the next sum
and heard Father Arnall's voice. Then all his eagerness passed away and he
felt his face quite cool. He thought his face must be white because it
felt so cool. He could not get out the answer for the sum but it did not
matter. White roses and red roses: those were beautiful colours to think
of. And the cards for first place and second place and third place were
beautiful colours too: pink and cream and lavender. Lavender and cream
and pink roses were beautiful to think of. Perhaps a wild rose might be
like those colours and he remembered the song about the wild rose blossoms
on the little green place. But you could not have a green rose. But
perhaps somewhere in the world you could.
* * *
Sitting in the studyhall he opened the lid of his desk and changed
the number pasted up inside from seventyseven to seventysix. But the
Christmas vacation was very far away: but one time it would come because
the earth moved round always.
There was a picture of the earth on the first page of his
geography: a big ball in the middle of clouds. Fleming had a box of
crayons and one night during free study he had coloured the earth green
and the clouds maroon. That was like the two brushes in Dante's press, the
brush with the green velvet back for Parnell and the brush with the maroon
velvet back for Michael Davitt. But he had not told Fleming to colour them
those colours. Fleming had done it himself.
He opened the geography to study the lesson; but he could not
learn the names of places in America. Still they were all different places
that had those different names. They were all in different countries and
the countries were in continents and the continents were in the world and
the world was in the universe.
He turned to the flyleaf of the geography and read what he had
written there: himself, his name and where he was.
Stephen Dedalus
Class of Elements
Clongowes Wood College
Sallins
County Kildare
Ireland
Europe
The World
The Universe
That was in his writing: and Fleming one night for a cod had
written on the opposite page:
Stephen Dedalus is my name,
Ireland is my name,
Clongowes is my dwelling place
And heaven my expectation.
He read the verses backwards but then they were not poetry. Then
he read the flyleaf from the bottom to the top till he came to his own
name. That was he: and he read down the page again. What was after the
universe? Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where
it stopped before the nothing place began? It could not be a wall but
there could be a thin thin line there all round everything. It was very
big to think about everything and everywhere. Only God could do that. He
tried to think what a big thought that must be but he could think only of
God. God was God's name just as his name was Stephen. Dieu was the French
for God and that was God's name too; and when anyone prayed to God and
said Dieu then God knew at once that it was a French person that was
praying. But though there were different names for God in all the
different languages in the world and God understood what all the people
who prayed said in their different languages still God remained always the
same God and God's real name was God.
It made him very tired to think that way. It made him feel his
head very big. He turned over the flyleaf and looked wearily at the green
round earth in the middle of the maroon clouds. He wondered which was
right, to be for the green or for the maroon, because Dante had ripped the
green velvet back off the brush that was for Parnell one day with her
scissors and had told him that Parnell was a bad man. He wondered if they
were arguing at home about that. That was called politics. There were two
sides in it: Dante was on one side and his father and Mr Casey were on the
other side but his mother and uncle Charles were on no side. Every day
there was something in the paper about it.
It pained him that he did not know well what politics meant and
that he did not know where the universe ended. He felt small and weak.
When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric? They had big
voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry. That was very far
away. First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation
again and then again another term and then again the vacation. It was like
a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of the
boys eating in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps of the
ears. Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop. How far away it was! It
was better to go to bed to sleep. Only prayers in the chapel and then bed.
He shivered and yawned. It would be lovely in bed after the sheets got a
bit hot. First they were so cold to get into. He shivered to think how
cold they were first. But then they got hot and then he could sleep. It
was lovely to be tired. He yawned again. Night prayers and then bed: he
shivered and wanted to yawn. It would be lovely in a few minutes. He felt
a warm glow creeping up from the cold shivering sheets, warmer and warmer
till he felt warm all over, ever so warm; ever so warm and yet he shivered
a little and still wanted to yawn.
* * *
It was his first Christmas dinner and he thought of his little
brothers and sisters who were waiting in the nursery, as he had often
waited, till the pudding came. The deep low collar and the Eton jacket
made him feel queer and oldish: and that morning when his mother had
brought him down to the parlour, dressed for mass, his father had cried.
That was because he was thinking of his own father. And uncle Charles had
said so too.
Mr Dedalus covered the dish and began to eat hungrily. Then he
said:
``Poor old Christy, he's nearly lopsided now with roguery.''
``Simon,'' said Mrs Dedalus, ``you haven't given Mrs Riordan any
sauce.''
Mr Dedalus seized the sauceboat.
``Haven't I?'' he cried. ``Mrs Riordan, pity the poor blind.''
Dante covered her plate with her hands and said:
``No, thanks.''
Mr Dedalus turned to uncle Charles.
``How are you off, sir?''
``Right as the mail, Simon.''
``You, John?''
``I'm all right. Go on yourself.''
``Mary? Here, Stephen, here's something to make your hair curl.''
He poured sauce freely over Stephen's plate and set the boat again
on the table. Then he asked uncle Charles was it tender. Uncle Charles
could not speak because his mouth was full but he nodded that it was.
``That was a good answer our friend made to the canon. What? said
Mr Dedalus.''
``I didn't think he had that much in him, said Mr Casey.''
``I'll pay you your dues, father, when you cease turning the house
of God into a pollingbooth.''
``A nice answer, said Dante, for any man calling himself a
catholic to give to his priest.''
``They have only themselves to blame,'' said Mr Dedalus suavely.
``If they took a fool's advice they would confine their attention to
religion.''
``It is religion,'' Dante said. ``They are doing their duty in
warning the people.''
``We go to the house of God,'' Mr Casey said, ``in all humility to
pray to our Maker and not to hear election addresses.''
``It is religion,'' Dante said again. ``They are right. They must
direct their flocks.''
``And preach politics from the altar, is it?'' asked Mr Dedalus.
``Certainly,'' said Dante. ``It is a question of public morality.
A priest would not be a priest if he did not tell his flock what is right
and what is wrong.''
Mrs Dedalus laid down her knife and fork, saying:
``For pity's sake and for pity sake let us have no political
discussion on this day of all days in the year.''
``Quite right, ma'am,'' said uncle Charles. ``Now, Simon, that's
quite enough now. Not another word now.''
``Yes, yes,'' said Mr Dedalus quickly.
He uncovered the dish boldly and said:
``Now then, who's for more turkey?''
Nobody answered. Dante said:
``Nice language for any catholic to use!''
``Mrs Riordan, I appeal to you,'' said Mrs Dedalus, ``to let the
matter drop now.''
Dante turned on her and said:
``And am I to sit here and listen to the pastors of my church
being flouted?''
``Nobody is saying a word against them, said Mr Dedalus, so long
as they don't meddle in politics.''
``The bishops and priests of Ireland have spoken,'' said Dante,
``and they must be obeyed.''
``Let them leave politics alone,'' said Mr Casey, ``or the people
may leave their church alone.''
``You hear?'' said Dante turning to Mrs Dedalus.
``Mr Casey! Simon!'' said Mrs Dedalus. ``Let it end now.''
``Too bad! Too bad!'' said uncle Charles.
``What?'' cried Mr Dedalus. ``Were we to desert him at the bidding
of the English people?''
``He was no longer worthy to lead, said Dante. He was a public
sinner.''
``We are all sinners and black sinners,'' said Mr Casey coldly.
``Woe be to the man by whom the scandal cometh! said Mrs Riordan.
It would he better for him that a millstone were tied about his neck and
that he were cast into the depth of the sea rather than that he should
scandalise one of these, my least little ones. That is the language of the
Holy Ghost.''
``And very bad language if you ask me,'' said Mr Dedalus coolly.
``Simon! Simon!'' said uncle Charles. ``The boy.''
``Yes, yes, said Mr Dedalus. I meant about the... I was thinking
about the bad language of that railway porter. Well now, that's all right.
Here, Stephen, show me your plate, old chap. Eat away now. Here.''
* * *
He was for Ireland and Parnell and so was his father: and so was
Dante too for one night at the band on the esplanade she had hit a
gentleman on the head with her umbrella because he had taken off his hat
when the band played God save the Queen at the end.
Mr Dedalus gave a snort of contempt.
``Ah, John,'' he said. ``It is true for them. We are an
unfortunate priestridden race and always were and always will be the end
of the chapter.''
Uncle Charles shook his head, saying:
``A bad business! A bad business!''
Mr. Dedalus repeated:
``A priestridden Godforsaken race!''
He pointed to the portrait of his grandfather on the wall to his
right.
``Do you see that old chap up there, John?'' he said. ``He was a
good Irishman when there was no money in the job. He was condemned to
death as a whiteboy. But he had a saying about our clerical friends, that
he would never let one of them put his two feet under his mahogany.''
Dante broke in angrily:
``If we are a priestridden race we ought to be proud of it! They
are the apple of God's eye. Touch them not, says Christ, for they are the
apple of My eye.''
``And can we not love our country then? asked Mr Casey. Are we not
to follow the man that was born to lead us?''
`` A traitor to his country!'' replied Dante. ``A traitor, an
adulterer! The priests were right to abandon him. The priests were
always the true friends of Ireland.''
``Were they, faith?'' said Mr Casey.
He threw his fist on the table and, frowning angrily, protruded
one finger after another.
``Didn't the bishops of Ireland betray us in the time of the union
when bishop Lanigan presented an address of loyalty to the Marquess
Cornwallis? Didn't the bishops and priests sell the aspirations of their
country in 1829 in return for catholic emancipation? Didn't they denounce
the fenian movement from the pulpit and in the confessionbox? And didn't
they dishonour the ashes of Terence Bellew MacManus?''
His face was glowing with anger and Stephen felt the glow rise to
his own cheek as the spoken words thrilled him. Mr Dedalus uttered a
guffaw of coarse scorn.
``O, by God, he cried, I forgot little old Paul Cullen! Another
apple of God's eye!''
Dante bent across the table and cried to Mr Casey:
``Right! Right! They were always right! God and morality and
religion come first.''
Mrs Dedalus, seeing her excitement, said to her:
``Mrs Riordan, don't excite yourself answering them.''
``God and religion before everything! Dante cried. God and
religion before the world!''
Mr Casey raised his clenched fist and brought it down on the table
with a crash.
``Very well, then,'' he shouted hoarsely, ``if it comes to that,
no God for Ireland!''
``John! John!'' cried Mr Dedalus, seizing his guest by the
coatsleeve.
Dante stared across the table, her cheeks shaking. Mr Casey
struggled up from his chair and bent across the table towards her,
scraping the air from before his eyes with one hand as though he were
tearing aside a cobweb.
``No God for Ireland!'' he cried. ``We have had too much God in
Ireland. Away with God!''
``Blasphemer! Devil!'' screamed Dante, starting to her feet and
almost spitting in his face.
Uncle Charles and Mr Dedalus pulled Mr Casey back into his chair
again, talking to him from both sides reasonably. He stared before him out
of his dark flaming eyes, repeating:
``Away with God, I say!''
Dante shoved her chair violently aside and left the table,
upsetting her napkinring which rolled slowly along the carpet and came to
rest against the foot of an easychair. Mrs Dedalus rose quickly and
followed her towards the door. At the door Dante turned round violently
and shouted down the room, her cheeks flushed and quivering with rage:
``Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend!''
The door slammed behind her.
Mr Casey, freeing his arms from his holders, suddenly bowed his
head on his hands with a sob of pain.
``Poor Parnell! he cried loudly. My dead king!''
He sobbed loudly and bitterly.
Stephen, raising his terrorstricken face, saw that his father's
eyes were full of tears.
* * *
He poked one of the boys in the side with the pandybat, saying:
``You, boy! When will Father Dolan be in again?''
``Tomorrow, sir,'' said Tom Furlong's voice.
``Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, said the prefect of studies.
Make up your minds for that. Every day Father Dolan. Write away. You, boy,
who are you?''
Stephen's heart jumped suddenly.
``Dedalus, sir.''
``Why are you not writing like the others?''
``I... my...''
He could not speak with fright.
``Why is he not writing, Father Arnall?''
``He broke his glasses, said Father Arnall, and I exempted him
from work.''
``Broke? What is this I hear? What is this your name is?'' said
the prefect of studies.
``Dedalus, sir.''
``Out here, Dedalus. Lazy little schemer. I see schemer in your
face. Where did you break your glasses?''
Stephen stumbled into the middle of the class, blinded by fear and
haste.
``Where did you break your glasses? repeated the prefect of
studies.''
``The cinderpath, sir.''
``Hoho! The cinderpath!'' cried the prefect of studies. ``I know
that trick.
Stephen lifted his eyes in wonder and saw for a moment Father
Dolan's whitegrey not young face, his baldy whitegrey head with fluff at
the sides of it, the steel rims of his spectacles and his nocoloured eyes
looking through the glasses. Why did he say he knew that trick?
``Lazy idle little loafer! cried the prefect of studies. Broke my
glasses! An old schoolboy trick! Out with your hand this moment!''
Stephen closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand
with the palm upwards. He felt the prefect of studies touch it for a
moment at the fingers to straighten it and then the swish of the sleeve of
the soutane as the pandybat was lifted to strike. A hot burning stinging
tingling blow like the loud crack of a broken stick made his trembling
hand crumple together like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the
pain scalding tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking
with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning livid hand shook
like a loose leaf in the air. A cry sprang to his lips, a prayer to be let
off. But though the tears scalded his eyes and his limbs quivered with
pain and fright he held back the hot tears and the cry that scalded his
throat.
``Other hand!'' shouted the prefect of studies.
Stephen drew back his maimed and quivering right arm and held out
his left hand. The soutane sleeve swished again as the pandybat was lifted
and a loud crashing sound and a fierce maddening tingling burning pain
made his hand shrink together with the palms and fingers in a livid
quivering mass. The scalding water burst forth from his eyes and, burning
with shame and agony and fear, he drew back his shaking arm in terror and
burst out into a whine of pain. His body shook with a palsy of fright and
in shame and rage he felt the scalding cry come from his throat and the
scalding tears falling out of his eyes and down his flaming cheeks.
``Kneel down!'' cried the prefect of studies.
Stephen knelt down quickly pressing his beaten hands to his sides.
To think of them beaten and swollen with pain all in a moment made him
feel so sorry for them as if they were not his own but someone else's that
he felt sorry for. And as he knelt, calming the last sobs in his throat
and feeling the burning tingling pain pressed in to his sides, he thought
of the hands which he had held out in the air with the palms up and of the
firm touch of the prefect of studies when he had steadied the shaking
fingers and of the beaten swollen reddened mass of palm and fingers that
shook helplessly in the air.
``Get at your work, all of you, cried the prefect of studies from
the door. Father Dolan will be in every day to see if any boy, any lazy
idle little loafer wants flogging. Every day. Every day.''
The door closed behind him.
The hushed class continued to copy out the themes. Father Arnall
rose from his seat and went among them, helping the boys with gentle words
and telling them the mistakes they had made. His voice was very gentle and
soft. Then he returned to his seat and said to Fleming and Stephen:
``You may return to your places, you two.''
Fleming and Stephen rose and, walking to their seats, sat down.
Stephen, scarlet with shame, opened a book quickly with one weak hand and
bent down upon it, his face close to the page.
It was unfair and cruel because the doctor had told him not to
read without glasses and he had written home to his father that morning to
send him a new pair. And Father Arnall had said that he need not study
till the new glasses came. Then to be called a schemer before the class
and to be pandied when he always got the card for first or second and was
the leader of the Yorkists! How could the prefect of studies know that it
was a trick? He felt the touch of the prefect's fingers as they had
steadied his hand and at first he had thought he was going to shake hands
with him because the fingers were soft and firm: but then in an instant he
had heard the swish of the soutane sleeve and the crash. It was cruel and
unfair to make him kneel in the middle of the class then: and Father
Arnall had told them both that they might return to their places without
making any difference between them. He listened to Father Arnall's low
and gentle voice as he corrected the themes. Perhaps he was sorry now and
wanted to be decent. But it was unfair and cruel. The prefect of studies
was a priest but that was cruel and unfair. And his whitegrey face and the
nocoloured eyes behind the steelrimmed spectacles were cruel looking
because he had steadied the hand first with his firm soft fingers and that
was to hit it better and louder.
``It's a stinking mean thing, that's what it is, said Fleming in
the corridor as the classes were passing out in file to the refectory, to
pandy a fellow for what is not his fault.''
``You really broke your glasses by accident, didn't you?'' Nasty
Roche asked.
Stephen felt his heart filled by Fleming's words and did not
answer.
``Of course he did! said Fleming. I wouldn't stand it. I'd go up
and tell the rector on him.''
``Yes, said Cecil Thunder eagerly, and I saw him lift the pandybat
over his shoulder and he's not allowed to do that.''
``Did they hurt much?'' Nasty Roche asked.
``Very much,'' Stephen said.
``I wouldn't stand it,'' Fleming repeated, ``from Baldyhead or any
other Baldyhead. It's a stinking mean low trick, that's what it is. I'd go
straight up to the rector and tell him about it after dinner.''
``Yes, do. Yes, do,'' said Cecil Thunder.
``Yes, do. Yes, go up and tell the rector on him, Dedalus, said
Nasty Roche, because he said that he'd come in tomorrow again to pandy
you.''
``Yes, yes. Tell the rector, all said.''
And there were some fellows out of second of grammar listening and
one of them said:
``The senate and the Roman people declared that Dedalus had been
wrongly punished.''
It was wrong; it was unfair and cruel: and, as he sat in the
refectory, he suffered time after time in memory the same humiliation
until he began to wonder whether it might not really be that there was
something in his face which made him look like a schemer and he wished he
had a little mirror to see. But there could not be; and it was unjust and
cruel and unfair.
He could not eat the blackish fish fritters they got on Wednesdays
in Lent and one of his potatoes had the mark of the spade in it. Yes, he
would do what the fellows had told him. He would go up and tell the rector
that he had been wrongly punished. A thing like that had been done before
by somebody in history, by some great person whose head was in the books
of history. And the rector would declare that he had been wrongly punished
because the senate and the Roman people always declared that the men who
did that had been wrongly punished. Those were the great men whose names
were in Richmal Magnall's Questions. History was all about those men and
what they did and that was what Peter Parley's Tales about Greece and Rome
were all about. Peter Parley himself was on the first page in a picture.
There was a road over a heath with grass at the side and little bushes:
and Peter Parley had a broad hat like a protestant minister and a big
stick and he was walking fast along the road to Greece and Rome.
It was easy what he had to do. All he had to do was when the
dinner was over and he came out in his turn to go on walking but not out
to the corridor but up the staircase on the right that led to the castle.
He had nothing to do but that: to turn to the right and walk fast up the
staircase and in half a minute he would be in the low dark narrow corridor
that led through the castle to the rector's room. And every fellow had
said that it was unfair, even the fellow out of second of grammar who had
said that about the senate and the Roman people.
What would happen? He heard the fellows of the higher line stand
up at the top of the refectory and heard their steps as they came down the
matting: Paddy Rath and Jimmy Magee and the Spaniard and the Portuguese
and the fifth was big Corrigan who was going to be flogged by Mr Gleeson.
That was why the prefect of studies had called him a schemer and pandied
him for nothing: and, straining his weak eyes, tired with the tears, he
watched big Corrigan's broad shoulders and big hanging black head passing
in the file. But he had done something and besides Mr Gleeson would not
flog him hard: and he remembered how big Corrigan looked in the bath. He
had skin the same colour as the turfcoloured bogwater in the shallow end
of the bath and when he walked along the side his feet slapped loudly on
the wet tiles and at every step his thighs shook a little because he was
fat.
The refectory was half empty and the fellows were still passing
out in file. He could go up the staircase because there was never a priest
or a prefect outside the refectory door. But he could not go. The rector
would side with the prefect of studies and think it was a schoolboy trick
and then the prefect of studies would come in every day the same only it
would be worse because he would be dreadfully waxy at any fellow going up
to the rector about him. The fellows had told him to go but they would not
go themselves. They had forgotten all about it. No, it was best to forget
all about it and perhaps the prefect of studies had only said he would
come in. No, it was best to hide out of the way because when you were
small and young you could often escape that way.
The fellows at his table stood up. He stood up and passed out
among them in the file. He had to decide. He was coming near the door. If
he went on with the fellows he could never go up to the rector because he
could not leave the playground for that. And if he went and was pandied
all the same all the fellows would make fun and talk about young Dedalus
going up to the rector to tell on the prefect of studies.
He was walking down along the matting and he saw the door before
him. It was impossible: he could not. He thought of the baldy head of the
prefect of studies with the cruel nocoloured eyes looking at him and he
heard the voice of the prefect of studies asking him twice what his name
was. Why could he not remember the name when he was told the first time?
Was he not listening the first time or was it to make fun out of the name?
The great men in the history had names like that and nobody made fun of
them. It was his own name that he should have made fun of if he wanted to
make fun. Dolan: it was like the name of a woman that washed clothes.
He had reached the door and, turning quickly up to the right,
walked up the stairs and, before he could make up his mind to come back,
he had entered the low dark narrow corridor that led to the castle. And as
he crossed the threshold of the door of the corridor he saw, without
turning his head to look, that all the fellows were looking after him as
they went filing by.
He passed along the narrow dark corridor, passing little doors
that were the doors of the rooms of the community. He peered in front of
him and right and left through the gloom and thought that those must be
portraits. It was dark and silent and his eyes were weak and tired with
tears so that he could not see. But he thought they were the portraits of
the saints and great men of the order who were looking down on him
silently as he passed: saint Ignatius Loyola holding an open book and
pointing to the words Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam in it, saint Francis Xavier
pointing to his chest, Lorenzo Ricci with his berretta on his head like
one of the prefects of the lines, the three patrons of holy youth, saint
Stanislaus Kostka, saint Aloysius Gonzaga and blessed John Berchmans, all
with young faces because they died when they were young, and Father Peter
Kenny sitting in a chair wrapped in a big cloak.
He came out on the landing above the entrance hall and looked
about him. That was where Hamilton Rowan had passed and the marks of the
soldiers' slugs were there. And it was there that the old servants had
seen the ghost in the white cloak of a marshal.
An old servant was sweeping at the end of the landing. He asked
him where was the rector's room and the old servant pointed to the door at
the far end and looked after him as he went on to it and knocked.
There was no answer. He knocked again more loudly and his heart
jumped when he heard a muffled voice say:
``Come in!''
He turned the handle and opened the door and fumbled for the
handle of the green baize door inside. He found it and pushed it open and
went in.
* * *
On Sundays Stephen with his father and his granduncle took their
constitutional. The old man was a nimble walker in spite of his corns and
often ten or twelve miles of the road were covered. The little village of
Stillorgan was the parting of the ways. Either they went to the left
towards the Dublin mountains or along the Goatstown road and thence into
Dundrum, coming home by Sandyford. Trudging along the road or standing in
some grimy wayside publichouse 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 said over and over to himself till he had learned
them by heart: and through them he had glimpses of the real world about
him. The hour when he too would take part in the life of that world seemed
drawing near and in secret he began to make ready for the great part which
he felt awaited him the nature of which he only dimly apprehended.
His evenings were his own; and he pored over a ragged translation
of The Count of Monte Cristo. The figure of that dark avenger stood forth
in his mind for whatever he had heard or divined in childhood 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 golden paper in which
chocolate is wrapped. When he had broken up this scenery, weary of its
tinsel, there would come to his mind the bright picture of Marseilles, of
sunny trellisses and of Mercedes. Outside Blackrock, on the road that led
to the mountains, stood a small whitewashed house in the garden of which
grew many rosebushes: and in this house, he told himself, another Mercedes
lived. Both on the 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 which there appeared an image of himself, grown older and sadder,
standing in a moonlit garden with Mercedes who had so many years before
slighted his love, and with a sadly proud gesture of refusal, saying:
``Madam, I never eat muscatel grapes.''
* * *
This spirit of quarrelsome comradeship which he had observed
lately in his rival had not seduced Stephen from his habits of quiet
obedience. He mistrusted the turbulence and doubted the sincerity of such
comradeship which seemed to him a sorry anticipation of manhood. The
question of honour here raised was, like all such questions, trivial to
him. While his mind had been pursuing its intangible phantoms and turning
in irresolution from such pursuit he had heard about him the constant
voices of his father and of 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 hollowsounding 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 fallen language and
tradition. In the profane world, as he foresaw, a worldly voice would bid
him raise up his father's fallen state by his labours and, meanwhile, the
voice of his school comrades urged him to be a decent fellow, to shield
others from blame or to beg them off and to do his best to get free days
for the school. And it was the din of all these hollowsounding voices that
made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms. He gave them ear
only for a time but he was happy only when he was far from them, beyond
their call, alone or in the company of phantasmal comrades.
* * *
``Last and crowning torture of all the tortures of that awful
place is the eternity of hell. Eternity! O, dread and dire word. Eternity!
What mind of man can understand it? And, remember, it is an eternity of
pain. Even though the pains of hell were not so terrible as they are yet
they would become infinite as they are destined to last for ever. But
while they are everlasting they are at the same time, as you know,
intolerably intense, unbearably extensive. To bear even the sting of an
insect for all eternity would be a dreadful torment. What must it be,
then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell for ever? For ever! For all
eternity! Not for a year or for an age but for ever. Try to imagine the
awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How
fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to
make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a
mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to
the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest
space, and a million miles in thickness: and imagine such an enormous mass
of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in
the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales
on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and
imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that
mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many
millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had
carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons
of ages before it had carried away all. Yet at the end of that immense
stretch of time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have
ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity
would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had
been all carried away and if the bird came again and carried it all away
again grain by grain: and if it so rose and sank as many times as there
are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves
on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals,
at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that
immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be
said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that
eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily,
eternity would have scarcely begun.
* * *
This idea of surrender had a perilous attraction for his mind now
that he felt his soul beset once again by the insistent voices of the
flesh which began to murmur to him again during his prayers and
meditations. It gave him an intense sense of power to know that he could
by a single act of consent, in a moment of thought, undo all that he had
done. He seemed to feel a flood slowly advancing towards his naked feet
and to be waiting for the first faint timid noiseless wavelet to touch his
fevered skin. Then, almost at the instant of that touch, almost at the
verge of sinful consent, he found himself standing far away from the flood
upon a dry shore, saved by a sudden act of the will or a sudden
ejaculation: and, seeing the silver line of the flood far away and
beginning again its slow advance towards his feet, a new thrill of power
and satisfaction shook his soul to know that he had not yielded nor undone
all.
When he had eluded the flood of temptation many times in this way
he grew troubled and wondered whether the grace which he had refused to
lose was not being filched from him little by little. The clear certitude
of his own immunity grew dim and to it succeeded a vague fear that his
soul had really fallen unawares. It was with difficulty that he won back
his old consciousness of his state of grace by telling himself that he had
prayed to God at every temptation and that the grace which he had prayed
for must have been given to him inasmuch as God was obliged to give it.
The very frequency and violence of temptations showed him at last the
truth of what he had heard about the trials of the saints. Frequent and
violent temptations were a proof that the citadel of the soul had not
fallen and that the devil raged to make it fall.
* * *
She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his
presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet
sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she
suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent
them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither
and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the
silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; hither
and thither, hither and thither: and a faint flame trembled on her cheek.
``Heavenly God!'' cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane
joy.
He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand.
His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On
and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to
the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken
the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had
leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life
out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth
and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before
him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory.
On and on and on and on!
* * *
They lit their cigarettes and turned to the right. After a pause
Stephen began:
``Aristotle has not defined pity and terror. I have. I say...''
Lynch halted and said bluntly:
``Stop! I won't listen! I am sick. I was out last night on a
yellow drunk with Horan and Goggins.''
Stephen went on:
``Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of
whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with
the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the
presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and
unites it with the secret cause.''
``Repeat,'' said Lynch.
Stephen repeated the definitions slowly.
``A girl got into a hansom a few days ago, he went on, in London.
She was on her way to meet her mother whom she had not seen for many
years. At the corner of a street the shaft of a lorry shivered the window
of the hansom in the shape of a star. A long fine needle of the shivered
glass pierced her heart. She died on the instant. The reporter called it a
tragic death. It is not. It is remote from terror and pity according to
the terms of my definitions.''
``The tragic emotion, in fact, is a face looking two ways, towards
terror and towards pity, both of which are phases of it. You see I use the
word arrest. I mean that the tragic emotion is static. Or rather the
dramatic emotion is. The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic,
desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something;
loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. These are kinetic
emotions. The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are
therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion (I use the general term) is
therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and
loathing.''
* * *
``But what is beauty?'' asked Lynch impatiently. ``Out with
another definition. Something we see and like! Is that the best you and
Aquinas can do?''
``Let us take woman,'' said Stephen.
``Let us take her!'' said Lynch fervently.
``The Greek, the Turk, the Chinese, the Copt, the Hottentot,''
said Stephen, ``all admire a different type of female beauty. That seems
to be a maze out of which we cannot escape. I see however two ways out.
One is this hypothesis: that every physical quality admired by men in
women is in direct connection with the manifold functions of women for the
propagation of the species. It may be so. The world, it seems, is drearier
than even you, Lynch, imagined. For my part I dislike that way out. It
leads to eugenics rather than to esthetic. It leads you out of the maze
into a new gaudy lectureroom where MacCann, with one hand on The Origin of
Species and the other hand on the new testament, tells you that you
admired the great flanks of Venus because you felt that she would bear you
burly offspring and admired her great breasts because you felt that she
would give good milk to her children and yours.''
``Then MacCann is a sulphuryellow liar,'' said Lynch
energetically.
``There remains another way out,'' said Stephen, laughing.
``To wit?'' said Lynch.
``This hypothesis,'' Stephen began.
A long dray laden with old iron came round the corner of sir
Patrick Dun's hospital covering the end of Stephen's speech with the harsh
roar of jangled and rattling metal. Lynch closed his ears and gave out
oath after oath till the dray had passed. Then he turned on his heel
rudely. Stephen turned also and waited for a few moments till his
companion's illhumour had had its vent.
``This hypothesis, Stephen repeated, is the other way out: that,
though the same object may not seem beautiful to all people, all people
who admire a beautiful object find in it certain relations which satisfy
and coincide with the stages themselves of all esthetic apprehension.
These relations of the sensible, visible to you through one form and to me
through another, must be therefore the necessary qualities of beauty.''
* * *
``What I have said, he began again, refers to beauty in the wider
sense of the word, in the sense which the word has in the literary
tradition. In the marketplace it has another sense. When we speak of
beauty in the second sense of the term our judgment is influenced in the
first place by the art itself and by the form of that art. The image, it
is clear, must be set between the mind or senses of the artist himself and
the mind or senses of others. If you bear this in memory you will see that
art necessarily divides itself into three forms progressing from one to
the next. These forms are: the lyrical form, the form wherein the artist
presents his image in immediate relation to himself; the epical form, the
form wherein he presents his image in mediate relation to himself and to
others; the dramatic form, the form wherein he presents his image in
immediate relation to others.''
``That you told me a few nights ago,'' said Lynch, ``and we began
the famous discussion.''
``I have a book at home, said Stephen, in which I have written
down questions which are more amusing than yours were. In finding the
answers to them I found the theory of esthetic which I am trying to
explain. Here are some questions I set myself: Is a chair finely made
tragic or comic? Is the Portrait of Mona Lisa good if I desire to see it?
Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical, epical or dramatic? Can
excrement or a child or a louse be a work of art? If not, why not?''
``Why not, indeed? said Lynch, laughing.''
``If a man hacking in fury at a block of wood, Stephen continued,
make there an image of a cow, is that image a work of art? If not, why
not?''
``That's a lovely one,'' said Lynch, laughing again. ``That has
the true scholastic stink.''
``Lessing,'' said Stephen, ``should not have taken a group of
statues to write of. The art, being inferior, does not present the forms I
spoke of distinguished clearly one from another. Even in literature, the
highest and most spiritual art, the forms are often confused. The lyrical
form is in fact the simplest verbal vesture of an instant of emotion, a
rhythmical cry such as ages ago cheered on the man who pulled at the oar
or dragged stones up a slope. He who utters it is more conscious of the
instant of emotion than of himself as feeling emotion. The simplest epical
form is seen emerging out of lyrical literature when the artist prolongs
and broods upon himself as the centre of an epical event and this form
progresses till the centre of emotional gravity is equidistant from the
artist himself and from others. The narrative is no longer purely
personal. The personality of the artist passes into the narration itself,
flowing round and round the persons and the action like a vital sea. This
progress you will see easily in that old English ballad Turpin Hero which
begins in the first person and ends in the third person. The dramatic form
is reached when the vitality which has flowed and eddied round each person
fills every person with such vital force that he or she assumes a proper
and intangible esthetic life. The personality of the artist, at first a
cry or a cadence or a mood and then a fluid and lambent narrative, finally
refines itself out of existence, impersonalises itself, so to speak. The
esthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojected
from the human imagination. The mystery of esthetic like that of material
creation is accomplished. The artist, like the God of the creation,
remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible,
refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.''
* * *
``Look here, Cranly,'' he said. ``You have asked me what I would
do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will
not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call
itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express
myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I
can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence,
exile, and cunning.''
* * *