No More Learning

But that was not why

A voice from far out on the playground cried:

--All in!

And other voices cried:

--All in! All in!

During the writing lesson he sat with his arms folded, listening to the
slow scraping of the pens. Mr Harford went to and fro making little
signs in red pencil and sometimes sitting beside the boy to show him
how to hold his pen. He had tried to spell out the headline for himself
though he knew already what it was for it was the last of the book.
ZEAL WITHOUT PRUDENCE IS LIKE A SHIP ADRIFT. But the lines of the
letters were like fine invisible threads and it was only by closing his
right eye tight and staring out of the left eye that he could make out
the full curves of the capital.

But Mr Harford was very decent and never got into a wax. All the other
masters got into dreadful waxes. But why were they to suffer for what
fellows in the higher line did? Wells had said that they had drunk some
of the altar wine out of the press in the sacristy and that it had been
found out who had done it by the smell. Perhaps they had stolen a
monstrance to run away with and sell it somewhere. That must have been
a terrible sin, to go in there quietly at night, to open the dark press
and steal the flashing gold thing into which God was put on the altar
in the middle of flowers and candles at benediction while the incense
went up in clouds at both sides as the fellow swung the censer and
Dominic Kelly sang the first part by himself in the choir. But God was
not in it of course when they stole it. But still it was a strange and
a great sin even to touch it. He thought of it with deep awe; a
terrible and strange sin: it thrilled him to think of it in the silence
when the pens scraped lightly. But to drink the altar wine out of the
press and be found out by the smell was a sin too: but it was not
terrible and strange. It only made you feel a little sickish on account
of the smell of the wine. Because on the day when he had made his first
holy communion in the chapel he had shut his eyes and opened his mouth
and put out his tongue a little: and when the rector had stooped down
to give him the holy communion he had smelt a faint winy smell off the
rector's breath after the wine of the mass. The word was beautiful:
wine. It made you think of dark purple because the grapes were dark
purple that grew in Greece outside houses like white temples. But the
faint smell of the rector's breath had made him feel a sick feeling on
the morning of his first communion. The day of your first communion was
the happiest day of your life. And once a lot of generals had asked
Napoleon what was the happiest day of his life. They thought he would
say the day he won some great battle or the day he was made an emperor.
But he said:

--Gentlemen, the happiest day of my life was the day on which I made
my first holy communion.

Father Arnall came in and the Latin lesson began and he remained still,
leaning on the desk with his arms folded. Father Arnall gave out the
theme-books and he said that they were scandalous and that they were
all to be written out again with the corrections at once. But the worst
of all was Fleming's theme because the pages were stuck together by a
blot: and Father Arnall held it up by a corner and said it was an
insult to any master to send him up such a theme. Then he asked Jack
Lawton to decline the noun MARE and Jack Lawton stopped at the ablative
singular and could not go on with the plural.

--You should be ashamed of yourself, said Father Arnall sternly. You,
the leader of the class!

Then he asked the next boy and the next and the next. Nobody knew.
Father Arnall became very quiet, more and more quiet as each boy tried
to answer it and could not. But his face was black-looking and
his eyes were staring though his voice was so quiet. Then he asked
Fleming and Fleming said that the word had no plural. Father Arnall
suddenly shut the book and shouted at him:

--Kneel out there in the middle of the class. You are one of the
idlest boys I ever met. Copy out your themes again the rest of you.

Fleming moved heavily out of his place and knelt between the two last
benches. The other boys bent over their theme-books and began to write.
A silence filled the classroom and Stephen, glancing timidly at Father
Arnall's dark face, saw that it was a little red from the wax he was in.

Was that a sin for Father Arnall to be in a wax or was he allowed to
get into a wax when the boys were idle because that made them study
better or was he only letting on to be in a wax? It was because he was
allowed, because a priest would know what a sin was and would not do
it. But if he did it one time by mistake what would he do to go to
confession? Perhaps he would go to confession to the minister. And if
the minister did it he would go to the rector: and the rector to the
provincial: and the provincial to the general of the jesuits. That was
called the order: and he had heard his father say that they were all
clever men. They could all have become high-up people in the world if
they had not become jesuits. And he wondered what Father Arnall and
Paddy Barrett would have become and what Mr McGlade and Mr Gleeson
would have become if they had not become jesuits. It was hard to think
what because you would have to think of them in a different way with
different coloured coats and trousers and with beards and moustaches
and different kinds of hats.

The door opened quietly and closed. A quick whisper ran through the
class: the prefect of studies. There was an instant of dead silence and
then the loud crack of a pandybat on the last desk. Stephen's heart
leapt up in fear.

--Any boys want flogging here, Father Arnall? cried the prefect of
studies. Any lazy idle loafers that want flogging in this class?

He came to the middle of the class and saw Fleming on his knees.

--Hoho! he cried. Who is this boy? Why is he on his knees? What is
your name, boy?

--Fleming, sir.

--Hoho, Fleming! An idler of course. I can see it in your eye. Why is
he on his knees, Father Arnall?

--He wrote a bad Latin theme, Father Arnall said, and he missed all
the questions in grammar.

--Of course he did! cried the prefect of studies, of course he did! A
born idler! I can see it in the corner of his eye.

He banged his pandybat down on the desk and cried:

--Up, Fleming! Up, my boy!

Fleming stood up slowly.

--Hold out! cried the prefect of studies.

Fleming held out his hand. The pandybat came down on it with a loud
smacking sound: one, two, three, four, five, six.

--Other hand!

The pandybat came down again in six loud quick smacks.

--Kneel down! cried the prefect of studies.

Fleming knelt down, squeezing his hands under his armpits, his face
contorted with pain; but Stephen knew how hard his hands were because
Fleming was always rubbing rosin into them. But perhaps he was in great
pain for the noise of the pandybat was terrible. Stephen's heart was
beating and fluttering.

--At your work, all of you! shouted the prefect of studies. We want no
lazy idle loafers here, lazy idle little schemers. At your work, I tell
you. Father Dolan will be in to see you every day. Father Dolan will be
in tomorrow.

He poked one of the boys in the side with his 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 cinder-path, sir.

--Hoho! The cinder-path! cried the prefect of studies. I know that trick.

Stephen lifted his eyes in wonder and saw for a moment Father Dolan's
white-grey not young face, his baldy white-grey head with fluff at the
sides of it, the steel rims of his spectacles and his no-coloured 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 into 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 white-grey face and the no-coloured eyes behind the
steel-rimmed 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 pandy-bat
over his shoulder and he's not allowed to do that.

--Did they hurt you 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 and 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 turf-coloured 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 no-coloured 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 who
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 Gonzago, 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.

He saw the rector sitting at a desk writing. There was a skull on the
desk and a strange solemn smell in the room like the old leather of
chairs.

His heart was beating fast on account of the solemn place he was in and
the silence of the room: and he looked at the skull and at the rector's
kind-looking face.

--Well, my little man, said the rector, what is it?

Stephen swallowed down the thing in his throat and said:

--I broke my glasses, sir.

The rector opened his mouth and said:

--O!

Then he smiled and said:

--Well, if we broke our glasses we must write home for a new pair.

--I wrote home, sir, said Stephen, and Father Arnall said I am not to
study till they come.

--Quite right! said the rector.

Stephen swallowed down the thing again and tried to keep his legs and
his voice from shaking.

--But, sir--

--Yes?

--Father Dolan came in today and pandied me because I was not writing
my theme.

The rector looked at him in silence and he could feel the blood rising
to his face and the tears about to rise to his eyes.

The rector said:

--Your name is Dedalus, isn't it?

--Yes, sir. . .

--And where did you break your glasses?

--On the cinder-path, sir. A fellow was coming out of the bicycle
house and I fell and they got broken. I don't know the fellow's name.

The rector looked at him again in silence. Then he smiled and said:

--O, well, it was a mistake; I am sure Father Dolan did not know.

--But I told him I broke them, sir, and he pandied me.

--Did you tell him that you had written home for a new pair? the
rector asked.

--No, sir.

--O well then, said the rector, Father Dolan did not understand. You can
say that I excuse you from your lessons for a few days.

Stephen said quickly for fear his trembling would prevent him:

--Yes, sir, but Father Dolan said he will come in tomorrow to pandy me
again for it.

--Very well, the rector said, it is a mistake and I shall speak to
Father Dolan myself. Will that do now?

Stephen felt the tears wetting his eyes and murmured:

--O yes sir, thanks.

The rector held his hand across the side of the desk where the skull
was and Stephen, placing his hand in it for a moment, felt a cool moist
palm.

--Good day now, said the rector, withdrawing his hand and bowing.

--Good day, sir, said Stephen.

He bowed and walked quietly out of the room, closing the doors
carefully and slowly.

But when he had passed the old servant on the landing and was again in
the low narrow dark corridor he began to walk faster and faster. Faster
and faster he hurried on through the gloom excitedly. He bumped his
elbow against the door at the end and, hurrying down the staircase,
walked quickly through the two corridors and out into the air.

He could hear the cries of the fellows on the playgrounds. He broke
into a run and, running quicker and quicker, ran across the cinderpath
and reached the third line playground, panting.

The fellows had seen him running. They closed round him in a ring,
pushing one against another to hear.

--Tell us! Tell us!

--What did he say?

--Did you go in?

--What did he say?

--Tell us! Tell us!

He told them what he had said and what the rector had said and, when he
had told them, all the fellows flung their caps spinning up into the
air and cried:

--Hurroo!

They caught their caps and sent them up again spinning sky-high and
cried again:

--Hurroo! Hurroo!

They made a cradle of their locked hands and hoisted him up among them
and carried him along till he struggled to get free. And when he had
escaped from them they broke away in all directions, flinging their
caps again into the air and whistling as they went spinning up and
crying:

--Hurroo!

And they gave three groans for Baldyhead Dolan and three cheers for
Conmee and they said he was the decentest rector that was ever in
Clongowes.

The cheers died away in the soft grey air. He was alone. He was happy
and free; but he would not be anyway proud with Father Dolan. He would
be very quiet and obedient: and he wished that he could do something
kind for him to show him that he was not proud.

The air was soft and grey and mild and evening was coming. There was
the smell of evening in the air, the smell of the fields in the country
where they digged up turnips to peel them and eat them when they went
out for a walk to Major Barton's, the smell there was in the little
wood beyond the pavilion where the gallnuts were.

The fellows were practising long shies and bowling lobs and slow
twisters. In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls:
and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the
cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain
falling softly in the brimming bowl.




Chapter 2


Uncle Charles smoked such black twist that at last his nephew suggested
to him to enjoy his morning smoke in a little outhouse at the end of
the garden.

--Very good, Simon. All serene, Simon, said the old man tranquilly.
Anywhere you like. The outhouse will do me nicely: it will be more
salubrious.

--Damn me, said Mr Dedalus frankly, if I know how you can smoke such
villainous awful tobacco. It's like gunpowder, by God.

--It's very nice, Simon, replied the old man. Very cool and
mollifying.

Every morning, therefore, uncle Charles repaired to his outhouse but
not before he had greased and brushed scrupulously his back hair and
brushed and put on his tall hat. While he smoked the brim of his tall
hat and the bowl of his pipe were just visible beyond the jambs of the
outhouse door. His arbour, as he called the reeking outhouse which he
shared with the cat and the garden tools, served him also as a
sounding-box: and every morning he hummed contentedly one of his
favourite songs: O, TWINE ME A BOWER or BLUE EYES AND GOLDEN HAIR or
THE GROVES OF BLARNEY while the grey and blue coils of smoke rose
slowly from his pipe and vanished in the pure air.

During the first part of the summer in Blackrock uncle Charles was
Stephen's constant companion. Uncle Charles was a hale old man with a
well tanned skin, rugged features and white side whiskers. On week days
he did messages between the house in Carysfort Avenue and those shops
in the main street of the town with which the family dealt. Stephen was
glad to go with him on these errands for uncle Charles helped him very
liberally to handfuls of whatever was exposed in open boxes and barrels
outside the counter. He would seize a handful of grapes and sawdust or
three or four American apples and thrust them generously into his
grandnephew's hand while the shopman smiled uneasily; and, on Stephen's
feigning reluctance to take them, he would frown and say:

--Take them, sir. Do you hear me, sir? They're good for your bowels.

When the order list had been booked the two would go on to the park
where an old friend of Stephen's father, Mike Flynn, would be found
seated on a bench, waiting for them. Then would begin Stephen's run
round the park. Mike Flynn would stand at the gate near the railway
station, watch in hand, while Stephen ran round the track in the style
Mike Flynn favoured, his head high lifted, his knees well lifted and
his hands held straight down by his sides. When the morning practice
was over the trainer would make his comments and sometimes illustrate
them by shuffling along for a yard or so comically in an old pair of
blue canvas shoes. A small ring of wonderstruck children and nursemaids
would gather to watch him and linger even when he and uncle Charles had
sat down again and were talking athletics and politics. Though he had
heard his father say that Mike Flynn had put some of the best runners
of modern times through his hands Stephen often glanced at his
trainer's flabby stubble-covered face, as it bent over the long stained
fingers through which he rolled his cigarette, and with pity at the
mild lustreless blue eyes which would look up suddenly from the task
and gaze vaguely into the blue distance while the long swollen fingers
ceased their rolling and grains and fibres of tobacco fell back into
the pouch.

On the way home uncle Charles would often pay a visit to the chapel
and, as the font was above Stephen's reach, the old man would dip his
hand and then sprinkle the water briskly about Stephen's clothes and on
the floor of the porch. While he prayed he knelt on his red
handkerchief and read above his breath from a thumb blackened prayer
book wherein catchwords were printed at the foot of every page. Stephen
knelt at his side respecting, though he did not share, his piety. He
often wondered what his grand-uncle prayed for so seriously. Perhaps he
prayed for the souls in purgatory or for the grace of a happy death or
perhaps he prayed that God might send him back a part of the big
fortune he had squandered in Cork.

On Sundays Stephen with his father and his grand-uncle 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 public house 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 learnt them by heart: and through them he
had glimpses of the real world about them. 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
Marseille, of sunny trellises, 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.

He became the ally of a boy named Aubrey Mills and founded with him a
gang of adventurers in the avenue. Aubrey carried a whistle dangling
from his buttonhole and a bicycle lamp attached to his belt while the
others had short sticks thrust daggerwise through theirs. Stephen, who
had read of Napoleon's plain style of dress, chose to remain unadorned
and thereby heightened for himself the pleasure of taking counsel with
his lieutenant before giving orders. The gang made forays into the
gardens of old maids or went down to the castle and fought a battle on
the shaggy weed-grown rocks, coming home after it weary stragglers with
the stale odours of the foreshore in their nostrils and the rank oils
of the seawrack upon their hands and in their hair.

Aubrey and Stephen had a common milkman and often they drove out in the
milk-car to Carrickmines where the cows were at grass. While the men
were milking the boys would take turns in riding the tractable mare
round the field. But when autumn came the cows were driven home from
the grass: and the first sight of the filthy cowyard at Stradbrook with
its foul green puddles and clots of liquid dung and steaming bran
troughs, sickened Stephen's heart. The cattle which had seemed so
beautiful in the country on sunny days revolted him and he could not
even look at the milk they yielded.

The coming of September did not trouble him this year for he was not to
be sent back to Clongowes. The practice in the park came to an end when
Mike Flynn went into hospital. Aubrey was at school and had only an
hour or two free in the evening. The gang fell asunder and there were
no more nightly forays or battles on the rocks. Stephen sometimes went
round with the car which delivered the evening milk and these chilly
drives blew away his memory of the filth of the cowyard and he felt no
repugnance at seeing the cow hairs and hayseeds on the milkman's coat.
Whenever the car drew up before a house he waited to catch a glimpse of
a well scrubbed kitchen or of a softly lighted hall and to see how the
servant would hold the jug and how she would close the door. He thought
it should be a pleasant life enough, driving along the roads every
evening to deliver milk, if he had warm gloves and a fat bag of
gingernuts in his pocket to eat from. But the same foreknowledge which
had sickened his heart and made his legs sag suddenly as he raced round
the park, the same intuition which had made him glance with mistrust at
his trainer's flabby stubble-covered face as it bent heavily over his long
stained fingers, dissipated any vision of the future. In a vague way he
understood that his father was in trouble and that this was the reason
why he himself had not been sent back to Clongowes. For some time he
had felt the slight change in his house; and those changes in what he
had deemed unchangeable were so many slight shocks to his boyish
conception of the world. The ambition which he felt astir at times in
the darkness of his soul sought no outlet. A dusk like that of the
outer world obscured his mind as he heard the mare's hoofs clattering
along the tramtrack on the Rock Road and the great can swaying and
rattling behind him.

He returned to Mercedes and, as he brooded upon her image, a strange
unrest crept into his blood. Sometimes a fever gathered within him and
led him to rove alone in the evening along the quiet avenue. The peace
of the gardens and the kindly lights in the windows poured a tender
influence into his restless heart. The noise of children at play
annoyed him and their silly voices made him feel, even more keenly than
he had felt at Clongowes, that he was different from others. He did not
want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial
image which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where to
seek it or how, but a premonition which led him on told him that this
image would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They would
meet quietly as if they had known each other and had made their tryst,
perhaps at one of the gates or in some more secret place. They would be
alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of
supreme tenderness he would be transfigured.

He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in a
moment he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience
would fall from him in that magic moment.


* * * * *


Two great yellow caravans had halted one morning before the door and
men had come tramping into the house to dismantle it. The furniture had
been hustled out through the front garden which was strewn with wisps
of straw and rope ends and into the huge vans at the gate. When all had
been safely stowed the vans had set off noisily down the avenue: and
from the window of the railway carriage, in which he had sat with his
red-eyed mother, Stephen had seen them lumbering along the Merrion
Road.