No More Learning

Do you love your mother?

Stephen shook his head slowly.

--I don't know what your words mean, he said simply.

--Have you never loved anyone? Cranly asked.

--Do you mean women?

--I am not speaking of that, Cranly said in a colder tone. I ask you
if you ever felt love towards anyone or anything?

Stephen walked on beside his friend, staring gloomily at the footpath.

--I tried to love God, he said at length. It seems now I failed. It is
very difficult. I tried to unite my will with the will of God instant
by instant. In that I did not always fail. I could perhaps do that
still--

Cranly cut him short by asking:

--Has your mother had a happy life?

--How do I know? Stephen said.

--How many children had she?

--Nine or ten, Stephen answered. Some died.

--Was your father. . . Cranly interrupted himself for an instant, and then
said: I don't want to pry into your family affairs. But was your father
what is called well-to-do? I mean, when you were growing up?

--Yes, Stephen said.

--What was he? Cranly asked after a pause.

Stephen began to enumerate glibly his father's attributes.

--A medical student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor, a shouting
politician, a small landlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good
fellow, a story-teller, somebody's secretary, something in a
distillery, a tax-gatherer, a bankrupt and at present a praiser of his
own past.

Cranly laughed, tightening his grip on Stephen's arm, and said:

--The distillery is damn good.

--Is there anything else you want to know? Stephen asked.

--Are you in good circumstances at present?

--Do I look it? Stephen asked bluntly.

--So then, Cranly went on musingly, you were born in the lap of luxury.

He used the phrase broadly and loudly as he often used technical
expressions, as if he wished his hearer to understand that they were
used by him without conviction.

--Your mother must have gone through a good deal of suffering, he said
then. Would you not try to save her from suffering more even if. . . or would
you?

--If I could, Stephen said, that would cost me very little.

--Then do so, Cranly said. Do as she wishes you to do. What is it for
you? You disbelieve in it. It is a form: nothing else. And you will set
her mind at rest.

He ceased and, as Stephen did not reply, remained silent. Then, as if
giving utterance to the process of his own thought, he said:

--Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a
mother's love is not. Your mother brings you into the world, carries
you first in her body. What do we know about what she feels? But
whatever she feels, it, at least, must be real. It must be. What are
our ideas or ambitions? Play. Ideas! Why, that bloody bleating goat
Temple has ideas. MacCann has ideas too. Every jackass going the roads
thinks he has ideas.

Stephen, who had been listening to the unspoken speech behind the
words, said with assumed carelessness:

--Pascal, if I remember rightly, would not suffer his mother to kiss
him as he feared the contact of her sex.

--Pascal was a pig, said Cranly.

--Aloysius Gonzaga, I think, was of the same mind, Stephen said.

--And he was another pig then, said Cranly.

--The church calls him a saint, Stephen objected.

--I don't care a flaming damn what anyone calls him, Cranly said rudely
and flatly. I call him a pig.

Stephen, preparing the words neatly in his mind, continued:

--Jesus, too, seems to have treated his mother with scant courtesy in
public but Suarez, a jesuit theologian and Spanish gentleman, has
apologized for him.

--Did the idea ever occur to you, Cranly asked, that Jesus was not
what he pretended to be?

--The first person to whom that idea occurred, Stephen answered, was
Jesus himself.

--I mean, Cranly said, hardening in his speech, did the idea ever
occur to you that he was himself a conscious hypocrite, what he called
the jews of his time, a whited sepulchre? Or, to put it more plainly,
that he was a blackguard?

--That idea never occurred to me, Stephen answered. But I am curious
to know are you trying to make a convert of me or a pervert of
yourself?

He turned towards his friend's face and saw there a raw smile which
some force of will strove to make finely significant.

Cranly asked suddenly in a plain sensible tone:

--Tell me the truth. Were you at all shocked by what I said?

--Somewhat, Stephen said.

--And why were you shocked, Cranly pressed on in the same tone, if you
feel sure that our religion is false and that Jesus was not the son of
God?

--I am not at all sure of it, Stephen said. He is more like a son of
God than a son of Mary.

--And is that why you will not communicate, Cranly asked, because you
are not sure of that too, because you feel that the host, too, may be
the body and blood of the son of God and not a wafer of bread? And
because you fear that it may be?

--Yes, Stephen said quietly, I feel that and I also fear it.

--I see, Cranly said.

Stephen, struck by his tone of closure, reopened the discussion at once
by saying:

--I fear many things: dogs, horses, fire-arms, the sea,
thunder-storms, machinery, the country roads at night.

--But why do you fear a bit of bread?

--I imagine, Stephen said, that there is a malevolent reality behind
those things I say I fear.

--Do you fear then, Cranly asked, that the God of the Roman catholics
would strike you dead and damn you if you made a sacrilegious
communion?

--The God of the Roman catholics could do that now, Stephen said. I fear
more than that the chemical action which would be set up in my soul by
a false homage to a symbol behind which are massed twenty centuries of
authority and veneration.

--Would you, Cranly asked, in extreme danger, commit that particular
sacrilege? For instance, if you lived in the penal days?

--I cannot answer for the past, Stephen replied. Possibly not.

--Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?

--I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I
had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake
an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is
illogical and incoherent?

They had walked on towards the township of Pembroke and now, as they
went on slowly along the avenues, the trees and the scattered lights in
the villas soothed their minds. The air of wealth and repose diffused
about them seemed to comfort their neediness. Behind a hedge of laurel
a light glimmered in the window of a kitchen and the voice of a servant
was heard singing as she sharpened knives. She sang, in short broken
bars:

Rosie O'Grady.

Cranly stopped to listen, saying:

--MULIER CANTAT.

The soft beauty of the Latin word touched with an enchanting touch the
dark of the evening, with a touch fainter and more persuading than the
touch of music or of a woman's hand. The strife of their minds was
quelled. The figure of a woman as she appears in the liturgy of the
church passed silently through the darkness: a white-robed figure,
small and slender as a boy, and with a falling girdle. Her voice, frail
and high as a boy's, was heard intoning from a distant choir the first
words of a woman which pierce the gloom and clamour of the first
chanting of the passion:

--ET TU CUM JESU GALILAEO ERAS.

And all hearts were touched and turned to her voice, shining like a
young star, shining clearer as the voice intoned the proparoxytone and
more faintly as the cadence died.

The singing ceased. They went on together, Cranly repeating in strongly
stressed rhythm the end of the refrain:

And when we are married,
O, how happy we'll be
For I love sweet Rosie O'Grady
And Rosie O'Grady loves me.

--There's real poetry for you, he said. There's real love.

He glanced sideways at Stephen with a strange smile and said:

--Do you consider that poetry? Or do you know what the words mean?

--I want to see Rosie first, said Stephen.

--She's easy to find, Cranly said.

His hat had come down on his forehead. He shoved it back and in the
shadow of the trees Stephen saw his pale face, framed by the dark, and
his large dark eyes. Yes. His face was handsome and his body was strong
and hard. He had spoken of a mother's love. He felt then the sufferings
of women, the weaknesses of their bodies and souls: and would shield
them with a strong and resolute arm and bow his mind to them.

Away then: it is time to go. A voice spoke softly to Stephen's lonely
heart, bidding him go and telling him that his friendship was coming to
an end. Yes; he would go. He could not strive against another. He knew
his part.

--Probably I shall go away, he said.

--Where? Cranly asked.

--Where I can, Stephen said.

--Yes, Cranly said. It might be difficult for you to live here now.
But is it that makes you go?

--I have to go, Stephen answered.

--Because, Cranly continued, you need not look upon yourself as driven
away if you do not wish to go or as a heretic or an outlaw. There are
many good believers who think as you do. Would that surprise you? The
church is not the stone building nor even the clergy and their dogmas.
It is the whole mass of those born into it. I don't know what you wish
to do in life. Is it what you told me the night we were standing
outside Harcourt Street station?

--Yes, Stephen said, smiling in spite of himself at Cranly's way of
remembering thoughts in connexion with places. The night you spent half
an hour wrangling with Doherty about the shortest way from Sallygap to
Larras.

--Pothead! Cranly said with calm contempt. What does he know about the
way from Sallygap to Larras? Or what does he know about anything for
that matter? And the big slobbering washing-pot head of him!

He broke into a loud long laugh.

--Well? Stephen said. Do you remember the rest?

--What you said, is it? Cranly asked. Yes, I remember it. To discover the
mode of life or of art whereby your spirit could express itself in
unfettered freedom.

Stephen raised his hat in acknowledgement.

--Freedom! Cranly repeated. But you are not free enough yet to commit
a sacrilege. Tell me would you rob?

--I would beg first, Stephen said.

--And if you got nothing, would you rob?

--You wish me to say, Stephen answered, that the rights of property
are provisional, and that in certain circumstances it is not unlawful
to rob. Everyone would act in that belief. So I will not make you that
answer. Apply to the jesuit theologian, Juan Mariana de Talavera, who
will also explain to you in what circumstances you may lawfully kill
your king and whether you had better hand him his poison in a goblet or
smear it for him upon his robe or his saddlebow. Ask me rather would I
suffer others to rob me, or if they did, would I call down upon them
what I believe is called the chastisement of the secular arm?

--And would you?

--I think, Stephen said, it would pain me as much to do so as to be
robbed.

--I see, Cranly said.

He produced his match and began to clean the crevice between two teeth.
Then he said carelessly:

--Tell me, for example, would you deflower a virgin?

--Excuse me, Stephen said politely, is that not the ambition of most
young gentlemen?

--What then is your point of view? Cranly asked.

His last phrase, sour smelling as the smoke of charcoal and
disheartening, excited Stephen's brain, over which its fumes seemed to
brood.

--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.

Cranly seized his arm and steered him round so as to lead him back
towards Leeson Park. He laughed almost slyly and pressed Stephen's arm
with an elder's affection.

--Cunning indeed! he said. Is it you? You poor poet, you!

--And you made me confess to you, Stephen said, thrilled by his touch,
as I have confessed to you so many other things, have I not?

--Yes, my child, Cranly said, still gaily.

--You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also
what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for
another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to
make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps
as long as eternity too.

Cranly, now grave again, slowed his pace and said:

--Alone, quite alone. You have no fear of that. And you know what that
word means?
Not only to be separate from all others but to have not
even one friend.

--I will take the risk, said Stephen.

--And not to have any one person, Cranly said, who would be more than
a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had.

His words seemed to have struck some deep chord in his own nature. Had
he spoken of himself, of himself as he was or wished to be? Stephen
watched his face for some moments in silence. A cold sadness was there.
He had spoken of himself, of his own loneliness which he feared.

--Of whom are you speaking? Stephen asked at length.

Cranly did not answer.


* * * * *


MARCH 20. Long talk with Cranly on the subject of my revolt.

He had his grand manner on. I supple and suave. Attacked me on the
score of love for one's mother. Tried to imagine his mother: cannot.
Told me once, in a moment of thoughtlessness, his father was sixty-one
when he was born. Can see him. Strong farmer type. Pepper and salt
suit. Square feet. Unkempt, grizzled beard. Probably attends coursing
matches. Pays his dues regularly but not plentifully to Father Dwyer of
Larras. Sometimes talks to girls after nightfall. But his mother? Very
young or very old? Hardly the first. If so, Cranly would not have
spoken as he did. Old then. Probably, and neglected. Hence Cranly's
despair of soul: the child of exhausted loins.

MARCH 21, MORNING. Thought this in bed last night but was too lazy and
free to add to it. Free, yes. The exhausted loins are those of
Elizabeth and Zacchary. Then he is the precursor. Item: he eats chiefly
belly bacon and dried figs. Read locusts and wild honey. Also, when
thinking of him, saw always a stern severed head or death mask as if
outlined on a grey curtain or veronica. Decollation they call it in the
gold. Puzzled for the moment by saint John at the Latin gate. What do I
see? A decollated percursor trying to pick the lock.

MARCH 21, NIGHT. Free. Soul free and fancy free. Let the dead bury the
dead. Ay. And let the dead marry the dead.

MARCH 22. In company with Lynch followed a sizeable hospital nurse.
Lynch's idea. Dislike it. Two lean hungry greyhounds walking after a
heifer.

MARCH 23. Have not seen her since that night. Unwell? Sits at the fire
perhaps with mamma's shawl on her shoulders. But not peevish. A nice
bowl of gruel? Won't you now?

MARCH 24. Began with a discussion with my mother. Subject: B. V. M.
Handicapped by my sex and youth. To escape held up relations between
Jesus and Papa against those between Mary and her son. Said religion
was not a lying-in hospital. Mother indulgent. Said I have a queer mind
and have read too much. Not true. Have read little and understood less.
Then she said I would come back to faith because I had a restless mind.
This means to leave church by back door of sin and re-enter through the
skylight of repentance. Cannot repent. Told her so and asked for
sixpence. Got threepence.

Then went to college. Other wrangle with little round head rogue's eye
Ghezzi. This time about Bruno the Nolan. Began in Italian and ended in
pidgin English. He said Bruno was a terrible heretic. I said he was
terribly burned. He agreed to this with some sorrow. Then gave me
recipe for what he calls RISOTTO ALLA BERGAMASCA. When he pronounces a
soft O he protrudes his full carnal lips as if he kissed the vowel. Has
he? And could he repent? Yes, he could: and cry two round rogue's
tears, one from each eye.

Crossing Stephen's, that is, my green, remembered that his countrymen
and not mine had invented what Cranly the other night called our
religion. A quartet of them, soldiers of the ninety-seventh infantry
regiment, sat at the foot of the cross and tossed up dice for the
overcoat of the crucified.

Went to library. Tried to read three reviews. Useless. She is not out
yet. Am I alarmed? About what? That she will never be out again.

Blake wrote:

I wonder if William Bond will die
For assuredly he is very ill.

Alas, poor William!

I was once at a diorama in Rotunda. At the end were pictures of big
nobs. Among them William Ewart Gladstone, just then dead. Orchestra
played O WILLIE, WE HAVE MISSED YOU.

A race of clodhoppers!

MARCH 25, MORNING. A troubled night of dreams. Want to get them off my
chest.

A long curving gallery. From the floor ascend pillars of dark vapours.
It is peopled by the images of fabulous kings, set in stone. Their
hands are folded upon their knees in token of weariness and their eyes
are darkened for the errors of men go up before them for ever as dark
vapours.

Strange figures advance as from a cave. They are not as tall as men.
One does not seem to stand quite apart from another. Their faces are
phosphorescent, with darker streaks. They peer at me and their eyes
seem to ask me something. They do not speak.

MARCH 30. This evening Cranly was in the porch of the library,
proposing a problem to Dixon and her brother. A mother let her child
fall into the Nile. Still harping on the mother. A crocodile seized the
child. Mother asked it back. Crocodile said all right if she told him
what he was going to do with the child, eat it or not eat it.

This mentality, Lepidus would say, is indeed bred out of your mud by
the operation of your sun.

And mine? Is it not too? Then into Nile mud with it!

APRIL 1. Disapprove of this last phrase.

APRIL 2. Saw her drinking tea and eating cakes in Johnston's, Mooney
and O'Brien's. Rather, lynx-eyed Lynch saw her as we passed. He tells
me Cranly was invited there by brother. Did he bring his crocodile? Is
he the shining light now? Well, I discovered him. I protest I did.
Shining quietly behind a bushel of Wicklow bran.

APRIL 3. Met Davin at the cigar shop opposite Findlater's church. He
was in a black sweater and had a hurley stick. Asked me was it true I
was going away and why. Told him the shortest way to Tara was VIA
Holyhead. Just then my father came up. Introduction. Father polite and
observant. Asked Davin if he might offer him some refreshment. Davin
could not, was going to a meeting. When we came away father told me he
had a good honest eye. Asked me why I did not join a rowing club. I
pretended to think it over. Told me then how he broke Pennyfeather's
heart. Wants me to read law. Says I was cut out for that. More mud,
more crocodiles.

APRIL 5. Wild spring. Scudding clouds. O life! Dark stream of swirling
bogwater on which apple-trees have cast down their delicate flowers.
Eyes of girls among the leaves. Girls demure and romping. All fair or
auburn: no dark ones. They blush better. Houpla!

APRIL 6. Certainly she remembers the past. Lynch says all women do.
Then she remembers the time of her childhood--and mine, if I was ever
a child. The past is consumed in the present and the present is living
only because it brings forth the future. Statues of women, if Lynch be
right, should always be fully draped, one hand of the woman feeling
regretfully her own hinder parts.

APRIL 6, LATER. Michael Robartes remembers forgotten beauty and, when
his arms wrap her round, he presses in his arms the loveliness which
has long faded from the world. Not this. Not at all. I desire to press
in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.

APRIL 10. Faintly, under the heavy night, through the silence of the
city which has turned from dreams to dreamless sleep as a weary lover
whom no caresses move, the sound of hoofs upon the road. Not so faintly
now as they come near the bridge; and in a moment, as they pass the
darkened windows, the silence is cloven by alarm as by an arrow. They
are heard now far away, hoofs that shine amid the heavy night as gems,
hurrying beyond the sleeping fields to what journey's end--what
heart? --bearing what tidings?

APRIL 11. Read what I wrote last night. Vague words for a vague
emotion. Would she like it? I think so. Then I should have to like it
also.

APRIL 13. That tundish has been on my mind for a long time. I looked it
up and find it English and good old blunt English too. Damn the dean of
studies and his funnel! What did he come here for to teach us his own
language or to learn it from us. Damn him one way or the other!

APRIL 14. John Alphonsus Mulrennan has just returned from the west of
Ireland. European and Asiatic papers please copy.