No More Learning

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 apologize.

Dante said:

--O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes. --

Pull out his eyes,
Apologize,
Apologize,
Pull out his eyes.
Apologize,
Pull out his eyes,
Pull out his eyes,
Apologize.

* * * * *

The wide playgrounds were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the
prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and
chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy
leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on
the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach
of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small
and weak amid the throng of the players and his eyes were weak and
watery. Rody Kickham was not like that: he would be captain of the
third line all the fellows said.

Rody Kickham was a decent fellow but Nasty Roche was a stink. Rody
Kickham had greaves in his number and a hamper in the refectory. Nasty
Roche had big hands. He called the Friday pudding dog-in-the-blanket.
And one day he had asked:

--What is your name?

Stephen had answered: Stephen Dedalus.

Then Nasty Roche had said:

--What kind of a name is that?

And when Stephen had not been able to answer Nasty Roche had asked:

--What is your father?

Stephen had answered:

--A gentleman.

Then Nasty Roche had asked:

--Is he a magistrate?

He crept about from point to point on the fringe of his line, making
little runs now and then. But his hands were bluish with cold. He kept
his hands in the side pockets of his belted grey suit. That was a belt
round his pocket. And belt was also to give a fellow a belt. One day a
fellow said to Cantwell:

--I'd give you such a belt in a second.

Cantwell had answered:

--Go and fight your match. Give Cecil Thunder a belt. I'd like to see
you. He'd give you a toe in the rump for yourself.

That was not a nice expression. His mother had told him not to speak
with the rough boys in the college. Nice mother! The first day in the
hall of the castle when she had said goodbye she had put up her veil
double to her nose to kiss him: and her nose and eyes were red. But he
had pretended not to see that she was going to cry. She was a nice
mother but she was not so nice when she cried. And his father had given
him two five-shilling pieces for pocket money. And his father had told
him if he wanted anything to write home to him and, whatever he did,
never to peach on a fellow. Then at the door of the castle the rector
had shaken hands with his father and mother, his soutane fluttering in
the breeze, and the car had driven off with his father and mother on
it. They had cried to him from the car, waving their hands:

--Goodbye, Stephen, goodbye!

--Goodbye, Stephen, goodbye!

He was caught in the whirl of a scrimmage and, fearful of the flashing
eyes and muddy boots, bent down to look through the legs. The fellows
were struggling and groaning and their legs were rubbing and kicking
and stamping. Then Jack Lawton's yellow boots dodged out the ball and
all the other boots and legs ran after. He ran after them a little way
and then stopped. It was useless to run on. Soon they would be going
home for the holidays. After supper in the study hall he would change
the number pasted up inside his desk from seventy-seven to seventy-six.

It would be better to be in the study hall than out there in the cold.
The sky was pale and cold but there were lights in the castle. He
wondered from which window Hamilton Rowan had thrown his hat on the
ha-ha and had there been flowerbeds at that time under the windows. One
day when he had been called to the castle the butler had shown him the
marks of the soldiers' slugs in the wood of the door and had given him
a piece of shortbread that the community ate. It was nice and warm to
see the lights in the castle. It was like something in a book. Perhaps
Leicester Abbey was like that. And there were nice sentences in Doctor
Cornwell's Spelling Book. They were like poetry but they were only
sentences to learn the spelling from.


Wolsey died in Leicester Abbey
Where the abbots buried him.
Canker is a disease of plants,
Cancer one of animals.


It would be nice to lie on the hearthrug before the fire, leaning his
head upon his hands, and think on those sentences. He shivered as if he
had cold slimy water next his skin. That was mean of Wells to shoulder
him into the square ditch because he would not swop his little snuff
box for Wells's seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror of forty. How
cold and slimy the water had been! A fellow had once seen a big rat
jump into the scum. Mother was sitting at the fire with Dante waiting
for Brigid to bring in the tea. She had her feet on the fender and her
jewelly slippers were so hot and they had such a lovely warm smell!
Dante knew a lot of things. She had taught him where the Mozambique
Channel was and what was the longest river in America and what was the
name of the highest mountain in the moon. Father Arnall knew more than
Dante because he was a priest but both his father and uncle Charles
said that Dante was a clever woman and a well-read woman. And when
Dante made that noise after dinner and then put up her hand to her
mouth: that was heartburn.

A voice cried far out on the playground:

--All in!

Then other voices cried from the lower and third lines:

--All in! All in!

The players closed around, flushed and muddy, and he went among them,
glad to go in. Rody Kickham held the ball by its greasy lace. A fellow
asked him to give it one last: but he walked on without even answering
the fellow. Simon Moonan told him not to because the prefect was
looking. The fellow turned to Simon Moonan and said:

--We all know why you speak. You are McGlade's suck.

Suck was a queer word. The fellow called Simon Moonan that name because
Simon Moonan used to tie the prefect's false sleeves behind his back
and the prefect used to let on to be angry. But the sound was ugly.
Once he had washed his hands in the lavatory of the Wicklow Hotel and
his father pulled the stopper up by the chain after and the dirty water
went down through the hole in the basin. And when it had all gone down
slowly the hole in the basin had made a sound like that: suck. Only
louder.

To remember that and the white look of the lavatory made him feel cold
and then hot. There were two cocks that you turned and water came out:
cold and hot. He felt cold and then a little hot: and he could see the
names printed on the cocks. That was a very queer thing.

And the air in the corridor chilled him too. It was queer and wettish.
But soon the gas would be lit and in burning it made a light noise like
a little song. Always the same: and when the fellows stopped talking in
the playroom you could hear it.

It was the hour for sums. Father Arnall wrote a hard sum on the board
and then said:

--Now then, who will win? Go ahead, York! Go ahead, Lancaster!

Stephen tried his best, but the sum was too hard and he felt confused.
The little silk badge with the white rose on it that was pinned on the
breast of his jacket began to flutter. He was no good at sums, but he
tried his best so that York might not lose. Father Arnall's face looked
very black, but he was not in a wax: he was laughing. Then Jack Lawton
cracked his fingers and Father Arnall looked at his copybook and said:

--Right. Bravo Lancaster! The red rose wins. Come on now, York! Forge
ahead!

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.

The bell rang and then the classes began to file out of the rooms and
along the corridors towards the refectory. He sat looking at the two
prints of butter on his plate but could not eat the damp bread. The
tablecloth was damp and limp. But he drank off the hot weak tea which
the clumsy scullion, girt with a white apron, poured into his cup. He
wondered whether the scullion's apron was damp too or whether all white
things were cold and damp. Nasty Roche and Saurin drank cocoa that
their people sent them in tins. They said they could not drink the tea;
that it was hogwash. Their fathers were magistrates, the fellows said.

All the boys seemed to him very strange. They had all fathers and
mothers and different clothes and voices. He longed to be at home and
lay his head on his mother's lap. But he could not: and so he longed
for the play and study and prayers to be over and to be in bed.

He drank another cup of hot tea and Fleming said:

--What's up? Have you a pain or what's up with you?

--I don't know, Stephen said.

--Sick in your breadbasket, Fleming said, because your face looks
white. It will go away.

--O yes, Stephen said.

But he was not sick there. He thought that he was sick in his heart if
you could be sick in that place. Fleming was very decent to ask him. He
wanted to cry. He leaned his elbows on the table and shut and opened
the flaps of his ears. Then he heard the noise of the refectory every
time he opened the flaps of his ears. It made a roar like a train at
night. And when he closed the flaps the roar was shut off like a train
going into a tunnel. That night at Dalkey the train had roared like
that and then, when it went into the tunnel, the roar stopped. He
closed his eyes and the train went on, roaring and then stopping;
roaring again, stopping. It was nice to hear it roar and stop and then
roar out of the tunnel again and then stop.

Then the higher line fellows began to come down along the matting in
the middle of the refectory, Paddy Rath and Jimmy Magee and the
Spaniard who was allowed to smoke cigars and the little Portuguese who
wore the woolly cap. And then the lower line tables and the tables of
the third line. And every single fellow had a different way of walking.

He sat in a corner of the playroom pretending to watch a game of
dominoes and once or twice he was able to hear for an instant the
little song of the gas. The prefect was at the door with some boys and
Simon Moonan was knotting his false sleeves. He was telling them
something about Tullabeg.

Then he went away from the door and Wells came over to Stephen and
said:

--Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?

Stephen answered:

--I do.

Wells turned to the other fellows and said:

--O, I say, here's a fellow says he kisses his mother every night
before he goes to bed.

The other fellows stopped their game and turned round, laughing.
Stephen blushed under their eyes and said:

--I do not.

Wells said:

--O, I say, here's a fellow says he doesn't kiss his mother before he
goes to bed.

They all laughed again. Stephen tried to laugh with them. He felt his
whole body hot and confused in a moment. What was the right answer to
the question? He had given two and still Wells laughed. But Wells must
know the right answer for he was in third of grammar. He tried to think
of Wells's mother but he did not dare to raise his eyes to Wells's
face. He did not like Wells's face. It was Wells who had shouldered him
into the square ditch the day before because he would not swop his
little snuff box for Wells's seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror
of forty. It was a mean thing to do; all the fellows said it was. And
how cold and slimy the water had been! And a fellow had once seen a big
rat jump plop into the scum.

The cold slime of the ditch covered his whole body; and, when the bell
rang for study and the lines filed out of the playrooms, he felt the
cold air of the corridor and staircase inside his clothes. He still
tried to think what was the right answer. Was it right to kiss his
mother or wrong to kiss his mother? What did that mean, to kiss? You
put your face up like that to say good night and then his mother put
her face down. That was to kiss. His mother put her lips on his cheek;
her lips were soft and they wetted his cheek; and they made a tiny
little noise: kiss. Why did people do that with their two faces?

Sitting in the study hall he opened the lid of his desk and changed the
number pasted up inside from seventy-seven to seventy-six. 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 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 nation.
Clongowes is my dwellingplace
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 only think 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 and yet he shivered a little and still wanted to yawn.

The bell rang for night prayers and he filed out of the study hall
after the others and down the staircase and along the corridors to the
chapel. The corridors were darkly lit and the chapel was darkly lit.
Soon all would be dark and sleeping. There was cold night air in the
chapel and the marbles were the colour the sea was at night. The sea
was cold day and night: but it was colder at night. It was cold and
dark under the seawall beside his father's house. But the kettle would
be on the hob to make punch.

The prefect of the chapel prayed above his head and his memory knew the
responses:


O Lord open our lips
And our mouths shall announce Thy praise.
Incline unto our aid, O God!
O Lord make haste to help us!


There was a cold night smell in the chapel. But it was a holy smell. It
was not like the smell of the old peasants who knelt at the back of the
chapel at Sunday mass. That was a smell of air and rain and turf and
corduroy. But they were very holy peasants. They breathed behind him on
his neck and sighed as they prayed. They lived in Clane, a fellow said:
there were little cottages there and he had seen a woman standing at
the half-door of a cottage with a child in her arms as the cars had
come past from Sallins. It would be lovely to sleep for one night in
that cottage before the fire of smoking turf, in the dark lit by the
fire, in the warm dark, breathing the smell of the peasants, air and
rain and turf and corduroy. But O, the road there between the trees
was dark! You would be lost in the dark. It made him afraid to think
of how it was.

He heard the voice of the prefect of the chapel saying the last
prayers. He prayed it too against the dark outside under the trees.


VISIT, WE BESEECH THEE, O LORD, THIS HABITATION AND DRIVE
AWAY FROM IT ALL THE SNARES OF THE ENEMY. MAY THY HOLY
ANGELS DWELL HEREIN TO PRESERVE US IN PEACE AND MAY THY
BLESSINGS BE ALWAYS UPON US THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD.
AMEN.


His fingers trembled as he undressed himself in the dormitory. He told
his fingers to hurry up. He had to undress and then kneel and say his
own prayers and be in bed before the gas was lowered so that he might
not go to hell when he died. He rolled his stockings off and put on his
nightshirt quickly and knelt trembling at his bedside and repeated his
prayers quickly, fearing that the gas would go down. He felt his
shoulders shaking as he murmured:

God bless my father and my mother and spare them to me!
God bless my little brothers and sisters and spare them to me!
God bless Dante and Uncle Charles and spare them to me!


He blessed himself and climbed quickly into bed and, tucking the end of
the nightshirt under his feet, curled himself together under the cold
white sheets, shaking and trembling. But he would not go to hell when
he died; and the shaking would stop. A voice bade the boys in the
dormitory good night. He peered out for an instant over the coverlet
and saw the yellow curtains round and before his bed that shut him off
on all sides. The light was lowered quietly.

The prefect's shoes went away. Where? Down the staircase and along the
corridors or to his room at the end? He saw the dark. Was it true about
the black dog that walked there at night with eyes as big as
carriage-lamps? They said it was the ghost of a murderer. A long shiver
of fear flowed over his body. He saw the dark entrance hall of the
castle. Old servants in old dress were in the ironing-room above the
staircase. It was long ago. The old servants were quiet. There was a
fire there, but the hall was still dark. A figure came up the staircase
from the hall. He wore the white cloak of a marshal; his face was pale
and strange; he held his hand pressed to his side. He looked out of
strange eyes at the old servants. They looked at him and saw their
master's face and cloak and knew that he had received his death-wound.
But only the dark was where they looked: only dark silent air. Their
master had received his death-wound on the battlefield of Prague far
away over the sea. He was standing on the field; his hand was pressed
to his side; his face was pale and strange and he wore the white cloak
of a marshal.

O how cold and strange it was to think of that! All the dark was cold
and strange. There were pale strange faces there, great eyes like
carriage-lamps. They were the ghosts of murderers, the figures of
marshals who had received their death-wound on battlefields far away
over the sea. What did they wish to say that their faces were so
strange?


VISIT, WE BESEECH THEE, O LORD, THIS HABITATION AND DRIVE AWAY FROM IT
ALL. . .


Going home for the holidays! That would be lovely: the fellows had told
him. Getting up on the cars in the early wintry morning outside the
door of the castle. The cars were rolling on the gravel. Cheers for the
rector!

Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!

The cars drove past the chapel and all caps were raised. They drove
merrily along the country roads. The drivers pointed with their whips
to Bodenstown. The fellows cheered. They passed the farmhouse
of the Jolly Farmer. Cheer after cheer after cheer. Through Clane they
drove, cheering and cheered. The peasant women stood at the half-doors,
the men stood here and there. The lovely smell there was in the wintry
air: the smell of Clane: rain and wintry air and turf smouldering and
corduroy.

The train was full of fellows: a long long chocolate train with cream
facings. The guards went to and fro opening, closing, locking,
unlocking the doors. They were men in dark blue and silver; they had
silvery whistles and their keys made a quick music: click, click:
click, click.

And the train raced on over the flat lands and past the Hill of Allen.
The telegraph poles were passing, passing. The train went on and on. It
knew. There were lanterns in the hall of his father's house and ropes
of green branches. There were holly and ivy round the pierglass and
holly and ivy, green and red, twined round the chandeliers. There were
red holly and green ivy round the old portraits on the walls. Holly and
ivy for him and for Christmas.

Lovely. . .

All the people. Welcome home, Stephen! Noises of welcome. His mother
kissed him. Was that right? His father was a marshal now: higher than a
magistrate. Welcome home, Stephen!

Noises. . .

There was a noise of curtain-rings running back along the rods, of
water being splashed in the basins. There was a noise of rising and
dressing and washing in the dormitory: a noise of clapping of hands as
the prefect went up and down telling the fellows to look sharp. A pale
sunlight showed the yellow curtains drawn back, the tossed beds. His
bed was very hot and his face and body were very hot.

He got up and sat on the side of his bed. He was weak. He tried to pull
on his stocking. It had a horrid rough feel. The sunlight was queer and
cold.

Fleming said:

--Are you not well?

He did not know; and Fleming said:

--Get back into bed. I'll tell McGlade you're not well.

--He's sick.

--Who is?

--Tell McGlade.

--Get back into bed.

--Is he sick?

A fellow held his arms while he loosened the stocking clinging to his
foot and climbed back into the hot bed.

He crouched down between the sheets, glad of their tepid glow. He heard
the fellows talk among themselves about him as they dressed for mass.
It was a mean thing to do, to shoulder him into the square ditch, they
were saying.

Then their voices ceased; they had gone. A voice at his bed said:

--Dedalus, don't spy on us, sure you won't?

Wells's face was there. He looked at it and saw that Wells was afraid.

--I didn't mean to. Sure you won't?

His father had told him, whatever he did, never to peach on a fellow.
He shook his head and answered no and felt glad.

Wells said:

--I didn't mean to, honour bright. It was only for cod. I'm sorry.

The face and the voice went away. Sorry because he was afraid. Afraid
that it was some disease. Canker was a disease of plants and cancer one
of animals: or another different. That was a long time ago then out on
the playgrounds in the evening light, creeping from point to point on
the fringe of his line, a heavy bird flying low through the grey light.
Leicester Abbey lit up. Wolsey died there. The abbots buried him
themselves.

It was not Wells's face, it was the prefect's. He was not foxing. No,
no: he was sick really. He was not foxing. And he felt the prefect's
hand on his forehead; and he felt his forehead warm and damp against
the prefect's cold damp hand. That was the way a rat felt, slimy and
damp and cold. Every rat had two eyes to look out of. Sleek slimy
coats, little little feet tucked up to jump, black slimy eyes to look
out of. They could understand how to jump. But the minds of rats could
not understand trigonometry. When they were dead they lay on their
sides. Their coats dried then.