No More Learning

The parlour fire would not draw that evening and Mr Dedalus rested the
poker against the bars of the grate to attract the flame. Uncle Charles
dozed in a corner of the half furnished uncarpeted room and near him
the family portraits leaned against the wall. The lamp on the table
shed a weak light over the boarded floor, muddied by the feet of the
van-men. Stephen sat on a footstool beside his father listening to a
long and incoherent monologue. He understood little or nothing of it at
first but he became slowly aware that his father had enemies and that
some fight was going to take place. He felt, too, that he was being
enlisted for the fight, that some duty was being laid upon his
shoulders. The sudden flight from the comfort and revery of Blackrock,
the passage through the gloomy foggy city, the thought of the bare
cheerless house in which they were now to live made his heart heavy,
and again an intuition, a foreknowledge of the future came to him. He
understood also why the servants had often whispered together in the
hall and why his father had often stood on the hearthrug with his back
to the fire, talking loudly to uncle Charles who urged him to sit down
and eat his dinner.

--There's a crack of the whip left in me yet, Stephen, old chap, said
Mr Dedalus, poking at the dull fire with fierce energy. We're not dead
yet, sonny. No, by the Lord Jesus (God forgive me) not half dead.

Dublin was a new and complex sensation. Uncle Charles had grown so
witless that he could no longer be sent out on errands and the disorder
in settling in the new house left Stephen freer than he had been in
Blackrock. In the beginning he contented himself with circling timidly
round the neighbouring square or, at most, going half way down one of
the side streets but when he had made a skeleton map of the city in his
mind he followed boldly one of its central lines until he reached the
customhouse. He passed unchallenged among the docks and along the quays
wondering at the multitude of corks that lay bobbing on the surface of
the water in a thick yellow scum, at the crowds of quay porters and the
rumbling carts and the ill-dressed bearded policeman. The vastness and
strangeness of the life suggested to him by the bales of merchandise
stocked along the walls or swung aloft out of the holds of steamers
wakened again in him the unrest which had sent him wandering in the
evening from garden to garden in search of Mercedes. And amid this new
bustling life he might have fancied himself in another Marseille but that
he missed the bright sky and the sum-warmed trellises of the wineshops.
A vague dissatisfaction grew up within him as he looked on the quays and
on the river and on the lowering skies and yet he continued to wander up
and down day after day as if he really sought someone that eluded him.

He went once or twice with his mother to visit their relatives: and
though they passed a jovial array of shops lit up and adorned for
Christmas his mood of embittered silence did not leave him. The causes
of his embitterment were many, remote and near. He was angry with
himself for being young and the prey of restless foolish impulses,
angry also with the change of fortune which was reshaping the world
about him into a vision of squalor and insincerity. Yet his anger lent
nothing to the vision. He chronicled with patience what he saw,
detaching himself from it and tasting its mortifying flavour in secret.

He was sitting on the backless chair in his aunt's kitchen. A lamp with
a reflector hung on the japanned wall of the fireplace and by its light
his aunt was reading the evening paper that lay on her knees. She
looked a long time at a smiling picture that was set in it and said
musingly:

--The beautiful Mabel Hunter!

A ringletted girl stood on tiptoe to peer at the picture and said softly:

--What is she in, mud?

--In a pantomime, love.

The child leaned her ringletted head against her mother's sleeve,
gazing on the picture, and murmured as if fascinated:

--The beautiful Mabel Hunter!

As if fascinated, her eyes rested long upon those demurely taunting
eyes and she murmured devotedly:

--Isn't she an exquisite creature?

And the boy who came in from the street, stamping crookedly under his
stone of coal, heard her words. He dropped his load promptly on the
floor and hurried to her side to see. He mauled the edges of the paper
with his reddened and blackened hands, shouldering her aside and
complaining that he could not see.

He was sitting in the narrow breakfast room high up in the old
dark-windowed house. The firelight flickered on the wall and beyond the
window a spectral dusk was gathering upon the river. Before the fire an
old woman was busy making tea and, as she bustled at the task, she told
in a low voice of what the priest and the doctor had said. She told too
of certain changes they had seen in her of late and of her odd ways and
sayings. He sat listening to the words and following the ways of
adventure that lay open in the coals, arches and vaults and winding
galleries and jagged caverns.

Suddenly he became aware of something in the doorway. A skull appeared
suspended in the gloom of the doorway. A feeble creature like a monkey
was there, drawn thither by the sound of voices at the fire. A whining
voice came from the door asking:

--Is that Josephine?

The old bustling woman answered cheerily from the fireplace:

--No, Ellen, it's Stephen.

--O. . . O, good evening, Stephen.

He answered the greeting and saw a silly smile break over the face in
the doorway.

--Do you want anything, Ellen? asked the old woman at the fire.

But she did not answer the question and said:

--I thought it was Josephine. I thought you were Josephine, Stephen.

And, repeating this several times, she fell to laughing feebly.

He was sitting in the midst of a children's party at Harold's Cross.
His silent watchful manner had grown upon him and he took little part
in the games. The children, wearing the spoils of their crackers,
danced and romped noisily and, though he tried to share their
merriment, he felt himself a gloomy figure amid the gay cocked hats and
sunbonnets.

But when he had sung his song and withdrawn into a snug corner of the
room he began to taste the joy of his loneliness. The mirth, which in
the beginning of the evening had seemed to him false and trivial, was
like a soothing air to him, passing gaily by his senses, hiding from
other eyes the feverish agitation of his blood while through the
circling of the dancers and amid the music and laughter her glance
travelled to his corner, flattering, taunting, searching, exciting his
heart.

In the hall the children who had stayed latest were putting on their
things: the party was over. She had thrown a shawl about her and, as
they went together towards the tram, sprays of her fresh warm breath
flew gaily above her cowled head and her shoes tapped blithely on the
glassy road.

It was the last tram. The lank brown horses knew it and shook their
bells to the clear night in admonition. The conductor talked with the
driver, both nodding often in the green light of the lamp. On the empty
seats of the tram were scattered a few coloured tickets. No sound of
footsteps came up or down the road. No sound broke the peace of the
night save when the lank brown horses rubbed their noses together and
shook their bells.

They seemed to listen, he on the upper step and she on the lower. She
came up to his step many times and went down to hers again between
their phrases and once or twice stood close beside him for some moments
on the upper step, forgetting to go down, and then went down. His heart
danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what her
eyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dim
past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before. He saw
her urge her vanities, her fine dress and sash and long black
stockings, and knew that he had yielded to them a thousand times. Yet a
voice within him spoke above the noise of his dancing heart, asking him
would he take her gift to which he had only to stretch out his hand.
And he remembered the day when he and Eileen had stood looking into the
hotel grounds, watching the waiters running up a trail of bunting on
the flagstaff and the fox terrier scampering to and fro on the sunny
lawn and how, all of a sudden, she had broken out into a peal of
laughter and had run down the sloping curve of the path. Now, as then,
he stood listlessly in his place, seemingly a tranquil watcher of the
scene before him.

--She too wants me to catch hold of her, he thought. That's why she
came with me to the tram. I could easily catch hold of her when she
comes up to my step: nobody is looking. I could hold her and kiss her.

But he did neither: and, when he was sitting alone in the deserted
tram, he tore his ticket into shreds and stared gloomily at the
corrugated footboard.


* * * * *


The next day he sat at his table in the bare upper room for many hours.
Before him lay a new pen, a new bottle of ink and a new emerald
exercise. From force of habit he had written at the top of the
first page the initial letters of the jesuit motto: A. M. D. G. On the
first line of the page appeared the title of the verses he was trying
to write: To E-- C--. He knew it was right to begin so for he had seen
similar titles in the collected poems of Lord Byron. When he had
written this title and drawn an ornamental line underneath he fell into
a daydream and began to draw diagrams on the cover of the book. He saw
himself sitting at his table in Bray the morning after the discussion
at the Christmas dinner table, trying to write a poem about Parnell on
the back of one of his father's second moiety notices. But his brain
had then refused to grapple with the theme and, desisting, he had
covered the page with the names and addresses of certain of his
classmates:

Roderick Kickham
John Lawton
Anthony MacSwiney
Simon Moonan

Now it seemed as if he would fail again but, by dint of brooding on the
incident, he thought himself into confidence. During this process all
those elements which he deemed common and insignificant fell out of the
scene. There remained no trace of the tram itself nor of the tram-men
nor of the horses: nor did he and she appear vividly. The verses told
only of the night and the balmy breeze and the maiden lustre of the
moon. Some undefined sorrow was hidden in the hearts of the
protagonists as they stood in silence beneath the leafless trees and
when the moment of farewell had come the kiss, which had been withheld
by one, was given by both. After this the letters L. D. S. were written
at the foot of the page, and, having hidden the book, he went into his
mother's bedroom and gazed at his face for a long time in the mirror of
her dressing-table.

But his long spell of leisure and liberty was drawing to its end. One
evening his father came home full of news which kept his tongue busy
all through dinner. Stephen had been awaiting his father's return for
there had been mutton hash that day and he knew that his father would
make him dip his bread in the gravy. But he did not relish the hash for
the mention of Clongowes had coated his palate with a scum of disgust.

--I walked bang into him, said Mr Dedalus for the fourth time, just at
the corner of the square.

--Then I suppose, said Mrs Dedalus, he will be able to arrange it. I
mean about Belvedere.

--Of course he will, said Mr Dedalus. Don't I tell you he's provincial
of the order now?

--I never liked the idea of sending him to the christian brothers
myself, said Mrs Dedalus.

--Christian brothers be damned! said Mr Dedalus. Is it with Paddy
Stink and Micky Mud? No, let him stick to the jesuits in God's name
since he began with them. They'll be of service to him in after years.
Those are the fellows that can get you a position.

--And they're a very rich order, aren't they, Simon?

--Rather. They live well, I tell you. You saw their table at
Clongowes. Fed up, by God, like gamecocks.

Mr Dedalus pushed his plate over to Stephen and bade him finish what
was on it.

--Now then, Stephen, he said, you must put your shoulder to the wheel,
old chap. You've had a fine long holiday.

--O, I'm sure he'll work very hard now, said Mrs Dedalus, especially
when he has Maurice with him.

--O, Holy Paul, I forgot about Maurice, said Mr Dedalus. Here,
Maurice! Come here, you thick-headed ruffian! Do you know I'm going to
send you to a college where they'll teach you to spell c. a. t. cat. And
I'll buy you a nice little penny handkerchief to keep your nose dry.
Won't that be grand fun?

Maurice grinned at his father and then at his brother.

Mr Dedalus screwed his glass into his eye and stared hard at both his
sons. Stephen mumbled his bread without answering his father's gaze.

--By the bye, said Mr Dedalus at length, the rector, or provincial
rather, was telling me that story about you and Father Dolan. You're an
impudent thief, he said.

--O, he didn't, Simon!

--Not he! said Mr Dedalus. But he gave me a great account of the whole
affair. We were chatting, you know, and one word borrowed another. And,
by the way, who do you think he told me will get that job in the
corporation? But I'll tell you that after. Well, as I was saying, we
were chatting away quite friendly and he asked me did our friend here
wear glasses still, and then he told me the whole story.

--And was he annoyed, Simon?

--Annoyed? Not he! MANLY LITTLE CHAP! he said.

Mr Dedalus imitated the mincing nasal tone of the provincial.

Father Dolan and I, when I told them all at dinner about it, Father
Dolan and I had a great laugh over it. YOU BETTER MIND YOURSELF FATHER
DOLAN, said I, OR YOUNG DEDALUS WILL SEND YOU UP FOR TWICE NINE. We had
a famous laugh together over it. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Mr Dedalus turned to his wife and interjected in his natural voice:

--Shows you the spirit in which they take the boys there. O, a jesuit
for your life, for diplomacy!

He reassumed the provincial's voice and repeated:

--I TOLD THEM ALL AT DINNER ABOUT IT AND FATHER DOLAN AND I AND ALL OF
US WE HAD A HEARTY LAUGH TOGETHER OVER IT. HA! HA! HA!


* * * * *


The night of the Whitsuntide play had come and Stephen from the window
of the dressing-room looked out on the small grass-plot across which
lines of Chinese lanterns were stretched. He watched the visitors come
down the steps from the house and pass into the theatre. Stewards in
evening dress, old Belvedereans, loitered in groups about the entrance
to the theatre and ushered in the visitors with ceremony. Under the
sudden glow of a lantern he could recognize the smiling face of a
priest.

The Blessed Sacrament had been removed from the tabernacle and the
first benches had been driven back so as to leave the dais of the altar
and the space before it free. Against the walls stood companies of
barbells and Indian clubs; the dumbbells were piled in one corner: and
in the midst of countless hillocks of gymnasium shoes and sweaters and
singlets in untidy brown parcels there stood the stout leather-jacketed
vaulting horse waiting its turn to be carried up on the stage
and set in the middle of the winning team at the end of the gymnastic
display.

Stephen, though in deference to his reputation for essay writing he had
been elected secretary to the gymnasium, had had no part in the first
section of the programme but in the play which formed the second
section he had the chief part, that of a farcical pedagogue. He had
been cast for it on account of his stature and grave manners for he was
now at the end of his second year at Belvedere and in number two.

A score of the younger boys in white knickers and singlets came
pattering down from the stage, through the vestry and to the chapel.
The vestry and chapel were peopled with eager masters and boys. The
plump bald sergeant major was testing with his foot the springboard of
the vaulting horse. The lean young man in a long overcoat, who was to
give a special display of intricate club swinging, stood near watching
with interest, his silver-coated clubs peeping out of his deep
side-pockets. The hollow rattle of the wooden dumbbells was heard as
another team made ready to go up on the stage: and in another moment the
excited prefect was hustling the boys through the vestry like a flock of
geese, flapping the wings of his soutane nervously and crying to the
laggards to make haste. A little troop of Neapolitan peasants were
practising their steps at the end of the chapel, some circling their arms
above their heads, some swaying their baskets of paper violets and
curtsying. In a dark corner of the chapel at the gospel side of the altar
a stout old lady knelt amid her copious black skirts. When she stood up a
pink-dressed figure, wearing a curly golden wig and an old-fashioned straw
sunbonnet, with black pencilled eyebrows and cheeks delicately rouged and
powdered, was discovered. A low murmur of curiosity ran round the chapel
at the discovery of this girlish figure. One of the prefects, smiling and
nodding his head, approached the dark corner and, having bowed to the
stout old lady, said pleasantly:

--Is this a beautiful young lady or a doll that you have here, Mrs
Tallon?

Then, bending down to peer at the smiling painted face under the leaf
of the bonnet, he exclaimed:

--No! Upon my word I believe it's little Bertie Tallon after all!

Stephen at his post by the window heard the old lady and the priest
laugh together and heard the boys' murmurs of admiration behind him as
they passed forward to see the little boy who had to dance the
sunbonnet dance by himself. A movement of impatience escaped him. He
let the edge of the blind fall and, stepping down from the bench on
which he had been standing, walked out of the chapel.

He passed out of the schoolhouse and halted under the shed that flanked
the garden. From the theatre opposite came the muffled noise of the
audience and sudden brazen clashes of the soldiers' band. The light
spread upwards from the glass roof making the theatre seem a festive
ark, anchored among the hulks of houses, her frail cables of lanterns
looping her to her moorings. A side door of the theatre opened suddenly
and a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst of
music issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the side
door closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of the
music. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supple
movement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had been the cause of
all his day's unrest and of his impatient movement of a moment before.
His unrest issued from him like a wave of sound: and on the tide of
flowing music the ark was journeying, trailing her cables of lanterns
in her wake. Then a noise like dwarf artillery broke the movement. It
was the clapping that greeted the entry of the dumbbell team on the
stage.

At the far end of the shed near the street a speck of pink light showed
in the darkness and as he walked towards it he became aware of a faint
aromatic odour. Two boys were standing in the shelter of a doorway,
smoking, and before he reached them he had recognised Heron by his
voice.

--Here comes the noble Dedalus! cried a high throaty voice. Welcome to
our trusty friend!
This welcome ended in a soft peal of mirthless laughter as Heron
salaamed and then began to poke the ground with his cane.

--Here I am, said Stephen, halting and glancing from Heron to his
friend.

The latter was a stranger to him but in the darkness, by the aid of the
glowing cigarette tips, he could make out a pale dandyish face over
which a smile was travelling slowly, a tall overcoated figure and a
hard hat. Heron did not trouble himself about an introduction but said
instead:

--I was just telling my friend Wallis what a lark it would be tonight
if you took off the rector in the part of the schoolmaster. It would be
a ripping good joke.

Heron made a poor attempt to imitate for his friend Wallis the rector's
pedantic bass and then, laughing at his failure, asked Stephen to do
it.

--Go on, Dedalus, he urged, you can take him off rippingly. HE THAT WILL
NOT HEAR THE CHURCHA LET HIM BE TO THEEA AS THE HEATHENA AND THE
PUBLICANA.

The imitation was prevented by a mild expression of anger from Wallis
in whose mouthpiece the cigarette had become too tightly wedged.

--Damn this blankety blank holder, he said, taking it from his mouth
and smiling and frowning upon it tolerantly. It's always getting stuck
like that. Do you use a holder?

--I don't smoke, answered Stephen.

--No, said Heron, Dedalus is a model youth. He doesn't smoke and he
doesn't go to bazaars and he doesn't flirt and he doesn't damn anything
or damn all.

Stephen shook his head and smiled in his rival's flushed and mobile
face, beaked like a bird's. He had often thought it strange that
Vincent Heron had a bird's face as well as a bird's name. A shock of
pale hair lay on the forehead like a ruffled crest: the forehead was
narrow and bony and a thin hooked nose stood out between the close-set
prominent eyes which were light and inexpressive. The rivals were
school friends. They sat together in class, knelt together in the
chapel, talked together after beads over their lunches. As the fellows
in number one were undistinguished dullards, Stephen and Heron had been
during the year the virtual heads of the school. It was they who went
up to the rector together to ask for a free day or to get a fellow off.

--O by the way, said Heron suddenly, I saw your governor going in.

The smile waned on Stephen's face. Any allusion made to his father by a
fellow or by a master put his calm to rout in a moment. He waited in
timorous silence to hear what Heron might say next. Heron, however,
nudged him expressively with his elbow and said:

--You're a sly dog.

--Why so? said Stephen.

--You'd think butter wouldn't melt in your mouth said Heron. But I'm
afraid you're a sly dog.

--Might I ask you what you are talking about? said Stephen urbanely.

--Indeed you might, answered Heron. We saw her, Wallis, didn't we? And
deucedly pretty she is too. And inquisitive! AND WHAT PART DOES STEPHEN
TAKE, MR DEDALUS? AND WILL STEPHEN NOT SING, MR DEDALUS? Your governor
was staring at her through that eyeglass of his for all he was worth so
that I think the old man has found you out too. I wouldn't care a bit,
by Jove. She's ripping, isn't she, Wallis?

--Not half bad, answered Wallis quietly as he placed his holder once
more in a corner of his mouth.

A shaft of momentary anger flew through Stephen's mind at these
indelicate allusions in the hearing of a stranger. For him there was
nothing amusing in a girl's interest and regard. All day he had thought
of nothing but their leave-taking on the steps of the tram at Harold's
Cross, the stream of moody emotions it had made to course through him
and the poem he had written about it. All day he had imagined a new
meeting with her for he knew that she was to come to the play. The old
restless moodiness had again filled his breast as it had done on the
night of the party, but had not found an outlet in verse. The growth
and knowledge of two years of boyhood stood between then and now,
forbidding such an outlet: and all day the stream of gloomy tenderness
within him had started forth and returned upon itself in dark courses
and eddies, wearying him in the end until the pleasantry of the prefect
and the painted little boy had drawn from him a movement of impatience.

--So you may as well admit, Heron went on, that we've fairly found you
out this time. You can't play the saint on me any more, that's one sure
five.

A soft peal of mirthless laughter escaped from his lips and, bending
down as before, he struck Stephen lightly across the calf of the leg
with his cane, as if in jesting reproof.

Stephen's moment of anger had already passed. He was neither flattered
nor confused, but simply wished the banter to end. He scarcely resented
what had seemed to him a silly indelicateness for he knew that the
adventure in his mind stood in no danger from these words: and his face
mirrored his rival's false smile.

--Admit! repeated Heron, striking him again with his cane across the
calf of the leg.

The stroke was playful but not so lightly given as the first one had
been. Stephen felt the skin tingle and glow slightly and almost
painlessly; and, bowing submissively, as if to meet his companion's
jesting mood, began to recite the CONFITEOR. The episode ended well,
for both Heron and Wallis laughed indulgently at the irreverence.

The confession came only from Stephen's lips and, while they spoke the
words, a sudden memory had carried him to another scene called up, as
if by magic, at the moment when he had noted the faint cruel dimples at
the corners of Heron's smiling lips and had felt the familiar stroke of
the cane against his calf and had heard the familiar word of
admonition:

--Admit.

It was towards the close of his first term in the college when he was
in number six. His sensitive nature was still smarting under the lashes
of an undivined and squalid way of life. His soul was still disquieted
and cast down by the dull phenomenon of Dublin. He had emerged from a
two years' spell of revery to find himself in the midst of a new scene,
every event and figure of which affected him intimately, disheartened
him or allured and, whether alluring or disheartening, filled him
always with unrest and bitter thoughts. All the leisure which his
school life left him was passed in the company of subversive writers
whose jibes and violence of speech set up a ferment in his brain before
they passed out of it into his crude writings.

The essay was for him the chief labour of his week and every Tuesday,
as he marched from home to the school, he read his fate in the
incidents of the way, pitting himself against some figure ahead of him
and quickening his pace to outstrip it before a certain goal was
reached or planting his steps scrupulously in the spaces of the
patchwork of the pathway and telling himself that he would be first and
not first in the weekly essay.

On a certain Tuesday the course of his triumphs was rudely broken. Mr
Tate, the English master, pointed his finger at him and said bluntly:

--This fellow has heresy in his essay.

A hush fell on the class. Mr Tate did not break it but dug with his
hand between his thighs while his heavily starched linen creaked about
his neck and wrists. Stephen did not look up. It was a raw spring
morning and his eyes were still smarting and weak. He was conscious of
failure and of detection, of the squalor of his own mind and home, and
felt against his neck the raw edge of his turned and jagged collar.

A short loud laugh from Mr Tate set the class more at ease.

--Perhaps you didn't know that, he said.

--Where? asked Stephen.

Mr Tate withdrew his delving hand and spread out the essay.

--Here. It's about the Creator and the soul. Rrm. . . rrm. . . rrm. . . Ah!
WITHOUT A POSSIBILITY OF EVER APPROACHING NEARER. That's heresy.

Stephen murmured:

--I meant WITHOUT A POSSIBILITY OF EVER REACHING.

It was a submission and Mr Tate, appeased, folded up the essay and
passed it across to him, saying:

--O. . . Ah! EVER REACHING. That's another story.

But the class was not so soon appeased. Though nobody spoke to him of
the affair after class he could feel about him a vague general
malignant joy.

A few nights after this public chiding he was walking with a letter
along the Drumcondra Road when he heard a voice cry:

--Halt!

He turned and saw three boys of his own class coming towards him in the
dusk. It was Heron who had called out and, as he marched forward
between his two attendants, he cleft the air before him with a thin
cane in time to their steps. Boland, his friend, marched beside him, a
large grin on his face, while Nash came on a few steps behind, blowing
from the pace and wagging his great red head.

As soon as the boys had turned into Clonliffe Road together they began
to speak about books and writers, saying what books they were reading
and how many books there were in their fathers' bookcases at home.
Stephen listened to them in some wonderment for Boland was the dunce
and Nash the idler of the class. In fact, after some talk about their
favourite writers, Nash declared for Captain Marryat who, he said, was
the greatest writer.

--Fudge! said Heron. Ask Dedalus. Who is the greatest writer, Dedalus?

Stephen noted the mockery in the question and said:

--Of prose do you mean?

--Yes.

--Newman, I think.

--Is it Cardinal Newman? asked Boland.

--Yes, answered Stephen.

The grin broadened on Nash's freckled face as he turned to Stephen and
said:

--And do you like Cardinal Newman, Dedalus?

--O, many say that Newman has the best prose style, Heron said to the
other two in explanation, of course he's not a poet.

--And who is the best poet, Heron? asked Boland.

--Lord Tennyson, of course, answered Heron.

--O, yes, Lord Tennyson, said Nash. We have all his poetry at home in a
book.

At this Stephen forgot the silent vows he had been making and burst out:

--Tennyson a poet! Why, he's only a rhymester!

--O, get out! said Heron. Everyone knows that Tennyson is the greatest
poet.

--And who do you think is the greatest poet? asked Boland, nudging his
neighbour.

--Byron, of course, answered Stephen.

Heron gave the lead and all three joined in a scornful laugh.

--What are you laughing at? asked Stephen.

--You, said Heron. Byron the greatest poet! He's only a poet for
uneducated people.

--He must be a fine poet! said Boland.

--You may keep your mouth shut, said Stephen, turning on him boldly.
All you know about poetry is what you wrote up on the slates in the
yard and were going to be sent to the loft for.

Boland, in fact, was said to have written on the slates in the yard a
couplet about a classmate of his who often rode home from the college
on a pony:


As Tyson was riding into Jerusalem
He fell and hurt his Alec Kafoozelum.


This thrust put the two lieutenants to silence but Heron went on:

--In any case Byron was a heretic and immoral too.

--I don't care what he was, cried Stephen hotly.

--You don't care whether he was a heretic or not? said Nash.

--What do you know about it? shouted Stephen. You never read a line of
anything in your life except a trans, or Boland either.

--I know that Byron was a bad man, said Boland.

--Here, catch hold of this heretic, Heron called out. In a moment
Stephen was a prisoner.

--Tate made you buck up the other day, Heron went on, about the heresy
in your essay.

--I'll tell him tomorrow, said Boland.

--Will you? said Stephen. You'd be afraid to open your lips.

--Afraid?

--Ay. Afraid of your life.

--Behave yourself! cried Heron, cutting at Stephen's legs with his
cane.

It was the signal for their onset. Nash pinioned his arms behind while
Boland seized a long cabbage stump which was lying in the gutter.
Struggling and kicking under the cuts of the cane and the blows of the
knotty stump Stephen was borne back against a barbed wire fence.

--Admit that Byron was no good.

--No.

--Admit.

--No.

--Admit.

--No. No.

At last after a fury of plunges he wrenched himself free. His
tormentors set off towards Jones's Road, laughing and jeering at him,
while he, half blinded with tears, stumbled on, clenching his fists
madly and sobbing.

While he was still repeating the CONFITEOR amid the indulgent laughter
of his hearers and while the scenes of that malignant episode were
still passing sharply and swiftly before his mind he wondered why he
bore no malice now to those who had tormented him. He had not forgotten
a whit of their cowardice and cruelty but the memory of it called forth
no anger from him. All the descriptions of fierce love and hatred which
he had met in books had seemed to him therefore unreal. Even that night
as he stumbled homewards along Jones's Road he had felt that some power
was divesting him of that sudden-woven anger as easily as a fruit is
divested of its soft ripe peel.

He remained standing with his two companions at the end of the shed
listening idly to their talk or to the bursts of applause in the
theatre. She was sitting there among the others perhaps waiting for him
to appear. He tried to recall her appearance but could not. He could
remember only that she had worn a shawl about her head like a cowl and
that her dark eyes had invited and unnerved him. He wondered had he
been in her thoughts as she had been in his. Then in the dark and
unseen by the other two he rested the tips of the fingers of one hand
upon the palm of the other hand, scarcely touching it lightly. But the
pressure of her fingers had been lighter and steadier: and suddenly the
memory of their touch traversed his brain and body like an invisible
wave.

A boy came towards them, running along under the shed. He was excited
and breathless.

--O, Dedalus, he cried, Doyle is in a great bake about you. You're to
go in at once and get dressed for the play. Hurry up, you better.

--He's coming now, said Heron to the messenger with a haughty drawl,
when he wants to.

The boy turned to Heron and repeated:

--But Doyle is in an awful bake.

--Will you tell Doyle with my best compliments that I damned his eyes?
answered Heron.

--Well, I must go now, said Stephen, who cared little for such points
of honour.

--I wouldn't, said Heron, damn me if I would. That's no way to send
for one of the senior boys. In a bake, indeed!