No More Learning

Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy
square. Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house. Aha. And were
they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his
name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man?
His name was Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have.

Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam and
pointed to the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street.

--But mind you don't post yourself into the box, little man, he said.

The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed:

--O, sir.

--Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said.

Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee's letter
to father provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox. Father
Conmee smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square
east.

Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, in silk hat, slate
frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender
trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave
deportment most respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady
Maxwell at the corner of Dignam's court.

Was that not Mrs M'Guinness?

Mrs M'Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the
farther footpath along which she sailed. And Father Conmee smiled and
saluted. How did she do?

A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to
think that she was a pawnbroker! Well, now! Such a. . . what should he
say? . . . such a queenly mien.

Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the shutup
free church on his left. The reverend T. R. Greene B. A. will (D. V. )
speak. The incumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on him to say
a few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible ignorance. They
acted according to their lights.

Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular
road. It was a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an important
thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be.

A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All
raised untidy caps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly.
Christian brother boys.

Father Conmee smelt incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint
Joseph's church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females.
Father Conmee raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous: but
occasionally they were also badtempered.

Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift
nobleman. And now it was an office or something.

Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted
by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father
Conmee saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came
from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan's the
Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful
catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually
happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an
act of perfect contrition.

Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin's publichouse against the window of
which two unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted.

Father Conmee passed H. J. O'Neill's funeral establishment where Corny
Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay.
A constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted
the constable. In Youkstetter's, the porkbutcher's, Father Conmee
observed pig's puddings, white and black and red, lie neatly curled in
tubes.

Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a
turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty
straw seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above
him. It was idyllic: and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of
the Creator who had made turf to be in bogs whence men might dig it
out and bring it to town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor
people.

On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S. J. of saint Francis
Xavier's church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound
tram.

Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of
saint Agatha's church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge.

At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for
he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island.

Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with
care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a sixpence
and five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into his purse.
Passing the ivy church he reflected that the ticket inspector usually
made his visit when one had carelessly thrown away the ticket. The
solemnity of the occupants of the car seemed to Father Conmee excessive
for a journey so short and cheap. Father Conmee liked cheerful decorum.

It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father
Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee
supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with
the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently,
tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily,
sweetly.

Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that
the awkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the
seat.

Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the
mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head.

At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old
woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the
bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and
a marketnet: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and
basket down: and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly passed
the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had
always to be told twice _bless you, my child,_ that they have been
absolved, _pray for me. _ But they had so many worries in life, so many
cares, poor creatures.

From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick niggerlips at
Father Conmee.

Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men and
of his sermon on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African mission and of
the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and
yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last
hour came like a thief in the night. That book by the Belgian jesuit,
_Le Nombre des Elus,_ seemed to Father Conmee a reasonable plea. Those
were millions of human souls created by God in His Own likeness to
whom the faith had not (D. V. ) been brought. But they were God's souls,
created by God. It seemed to Father Conmee a pity that they should all
be lost, a waste, if one might say.

At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the
conductor and saluted in his turn.

The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name.
The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide,
immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining.
Then came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day.
Those were old worldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times
in the barony.

Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book _Old Times in the
Barony_ and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and of
Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere.

A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel,
Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening,
not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the
jealous lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed
adultery fully, _eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris,_ with
her husband's brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned
as women did. Only God knew and she and he, her husband's brother.

Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for
man's race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways.

Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and
honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at
smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit
clusters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble,
were impalmed by Don John Conmee.

It was a charming day.

The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages,
curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of
small white clouds going slowly down the wind. _Moutonner,_ the French
said. A just and homely word.

Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds
over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of
Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard
the cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in the quiet
evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild.

Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An
ivory bookmark told him the page.

Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come.

Father Conmee read in secret _Pater_ and _Ave_ and crossed his breast.
_Deus in adiutorium. _

He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he
came to _Res_ in _Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas:
in eternum omnia indicia iustitiae tuae. _

A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a
young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised
his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care
detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.

Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his
breviary. _Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis
formidavit cor meum. _

* * * * *

Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye
at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect,
went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass
furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came
to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes
and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out.

Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.

Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat
downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.

Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day.

--That's a fine day, Mr Kelleher.

--Ay, Corny Kelleher said.

--It's very close, the constable said.

Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth
while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a
coin.

--What's the best news? he asked.

--I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with
bated breath.

* * * * *

A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner, skirting
Rabaiotti's icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards
Larry O'Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:

--_For England_. . .

He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted
and growled:

--_home and beauty. _

J. J. O'Molloy's white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the
warehouse with a visitor.

A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it
into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly
at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four
strides.

He halted and growled angrily:

--_For England_. . .

Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him,
gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths.

He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head
towards a window and bayed deeply:

--_home and beauty. _

The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased.
The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card _Unfurnished Apartments_
slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was
seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A
woman's hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the
path.

One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the
minstrel's cap, saying:

--There, sir.

* * * * *

Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen.

--Did you put in the books? Boody asked.

Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds
twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.

--They wouldn't give anything on them, she said.

Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles
tickled by stubble.

--Where did you try? Boody asked.

--M'Guinness's.

Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.

--Bad cess to her big face! she cried.
Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.

--What's in the pot? she asked.

--Shirts, Maggy said.

Boody cried angrily:

--Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?

Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:

--And what's in this?

A heavy fume gushed in answer.

--Peasoup, Maggy said.

--Where did you get it? Katey asked.

--Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.

The lacquey rang his bell.

--Barang!

Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:

--Give us it here.

Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey,
sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her
mouth random crumbs:

--A good job we have that much. Where's Dilly?

--Gone to meet father, Maggy said.

Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:

--Our father who art not in heaven.

Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey's bowl, exclaimed:

--Boody! For shame!

A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the
Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed
around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains,
between the Customhouse old dock and George's quay.

* * * * *

The blond girl in Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling
fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper
and a small jar.

--Put these in first, will you? he said.

--Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.

--That'll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.

She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe
shamefaced peaches.

Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the
fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red
tomatoes, sniffing smells.

H. E. L. Y. 'S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane,
plodding towards their goal.

He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from
his fob and held it at its chain's length.

--Can you send them by tram? Now?

A darkbacked figure under Merchants' arch scanned books on the hawker's
cart.

--Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?

--O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes.

The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.

--Will you write the address, sir?

Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.

--Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid.

--Yes, sir. I will, sir.

Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers' pocket.

--What's the damage? he asked.

The blond girl's slim fingers reckoned the fruits.

Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took
a red carnation from the tall stemglass.

--This for me? he asked gallantly.

The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie
a bit crooked, blushing.

--Yes, sir, she said.

Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.

Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the
red flower between his smiling teeth.

--May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.

* * * * *

_--Ma! _ Almidano Artifoni said.

He gazed over Stephen's shoulder at Goldsmith's knobby poll.

Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore,
gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men's arms frankly round their
stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of
the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed.

--_Anch'io ho avuto di queste idee, ALMIDANO ARTIFONI SAID, quand' ero
giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo e una bestia.
E peccato. Perche la sua voce. . . sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via.
Invece, Lei si sacrifica. _

--_Sacrifizio incruento,_ Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in
slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly.

_--Speriamo,_ the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. _Ma, dia retta
a me. Ci rifletta_.

By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram
unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band.

--_Ci riflettero,_ Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg.

--_Ma, sul serio, eh? _ Almidano Artifoni said.

His heavy hand took Stephen's firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously
an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram.

_--Eccolo,_ Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. _Venga a trovarmi
e ci pensi. Addio, caro. _

--_Arrivederla, maestro,_ Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand
was freed. _E grazie. _

--_Di che? _ Almidano Artifoni said. _Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose! _

Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal,
trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted,
signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling
implements of music through Trinity gates.

* * * * *

Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of _The Woman in White_
far back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her
typewriter.

Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion?
Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye.

The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them:
six.

Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard:

--16 June 1904.

Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny's corner and the slab
where Wolfe Tone's statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L.
Y. 'S and plodded back as they had come.

Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and
capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She's not nicelooking,
is she? The way she's holding up her bit of a skirt. Wonder will that
fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a
concertina skirt like Susy Nagle's. They kick out grand. Shannon and
all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her. Hope to goodness he
won't keep me here till seven.

The telephone rang rudely by her ear.

--Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five. Only
those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can go
after six if you're not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and
six. I'll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six.

She scribbled three figures on an envelope.

--Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from SPORT was in looking for you. Mr
Lenehan, yes. He said he'll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes, sir.
I'll ring them up after five.

* * * * *

Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch.

--Who's that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty?

--Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied groping for foothold.

--Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute his
pliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps there.

The vesta in the clergyman's uplifted hand consumed itself in a long
soft flame and was let fall. At their feet its red speck died: and
mouldy air closed round them.

--How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom.

--Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historic
council chamber of saint Mary's abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed
himself a rebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all Dublin.
O'Madden Burke is going to write something about it one of these days.
The old bank of Ireland was over the way till the time of the union and
the original jews' temple was here too before they built their synagogue
over in Adelaide road. You were never here before, Jack, were you?

--No, Ned.

--He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memory
serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court.

--That's right, Ned Lambert said. That's quite right, sir.

--If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to
allow me perhaps. . .

--Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like. I'll
get those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here
or from here.

In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the piled
seedbags and points of vantage on the floor.

From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard.

--I'm deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won't trespass
on your valuable time. . .

--You're welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like. Next
week, say. Can you see?

--Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you.

--Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered.

He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away among
the pillars. With J. J. O'Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary's abbey
where draymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut meal,
O'Connor, Wexford.

He stood to read the card in his hand.

--The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint
Michael's, Sallins. Nice young chap he is.