A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Chapter 4
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[5579] Chapter 4 [5580] [5581] [5582] [5583] Sunday was dedicated to the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Monday to the [5584] Holy Ghost, Tuesday to the Guardian Angels, Wednesday to saint Joseph, [5585] Thursday to the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, Friday to the [5586] Suffering Jesus, Saturday to the Blessed Virgin Mary. [5587] [5588] Every morning he hallowed himself anew in the presence of some holy [5589] image or mystery. His day began with an heroic offering of its every [5590] moment of thought or action for the intentions of the sovereign pontiff [5591] and with an early mass. The raw morning air whetted his resolute piety; [5592] and often as he knelt among the few worshippers at the side-altar, [5593] following with his interleaved prayer-book the murmur of the priest, he [5594] glanced up for an instant towards the vested figure standing in the [5595] gloom between the two candles, which were the old and the new [5596] testaments, and imagined that he was kneeling at mass in the catacombs. [5597] [5598] His daily life was laid out in devotional areas. By means of [5599] ejaculations and prayers he stored up ungrudgingly for the souls in [5600] purgatory centuries of days and quarantines and years; yet the [5601] spiritual triumph which he felt in achieving with ease so many fabulous [5602] ages of canonical penances did not wholly reward his zeal of prayer, [5603] since he could never know how much temporal punishment he had remitted [5604] by way of suffrage for the agonizing souls; and fearful lest in the [5605] midst of the purgatorial fire, which differed from the infernal only in [5606] that it was not everlasting, his penance might avail no more than a [5607] drop of moisture, he drove his soul daily through an increasing circle [5608] of works of supererogation. [5609] [5610] Every part of his day, divided by what he regarded now as the duties of [5611] his station in life, circled about its own centre of spiritual energy. [5612] His life seemed to have drawn near to eternity; every thought, word, [5613] and deed, every instance of consciousness could be made to revibrate [5614] radiantly in heaven; and at times his sense of such immediate [5615] repercussion was so lively that he seemed to feel his soul in devotion [5616] pressing like fingers the keyboard of a great cash register and to see [5617] the amount of his purchase start forth immediately in heaven, not as a [5618] number but as a frail column of incense or as a slender flower. [5619] [5620] The rosaries, too, which he said constantly--for he carried his beads [5621] loose in his trousers' pockets that he might tell them as he walked the [5622] streets--transformed themselves into coronals of flowers of such vague [5623] unearthly texture that they seemed to him as hueless and odourless as [5624] they were nameless. He offered up each of his three daily chaplets that [5625] his soul might grow strong in each of the three theological virtues, in [5626] faith in the Father Who had created him, in hope in the Son Who had [5627] redeemed him and in love of the Holy Ghost Who had sanctified him; and [5628] this thrice triple prayer he offered to the Three Persons through Mary [5629] in the name of her joyful and sorrowful and glorious mysteries. [5630] [5631] On each of the seven days of the week he further prayed that one of the [5632] seven gifts of the Holy Ghost might descend upon his soul and drive out [5633] of it day by day the seven deadly sins which had defiled it in the [5634] past; and he prayed for each gift on its appointed day, confident that [5635] it would descend upon him, though it seemed strange to him at times [5636] that wisdom and understanding and knowledge were so distinct in their [5637] nature that each should be prayed for apart from the others. Yet he [5638] believed that at some future stage of his spiritual progress this [5639] difficulty would be removed when his sinful soul had been raised up [5640] from its weakness and enlightened by the Third Person of the Most [5641] Blessed Trinity. He believed this all the more, and with trepidation, [5642] because of the divine gloom and silence wherein dwelt the unseen [5643] Paraclete, Whose symbols were a dove and a mighty wind, to sin against [5644] Whom was a sin beyond forgiveness, the eternal mysterious secret Being [5645] to Whom, as God, the priests offered up mass once a year, robed in the [5646] scarlet of the tongues of fire. [5647] [5648] The imagery through which the nature and kinship of the Three Persons [5649] of the Trinity were darkly shadowed forth in the books of devotion [5650] which he read--the Father contemplating from all eternity as in a [5651] mirror His Divine Perfections and thereby begetting eternally the [5652] Eternal Son and the Holy Spirit proceeding out of Father and Son from [5653] all eternity--were easier of acceptance by his mind by reason of their [5654] august incomprehensibility than was the simple fact that God had loved [5655] his soul from all eternity, for ages before he had been born into the [5656] world, for ages before the world itself had existed. [5657] [5658] He had heard the names of the passions of love and hate pronounced [5659] solemnly on the stage and in the pulpit, had found them set forth [5660] solemnly in books and had wondered why his soul was unable to harbour [5661] them for any time or to force his lips to utter their names with [5662] conviction. A brief anger had often invested him but he had never been [5663] able to make it an abiding passion and had always felt himself passing [5664] out of it as if his very body were being divested with ease of some [5665] outer skin or peel. He had felt a subtle, dark, and murmurous presence [5666] penetrate his being and fire him with a brief iniquitous lust: it, too, [5667] had slipped beyond his grasp leaving his mind lucid and indifferent. [5668] This, it seemed, was the only love and that the only hate his soul [5669] would harbour. [5670] [5671] But he could no longer disbelieve in the reality of love, since God [5672] Himself had loved his individual soul with divine love from all [5673] eternity. Gradually, as his soul was enriched with spiritual knowledge, [5674] he saw the whole world forming one vast symmetrical expression of God's [5675] power and love. Life became a divine gift for every moment and [5676] sensation of which, were it even the sight of a single leaf hanging on [5677] the twig of a tree, his soul should praise and thank the Giver. The [5678] world for all its solid substance and complexity no longer existed for [5679] his soul save as a theorem of divine power and love and universality. [5680] So entire and unquestionable was this sense of the divine meaning in [5681] all nature granted to his soul that he could scarcely understand why it [5682] was in any way necessary that he should continue to live. Yet that was [5683] part of the divine purpose and he dared not question its use, he above [5684] all others who had sinned so deeply and so foully against the divine [5685] purpose. Meek and abased by this consciousness of the one eternal [5686] omnipresent perfect reality his soul took up again her burden of [5687] pieties, masses and prayers and sacraments and mortifications, and only [5688] then for the first time since he had brooded on the great mystery of [5689] love did he feel within him a warm movement like that of some newly [5690] born life or virtue of the soul itself. The attitude of rapture in [5691] sacred art, the raised and parted hands, the parted lips and eyes as of [5692] one about to swoon, became for him an image of the soul in prayer, [5693] humiliated and faint before her Creator. [5694] [5695] But he had been forewarned of the dangers of spiritual exaltation and [5696] did not allow himself to desist from even the least or lowliest [5697] devotion, striving also by constant mortification to undo the sinful [5698] past rather than to achieve a saintliness fraught with peril. Each of [5699] his senses was brought under a rigorous discipline. In order to mortify [5700] the sense of sight he made it his rule to walk in the street with [5701] downcast eyes, glancing neither to right nor left and never behind him. [5702] His eyes shunned every encounter with the eyes of women. From time to [5703] time also he balked them by a sudden effort of the will, as by lifting [5704] them suddenly in the middle of an unfinished sentence and closing the [5705] book. To mortify his hearing he exerted no control over his voice which [5706] was then breaking, neither sang nor whistled, and made no attempt to [5707] flee from noises which caused him painful nervous irritation such as [5708] the sharpening of knives on the knife board, the gathering of cinders [5709] on the fire-shovel and the twigging of the carpet. To mortify his smell [5710] was more difficult as he found in himself no instinctive repugnance to [5711] bad odours whether they were the odours of the outdoor world, such as [5712] those of dung or tar, or the odours of his own person among which he [5713] had made many curious comparisons and experiments. He found in the end [5714] that the only odour against which his sense of smell revolted was a [5715] certain stale fishy stink like that of long-standing urine; and [5716] whenever it was possible he subjected himself to this unpleasant odour. [5717] To mortify the taste he practised strict habits at table, observed to [5718] the letter all the fasts of the church and sought by distraction to [5719] divert his mind from the savours of different foods. But it was to the [5720] mortification of touch he brought the most assiduous ingenuity of [5721] inventiveness. He never consciously changed his position in bed, sat in [5722] the most uncomfortable positions, suffered patiently every itch and [5723] pain, kept away from the fire, remained on his knees all through the [5724] mass except at the gospels, left part of his neck and face undried so [5725] that air might sting them and, whenever he was not saying his beads, [5726] carried his arms stiffly at his sides like a runner and never in his [5727] pockets or clasped behind him. [5728] [5729] He had no temptations to sin mortally. It surprised him however to find [5730] that at the end of his course of intricate piety and self-restraint he [5731] was so easily at the mercy of childish and unworthy imperfections. His [5732] prayers and fasts availed him little for the suppression of anger at [5733] hearing his mother sneeze or at being disturbed in his devotions. It [5734] needed an immense effort of his will to master the impulse which urged [5735] him to give outlet to such irritation. Images of the outbursts of [5736] trivial anger which he had often noted among his masters, their [5737] twitching mouths, close-shut lips and flushed cheeks, recurred to his [5738] memory, discouraging him, for all his practice of humility, by the [5739] comparison. To merge his life in the common tide of other lives was [5740] harder for him than any fasting or prayer and it was his constant [5741] failure to do this to his own satisfaction which caused in his soul at [5742] last a sensation of spiritual dryness together with a growth of doubts [5743] and scruples. His soul traversed a period of desolation in which the [5744] sacraments themselves seemed to have turned into dried-up sources. His [5745] confession became a channel for the escape of scrupulous and unrepented [5746] imperfections. His actual reception of the eucharist did not bring him [5747] the same dissolving moments of virginal self-surrender as did those [5748] spiritual communions made by him sometimes at the close of some visit [5749] to the Blessed Sacrament. The book which he used for these visits was [5750] an old neglected book written by saint Alphonsus Liguori, with fading [5751] characters and sere foxpapered leaves. A faded world of fervent love [5752] and virginal responses seemed to be evoked for his soul by the reading [5753] of its pages in which the imagery of the canticles was interwoven with [5754] the communicant's prayers. An inaudible voice seemed to caress the [5755] soul, telling her names and glories, bidding her arise as for espousal [5756] and come away, bidding her look forth, a spouse, from Amana and from [5757] the mountains of the leopards; and the soul seemed to answer with the [5758] same inaudible voice, surrendering herself: INTER UBERA MEA [5759] COMMORABITUR. [5760] [5761] This idea of surrender had a perilous attraction for his mind now that [5762] he felt his soul beset once again by the insistent voices of the flesh [5763] which began to murmur to him again during his prayers and meditations. [5764] It gave him an intense sense of power to know that he could, by a [5765] single act of consent, in a moment of thought, undo all that he had [5766] done. He seemed to feel a flood slowly advancing towards his naked feet [5767] and to be waiting for the first faint timid noiseless wavelet to touch [5768] his fevered skin. Then, almost at the instant of that touch, almost at [5769] the verge of sinful consent, he found himself standing far away from [5770] the flood upon a dry shore, saved by a sudden act of the will or a [5771] sudden ejaculation; and, seeing the silver line of the flood far away [5772] and beginning again its slow advance towards his feet, a new thrill of [5773] power and satisfaction shook his soul to know that he had not yielded [5774] nor undone all. [5775] [5776] When he had eluded the flood of temptation many times in this way he [5777] grew troubled and wondered whether the grace which he had refused to [5778] lose was not being filched from him little by little. The clear [5779] certitude of his own immunity grew dim and to it succeeded a vague fear [5780] that his soul had really fallen unawares. It was with difficulty that [5781] he won back his old consciousness of his state of grace by telling [5782] himself that he had prayed to God at every temptation and that the [5783] grace which he had prayed for must have been given to him inasmuch as [5784] God was obliged to give it. The very frequency and violence of [5785] temptations showed him at last the truth of what he had heard about the [5786] trials of the saints. Frequent and violent temptations were a proof [5787] that the citadel of the soul had not fallen and that the devil raged to [5788] make it fall. [5789] [5790] Often when he had confessed his doubts and scruples--some momentary [5791] inattention at prayer, a movement of trivial anger in his soul, or a [5792] subtle wilfulness in speech or act--he was bidden by his confessor to [5793] name some sin of his past life before absolution was given him. He [5794] named it with humility and shame and repented of it once more. It [5795] humiliated and shamed him to think that he would never be freed from it [5796] wholly, however holily he might live or whatever virtues or perfections [5797] he might attain. A restless feeling of guilt would always be present [5798] with him: he would confess and repent and be absolved, confess and [5799] repent again and be absolved again, fruitlessly. Perhaps that first [5800] hasty confession wrung from him by the fear of hell had not been good? [5801] Perhaps, concerned only for his imminent doom, he had not had sincere [5802] sorrow for his sin? But the surest sign that his confession had been [5803] good and that he had had sincere sorrow for his sin was, he knew, the [5804] amendment of his life. [5805] [5806] --I have amended my life, have I not? he asked himself. [5807] [5808] [5809] [5810] [5811] [5812] The director stood in the embrasure of the window, his back to the [5813] light, leaning an elbow on the brown crossblind, and, as he spoke and [5814] smiled, slowly dangling and looping the cord of the other blind, [5815] Stephen stood before him, following for a moment with his eyes the [5816] waning of the long summer daylight above the roofs or the slow deft [5817] movements of the priestly fingers. The priest's face was in total [5818] shadow, but the waning daylight from behind him touched the deeply [5819] grooved temples and the curves of the skull. [5820] [5821] Stephen followed also with his ears the accents and intervals of the [5822] priest's voice as he spoke gravely and cordially of indifferent themes, [5823] the vacation which had just ended, the colleges of the order abroad, [5824] the transference of masters. The grave and cordial voice went on easily [5825] with its tale and in the pauses Stephen felt bound to set it on again [5826] with respectful questions. He knew that the tale was a prelude and his [5827] mind waited for the sequel. Ever since the message of summons had come [5828] for him from the director his mind had struggled to find the meaning of [5829] the message; and, during the long restless time he had sat in the [5830] college parlour waiting for the director to come in, his eyes had [5831] wandered from one sober picture to another around the walls and his [5832] mind wandered from one guess to another until the meaning of the [5833] summons had almost become clear. Then, just as he was wishing that some [5834] unforeseen cause might prevent the director from coming, he had heard [5835] the handle of the door turning and the swish of a soutane. [5836] [5837] The director had begun to speak of the dominican and franciscan orders [5838] and of the friendship between saint Thomas and saint Bonaventure. The [5839] capuchin dress, he thought, was rather too... [5840] [5841] Stephen's face gave back the priest's indulgent smile and, not being [5842] anxious to give an opinion, he made a slight dubitative movement with [5843] his lips. [5844] [5845] --I believe, continued the director, that there is some talk now among [5846] the capuchins themselves of doing away with it and following the [5847] example of the other franciscans. [5848] [5849] --I suppose they would retain it in the cloisters? said Stephen. [5850] [5851] --O certainly, said the director. For the cloister it is all right but [5852] for the street I really think it would be better to do away with it, [5853] don't you? [5854] [5855] --It must be troublesome, I imagine. [5856] [5857] --Of course it is, of course. Just imagine when I was in Belgium I [5858] used to see them out cycling in all kinds of weather with this thing up [5859] about their knees! It was really ridiculous. LES JUPES, they call them [5860] in Belgium. [5861] [5862] The vowel was so modified as to be indistinct. [5863] [5864] --What do they call them? [5865] [5866] --LES JUPES. [5867] [5868] --O! [5869] [5870] Stephen smiled again in answer to the smile which he could not see on [5871] the priest's shadowed face, its image or spectre only passing rapidly [5872] across his mind as the low discreet accent fell upon his ear. He gazed [5873] calmly before him at the waning sky, glad of the cool of the evening [5874] and of the faint yellow glow which hid the tiny flame kindling upon his [5875] cheek. [5876] [5877] The names of articles of dress worn by women or of certain soft and [5878] delicate stuffs used in their making brought always to his mind a [5879] delicate and sinful perfume. As a boy he had imagined the reins by [5880] which horses are driven as slender silken bands and it shocked him to [5881] feel at Stradbrooke the greasy leather of harness. It had shocked him, [5882] too, when he had felt for the first time beneath his tremulous fingers [5883] the brittle texture of a woman's stocking for, retaining nothing of all [5884] he read save that which seemed to him an echo or a prophecy of his own [5885] state, it was only amid soft-worded phrases or within rose-soft stuffs [5886] that he dared to conceive of the soul or body of a woman moving with [5887] tender life. [5888] [5889] But the phrase on the priest's lips was disingenuous for he knew that a [5890] priest should not speak lightly on that theme. The phrase had been [5891] spoken lightly with design and he felt that his face was being searched [5892] by the eyes in the shadow. Whatever he had heard or read of the craft [5893] of jesuits he had put aside frankly as not borne out by his own [5894] experience. His masters, even when they had not attracted him, [5895] had seemed to him always intelligent and serious priests, [5896] athletic and high-spirited prefects. He thought of them as men [5897] who washed their bodies briskly with cold water and wore clean cold [5898] linen. During all the years he had lived among them in Clongowes and in [5899] Belvedere he had received only two pandies and, though these had been [5900] dealt him in the wrong, he knew that he had often escaped punishment. [5901] During all those years he had never heard from any of his masters a [5902] flippant word: it was they who had taught him christian doctrine and [5903] urged him to live a good life and, when he had fallen into grievous [5904] sin, it was they who had led him back to grace. Their presence had made [5905] him diffident of himself when he was a muff in Clongowes and it had made [5906] him diffident of himself also while he had held his equivocal position [5907] in Belvedere. A constant sense of this had remained with him up to the [5908] last year of his school life. He had never once disobeyed or allowed [5909] turbulent companions to seduce him from his habit of quiet obedience; [5910] and, even when he doubted some statement of a master, he had never [5911] presumed to doubt openly. Lately some of their judgements had sounded a [5912] little childish in his ears and had made him feel a regret and pity as [5913] though he were slowly passing out of an accustomed world and were [5914] hearing its language for the last time. One day when some boys had [5915] gathered round a priest under the shed near the chapel, he had heard [5916] the priest say: [5917] [5918] --I believe that Lord Macaulay was a man who probably never committed [5919] a mortal sin in his life, that is to say, a deliberate mortal sin. [5920] [5921] Some of the boys had then asked the priest if Victor Hugo were not the [5922] greatest French writer. The priest had answered that Victor Hugo had [5923] never written half so well when he had turned against the church as he [5924] had written when he was a catholic. [5925] [5926] --But there are many eminent French critics, said the priest, who [5927] consider that even Victor Hugo, great as he certainly was, had not so [5928] pure a French style as Louis Veuillot. [5929] [5930] The tiny flame which the priest's allusion had kindled upon Stephen's [5931] cheek had sunk down again and his eyes were still fixed calmly on the [5932] colourless sky. But an unresting doubt flew hither and thither before [5933] his mind. Masked memories passed quickly before him: he recognized [5934] scenes and persons yet he was conscious that he had failed to perceive [5935] some vital circumstance in them. He saw himself walking about the [5936] grounds watching the sports in Clongowes and eating slim jim out of his [5937] cricket cap. Some jesuits were walking round the cycle-track in the [5938] company of ladies. The echoes of certain expressions used in Clongowes [5939] sounded in remote caves of his mind. [5940] [5941] His ears were listening to these distant echoes amid the silence of the [5942] parlour when he became aware that the priest was addressing him in a [5943] different voice. [5944] [5945] --I sent for you today, Stephen, because I wished to speak to you on a [5946] very important subject. [5947] [5948] --Yes, sir. [5949] [5950] --Have you ever felt that you had a vocation? [5951] [5952] Stephen parted his lips to answer yes and then withheld the word [5953] suddenly. The priest waited for the answer and added: [5954] [5955] --I mean, have you ever felt within yourself, in your soul, a desire [5956] to join the order? Think. [5957] [5958] --I have sometimes thought of it, said Stephen. [5959] [5960] The priest let the blindcord fall to one side and, uniting his hands, [5961] leaned his chin gravely upon them, communing with himself. [5962] [5963] --In a college like this, he said at length, there is one boy or perhaps [5964] two or three boys whom God calls to the religious life. Such a boy is [5965] marked off from his companions by his piety, by the good example he [5966] shows to others. He is looked up to by them; he is chosen perhaps as [5967] prefect by his fellow sodalists. And you, Stephen, have been such a boy [5968] in this college, prefect of Our Blessed Lady's sodality. Perhaps you [5969] are the boy in this college whom God designs to call to Himself. [5970] [5971] A strong note of pride reinforcing the gravity of the priest's voice [5972] made Stephen's heart quicken in response. [5973] [5974] To receive that call, Stephen, said the priest, is the greatest honour [5975] that the Almighty God can bestow upon a man. No king or emperor on this [5976] earth has the power of the priest of God. No angel or archangel in [5977] heaven, no saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, has the power of [5978] a priest of God: the power of the keys, the power to bind and to loose [5979] from sin, the power of exorcism, the power to cast out from the [5980] creatures of God the evil spirits that have power over them; the power, [5981] the authority, to make the great God of Heaven come down upon the altar [5982] and take the form of bread and wine. What an awful power, Stephen! [5983] [5984] A flame began to flutter again on Stephen's cheek as he heard in this [5985] proud address an echo of his own proud musings. How often had he seen [5986] himself as a priest wielding calmly and humbly the awful power [5987] of which angels and saints stood in reverence! His soul had loved [5988] to muse in secret on this desire. He had seen himself, a young [5989] and silent-mannered priest, entering a confessional swiftly, [5990] ascending the altarsteps, incensing, genuflecting, accomplishing [5991] the vague acts of the priesthood which pleased him by reason of [5992] their semblance of reality and of their distance from it. In that [5993] dim life which he had lived through in his musings he had [5994] assumed the voices and gestures which he had noted with various [5995] priests. He had bent his knee sideways like such a one, he had [5996] shaken the thurible only slightly like such a one, his chasuble had [5997] swung open like that of such another as he turned to the altar again [5998] after having blessed the people. And above all it had pleased him to [5999] fill the second place in those dim scenes of his imagining. He shrank [6000] from the dignity of celebrant because it displeased him to imagine that [6001] all the vague pomp should end in his own person or that the ritual [6002] should assign to him so clear and final an office. He longed for the [6003] minor sacred offices, to be vested with the tunicle of subdeacon at [6004] high mass, to stand aloof from the altar, forgotten by the people, his [6005] shoulders covered with a humeral veil, holding the paten within its [6006] folds or, when the sacrifice had been accomplished, to stand as deacon [6007] in a dalmatic of cloth of gold on the step below the celebrant, his [6008] hands joined and his face towards the people, and sing the chant ITE [6009] MISSA EST. If ever he had seen himself celebrant it was as in the [6010] pictures of the mass in his child's massbook, in a church without [6011] worshippers, save for the angel of the sacrifice, at a bare altar, and [6012] served by an acolyte scarcely more boyish than himself. In vague [6013] sacrificial or sacramental acts alone his will seemed drawn to go forth [6014] to encounter reality; and it was partly the absence of an appointed [6015] rite which had always constrained him to inaction whether he had [6016] allowed silence to cover his anger or pride or had suffered only an [6017] embrace he longed to give. [6018] [6019] He listened in reverent silence now to the priest's appeal and through [6020] the words he heard even more distinctly a voice bidding him approach, [6021] offering him secret knowledge and secret power. He would know then what [6022] was the sin of Simon Magus and what the sin against the Holy Ghost for [6023] which there was no forgiveness. He would know obscure things, hidden [6024] from others, from those who were conceived and born children of wrath. [6025] He would know the sins, the sinful longings and sinful thoughts and [6026] sinful acts, of others, hearing them murmured into his ears in the [6027] confessional under the shame of a darkened chapel by the lips of women [6028] and of girls; but rendered immune mysteriously at his ordination by the [6029] imposition of hands, his soul would pass again uncontaminated to the [6030] white peace of the altar. No touch of sin would linger upon the hands [6031] with which he would elevate and break the host; no touch of sin would [6032] linger on his lips in prayer to make him eat and drink damnation to [6033] himself not discerning the body of the Lord. He would hold his secret [6034] knowledge and secret power, being as sinless as the innocent, and he [6035] would be a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec. [6036] [6037] --I will offer up my mass tomorrow morning, said the director, that [6038] Almighty God may reveal to you His holy will. And let you, Stephen, [6039] make a novena to your holy patron saint, the first martyr, who is very [6040] powerful with God, that God may enlighten your mind. But you must be [6041] quite sure, Stephen, that you have a vocation because it would be [6042] terrible if you found afterwards that you had none. Once a priest [6043] always a priest, remember. Your catechism tells you that the sacrament [6044] of Holy Orders is one of those which can be received only once because [6045] it imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark which can never be [6046] effaced. It is before you must weigh well, not after. It is a solemn [6047] question, Stephen, because on it may depend the salvation of your [6048] eternal soul. But we will pray to God together. [6049] [6050] He held open the heavy hall door and gave his hand as if already to a [6051] companion in the spiritual life. Stephen passed out on to the wide [6052] platform above the steps and was conscious of the caress of mild [6053] evening air. Towards Findlater's church a quartet of young men were [6054] striding along with linked arms, swaying their heads and stepping to [6055] the agile melody of their leader's concertina. The music passed in an [6056] instant, as the first bars of sudden music always did, over the [6057] fantastic fabrics of his mind, dissolving them painlessly and [6058] noiselessly as a sudden wave dissolves the sand-built turrets of [6059] children. Smiling at the trivial air he raised his eyes to the priest's [6060] face and, seeing in it a mirthless reflection of the sunken day, [6061] detached his hand slowly which had acquiesced faintly in the [6062] companionship. [6063] [6064] As he descended the steps the impression which effaced his troubled [6065] self-communion was that of a mirthless mask reflecting a sunken day [6066] from the threshold of the college. The shadow, then, of the life of the [6067] college passed gravely over his consciousness. It was a grave and [6068] ordered and passionless life that awaited him, a life without material [6069] cares. He wondered how he would pass the first night in the novitiate [6070] and with what dismay he would wake the first morning in the dormitory. [6071] The troubling odour of the long corridors of Clongowes came back to him [6072] and he heard the discreet murmur of the burning gasflames. At once from [6073] every part of his being unrest began to irradiate. A feverish [6074] quickening of his pulses followed, and a din of meaningless words drove [6075] his reasoned thoughts hither and thither confusedly. His lungs dilated [6076] and sank as if he were inhaling a warm moist unsustaining air and he [6077] smelt again the moist warm air which hung in the bath in Clongowes [6078] above the sluggish turf-coloured water. [6079] [6080] Some instinct, waking at these memories, stronger than education or [6081] piety, quickened within him at every near approach to that life, an [6082] instinct subtle and hostile, and armed him against acquiescence. The [6083] chill and order of the life repelled him. He saw himself rising in the [6084] cold of the morning and filing down with the others to early mass and [6085] trying vainly to struggle with his prayers against the fainting [6086] sickness of his stomach. He saw himself sitting at dinner with the [6087] community of a college. What, then, had become of that deep-rooted [6088] shyness of his which had made him loth to eat or drink under a strange [6089] roof? What had come of the pride of his spirit which had always made [6090] him conceive himself as a being apart in every order? [6091] [6092] The Reverend Stephen Dedalus, S.J. [6093] [6094] His name in that new life leaped into characters before his eyes and to [6095] it there followed a mental sensation of an undefined face or colour of [6096] a face. The colour faded and became strong like a changing glow of [6097] pallid brick red. Was it the raw reddish glow he had so often seen on [6098] wintry mornings on the shaven gills of the priests? The face was [6099] eyeless and sour-favoured and devout, shot with pink tinges of [6100] suffocated anger. Was it not a mental spectre of the face of one of the [6101] jesuits whom some of the boys called Lantern Jaws and others Foxy [6102] Campbell? [6103] [6104] He was passing at that moment before the jesuit house in Gardiner [6105] Street and wondered vaguely which window would be his if he ever joined [6106] the order. Then he wondered at the vagueness of his wonder, at the [6107] remoteness of his own soul from what he had hitherto imagined her [6108] sanctuary, at the frail hold which so many years of order and obedience [6109] had of him when once a definite and irrevocable act of his threatened [6110] to end for ever, in time and in eternity, his freedom. The voice of the [6111] director urging upon him the proud claims of the church and the mystery [6112] and power of the priestly office repeated itself idly in his memory. [6113] His soul was not there to hear and greet it and he knew now that the [6114] exhortation he had listened to had already fallen into an idle formal [6115] tale. He would never swing the thurible before the tabernacle as priest. [6116] His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders. The wisdom of [6117] the priest's appeal did not touch him to the quick. He was destined to [6118] learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others [6119] himself wandering among the snares of the world. [6120] [6121] The snares of the world were its ways of sin. He would fall. He had not [6122] yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant. Not to fall was [6123] too hard, too hard; and he felt the silent lapse of his soul, as it [6124] would be at some instant to come, falling, falling, but not yet fallen, [6125] still unfallen, but about to fall. [6126] [6127] He crossed the bridge over the stream of the Tolka and turned his eyes [6128] coldly for an instant towards the faded blue shrine of the Blessed [6129] Virgin which stood fowl-wise on a pole in the middle of a ham-shaped [6130] encampment of poor cottages. Then, bending to the left, he followed the [6131] lane which led up to his house. The faint Sour stink of rotted cabbages [6132] came towards him from the kitchen gardens on the rising ground above [6133] the river. He smiled to think that it was this disorder, the misrule [6134] and confusion of his father's house and the stagnation of vegetable [6135] life, which was to win the day in his soul. Then a short laugh broke [6136] from his lips as he thought of that solitary farmhand in the kitchen [6137] gardens behind their house whom they had nicknamed the man with the [6138] hat. A second laugh, taking rise from the first after a pause, broke [6139] from him involuntarily as he thought of how the man with the hat [6140] worked, considering in turn the four points of the sky and then [6141] regretfully plunging his spade in the earth. [6142] [6143] He pushed open the latchless door of the porch and passed through the [6144] naked hallway into the kitchen. A group of his brothers and sisters was [6145] sitting round the table. Tea was nearly over and only the last of the [6146] second watered tea remained in the bottoms of the small glass jars and [6147] jampots which did service for teacups. Discarded crusts and lumps of [6148] sugared bread, turned brown by the tea which had been poured over them, [6149] lay scattered on the table. Little wells of tea lay here and there on [6150] the board, and a knife with a broken ivory handle was stuck through the [6151] pith of a ravaged turnover. [6152] [6153] The sad quiet grey-blue glow of the dying day came through the window [6154] and the open door, covering over and allaying quietly a sudden instinct [6155] of remorse in Stephen's heart. All that had been denied them had been [6156] freely given to him, the eldest; but the quiet glow of evening showed [6157] him in their faces no sign of rancour. [6158] [6159] He sat near them at the table and asked where his father and mother [6160] were. One answered: [6161] [6162] --Goneboro toboro lookboro atboro aboro houseboro. [6163] [6164] Still another removal! A boy named Fallon in Belvedere had often asked [6165] him with a silly laugh why they moved so often. A frown of scorn [6166] darkened quickly his forehead as he heard again the silly laugh of the [6167] questioner. [6168] [6169] He asked: [6170] [6171] --Why are we on the move again if it's a fair question? [6172] [6173] --Becauseboro theboro landboro lordboro willboro putboro usboro outboro. [6174] [6175] The voice of his youngest brother from the farther side of the [6176] fireplace began to sing the air OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT. One by one the [6177] others took up the air until a full choir of voices was singing. They [6178] would sing so for hours, melody after melody, glee after glee, till the [6179] last pale light died down on the horizon, till the first dark night [6180] clouds came forth and night fell. [6181] [6182] He waited for some moments, listening, before he too took up the air [6183] with them. He was listening with pain of spirit to the overtone of [6184] weariness behind their frail fresh innocent voices. Even before they [6185] set out on life's journey they seemed weary already of the way. [6186] [6187] He heard the choir of voices in the kitchen echoed and multiplied [6188] through an endless reverberation of the choirs of endless generations [6189] of children and heard in all the echoes an echo also of the recurring [6190] note of weariness and pain. All seemed weary of life even before [6191] entering upon it. And he remembered that Newman had heard this note [6192] also in the broken lines of Virgil, GIVING UTTERANCE, LIKE THE VOICE OF [6193] NATURE HERSELF, TO THAT PAIN AND WEARINESS YET HOPE OF BETTER THINGS [6194] WHICH HAS BEEN THE EXPERIENCE OF HER CHILDREN IN EVERY TIME. [6195] [6196] [6197] [6198] [6199] [6200] He could wait no longer. [6201] [6202] From the door of Byron's public-house to the gate of Clontarf Chapel, [6203] from the gate of Clontail Chapel to the door of Byron's public-house [6204] and then back again to the chapel and then back again to the public- [6205] house he had paced slowly at first, planting his steps scrupulously in [6206] the spaces of the patchwork of the footpath, then timing their fall to [6207] the fall of verses. A full hour had passed since his father had gone in [6208] with Dan Crosby, the tutor, to find out for him something about the [6209] university. For a full hour he had paced up and down, waiting: but he [6210] could wait no longer. [6211] [6212] He set off abruptly for the Bull, walking rapidly lest his father's [6213] shrill whistle might call him back; and in a few moments he had rounded [6214] the curve at the police barrack and was safe. [6215] [6216] Yes, his mother was hostile to the idea, as he had read from her [6217] listless silence. Yet her mistrust pricked him more keenly than his [6218] father's pride and he thought coldly how he had watched the faith which [6219] was fading down in his soul ageing and strengthening in her eyes. A dim [6220] antagonism gathered force within him and darkened his mind as a cloud [6221] against her disloyalty and when it passed, cloud-like, leaving his mind [6222] serene and dutiful towards her again, he was made aware dimly and [6223] without regret of a first noiseless sundering of their lives. [6224] [6225] The university! So he had passed beyond the challenge of the sentries [6226] who had stood as guardians of his boyhood and had sought to keep him [6227] among them that he might be subject to them and serve their ends. Pride [6228] after satisfaction uplifted him like long slow waves. The end he had [6229] been born to serve yet did not see had led him to escape by an unseen [6230] path and now it beckoned to him once more and a new adventure was about [6231] to be opened to him. It seemed to him that he heard notes of fitful [6232] music leaping upwards a tone and downwards a diminished fourth, upwards [6233] a tone and downwards a major third, like triple-branching flames [6234] leaping fitfully, flame after flame, out of a midnight wood. It was an [6235] elfin prelude, endless and formless; and, as it grew wilder and faster, [6236] the flames leaping out of time, he seemed to hear from under the boughs [6237] and grasses wild creatures racing, their feet pattering like rain upon [6238] the leaves. Their feet passed in pattering tumult over his mind, the [6239] feet of hares and rabbits, the feet of harts and hinds and antelopes, [6240] until he heard them no more and remembered only a proud cadence from [6241] Newman: [6242] [6243] --Whose feet are as the feet of harts and underneath the everlasting arms. [6244] [6245] The pride of that dim image brought back to his mind the dignity of the [6246] office he had refused. All through his boyhood he had mused upon that [6247] which he had so often thought to be his destiny and when the moment had [6248] come for him to obey the call he had turned aside, obeying a wayward [6249] instinct. Now time lay between: the oils of ordination would never [6250] anoint his body. He had refused. Why? [6251] [6252] He turned seaward from the road at Dollymount and as he passed on to [6253] the thin wooden bridge he felt the planks shaking with the tramp of [6254] heavily shod feet. A squad of christian brothers was on its way back [6255] from the Bull and had begun to pass, two by two, across the bridge. [6256] Soon the whole bridge was trembling and resounding. The uncouth faces [6257] passed him two by two, stained yellow or red or livid by the sea, and, [6258] as he strove to look at them with ease and indifference, a faint stain [6259] of personal shame and commiseration rose to his own face. Angry with [6260] himself he tried to hide his face from their eyes by gazing down [6261] sideways into the shallow swirling water under the bridge but he still [6262] saw a reflection therein of their top-heavy silk hats and humble [6263] tape-like collars and loosely-hanging clerical clothes. [6264] [6265] --Brother Hickey. [6266] Brother Quaid. [6267] Brother MacArdle. [6268] Brother Keogh.-- [6269] [6270] Their piety would be like their names, like their faces, like their [6271] clothes, and it was idle for him to tell himself that their humble and [6272] contrite hearts, it might be, paid a far richer tribute of devotion [6273] than his had ever been, a gift tenfold more acceptable than his [6274] elaborate adoration. It was idle for him to move himself to be generous [6275] towards them, to tell himself that if he ever came to their gates, [6276] stripped of his pride, beaten and in beggar's weeds, that they would be [6277] generous towards him, loving him as themselves. Idle and embittering, [6278] finally, to argue, against his own dispassionate certitude, that the [6279] commandment of love bade us not to love our neighbour as ourselves with [6280] the same amount and intensity of love but to love him as ourselves with [6281] the same kind of love. [6282] [6283] He drew forth a phrase from his treasure and spoke it softly to [6284] himself: [6285] [6286] --A day of dappled seaborne clouds. [6287] [6288] The phrase and the day and the scene harmonized in a chord. Words. Was [6289] it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: [6290] sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, [6291] the grey-fringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their colours: it was [6292] the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the [6293] rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of [6294] legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was shy [6295] of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing [6296] sensible world through the prism of a language many-coloured and richly [6297] storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of individual [6298] emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic prose? [6299] [6300] He passed from the trembling bridge on to firm land again. At that [6301] instant, as it seemed to him, the air was chilled and, looking askance [6302] towards the water, he saw a flying squall darkening and crisping [6303] suddenly the tide. A faint click at his heart, a faint throb in his [6304] throat told him once more of how his flesh dreaded the cold infrahuman [6305] odour of the sea; yet he did not strike across the downs on his left [6306] but held straight on along the spine of rocks that pointed against the [6307] river's mouth. [6308] [6309] A veiled sunlight lit up faintly the grey sheet of water where the [6310] river was embayed. In the distance along the course of the slow-flowing [6311] Liffey slender masts flecked the sky and, more distant still, the dim [6312] fabric of the city lay prone in haze. Like a scene on some vague arras, [6313] old as man's weariness, the image of the seventh city of christendom [6314] was visible to him across the timeless air, no older nor more weary nor [6315] less patient of subjection than in the days of the thingmote. [6316] [6317] Disheartened, he raised his eyes towards the slow-drifting clouds, [6318] dappled and seaborne. They were voyaging across the deserts of the sky, [6319] a host of nomads on the march, voyaging high over Ireland, westward [6320] bound. The Europe they had come from lay out there beyond the Irish [6321] Sea, Europe of strange tongues and valleyed and woodbegirt and [6322] citadelled and of entrenched and marshalled races. He heard a confused [6323] music within him as of memories and names which he was almost conscious [6324] of but could not capture even for an instant; then the music seemed to [6325] recede, to recede, to recede, and from each receding trail of nebulous [6326] music there fell always one longdrawn calling note, piercing like a [6327] star the dusk of silence. Again! Again! Again! A voice from beyond the [6328] world was calling. [6329] [6330] --Hello, Stephanos! [6331] [6332] --Here comes The Dedalus! [6333] [6334] --Ao!... Eh, give it over, Dwyer, I'm telling you, or I'll give you a stuff [6335] in the kisser for yourself... Ao! [6336] [6337] --Good man, Towser! Duck him! [6338] [6339] --Come along, Dedalus! Bous Stephanoumenos! Bous Stephaneforos! [6340] [6341] --Duck him! Guzzle him now, Towser! [6342] [6343] --Help! Help!... Ao! [6344] [6345] He recognized their speech collectively before he distinguished their [6346] faces. The mere sight of that medley of wet nakedness chilled him to [6347] the bone. Their bodies, corpse-white or suffused with a pallid golden [6348] light or rawly tanned by the sun, gleamed with the wet of the sea. [6349] Their diving-stone, poised on its rude supports and rocking under their [6350] plunges, and the rough-hewn stones of the sloping breakwater over which [6351] they scrambled in their horseplay gleamed with cold wet lustre. The [6352] towels with which they smacked their bodies were heavy with cold [6353] seawater; and drenched with cold brine was their matted hair. [6354] [6355] He stood still in deference to their calls and parried their banter [6356] with easy words. How characterless they looked: Shuley without his deep [6357] unbuttoned collar, Ennis without his scarlet belt with the snaky clasp, [6358] and Connolly without his Norfolk coat with the flapless side-pockets! [6359] It was a pain to see them, and a sword-like pain to see the signs of [6360] adolescence that made repellent their pitiable nakedness. Perhaps they [6361] had taken refuge in number and noise from the secret dread in their [6362] souls. But he, apart from them and in silence, remembered in what dread [6363] he stood of the mystery of his own body. [6364] [6365] --Stephanos Dedalos! Bous Stephanoumenos! Bous Stephaneforos! [6366] [6367] Their banter was not new to him and now it flattered his mild proud [6368] sovereignty. Now, as never before, his strange name seemed to him a [6369] prophecy. So timeless seemed the grey warm air, so fluid and impersonal [6370] his own mood, that all ages were as one to him. A moment before the [6371] ghost of the ancient kingdom of the Danes had looked forth through the [6372] vesture of the hazewrapped City. Now, at the name of the fabulous [6373] artificer, he seemed to hear the noise of dim waves and to see a winged [6374] form flying above the waves and slowly climbing the air. What did it [6375] mean? Was it a quaint device opening a page of some medieval book of [6376] prophecies and symbols, a hawk-like man flying sunward above the sea, a [6377] prophecy of the end he had been born to serve and had been following [6378] through the mists of childhood and boyhood, a symbol of the artist [6379] forging anew in his workshop out of the sluggish matter of the earth a [6380] new soaring impalpable imperishable being? [6381] [6382] His heart trembled; his breath came faster and a wild spirit passed [6383] over his limbs as though he was soaring sunward. His heart trembled in [6384] an ecstasy of fear and his soul was in flight. His soul was soaring in [6385] an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purified in a breath [6386] and delivered of incertitude and made radiant and commingled with the [6387] element of the spirit. An ecstasy of flight made radiant his eyes and [6388] wild his breath and tremulous and wild and radiant his windswept limbs. [6389] [6390] --One! Two!... Look out! [6391] [6392] --Oh, Cripes, I'm drownded! [6393] [6394] --One! Two! Three and away! [6395] [6396] --The next! The next! [6397] [6398] --One!... UK! [6399] [6400] --Stephaneforos! [6401] [6402] His throat ached with a desire to cry aloud, the cry of a hawk or eagle [6403] on high, to cry piercingly of his deliverance to the winds. This was [6404] the call of life to his soul not the dull gross voice of the world of [6405] duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the [6406] pale service of the altar. An instant of wild flight had delivered him [6407] and the cry of triumph which his lips withheld cleft his brain. [6408] [6409] --Stephaneforos! [6410] [6411] What were they now but cerements shaken from the body of death--the [6412] fear he had walked in night and day, the incertitude that had ringed [6413] him round, the shame that had abased him within and without-- [6414] cerements, the linens of the grave? [6415] [6416] His soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood, spurning her [6417] grave-clothes. Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the [6418] freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he [6419] bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, [6420] imperishable. [6421] [6422] He started up nervously from the stone-block for he could no longer [6423] quench the flame in his blood. He felt his cheeks aflame and his throat [6424] throbbing with song. There was a lust of wandering in his feet that [6425] burned to set out for the ends of the earth. On! On! his heart seemed [6426] to cry. Evening would deepen above the sea, night fall upon the plains, [6427] dawn glimmer before the wanderer and show him strange fields and hills [6428] and faces. Where? [6429] [6430] He looked northward towards Howth. The sea had fallen below the line of [6431] seawrack on the shallow side of the breakwater and already the tide was [6432] running out fast along the foreshore. Already one long oval bank of [6433] sand lay warm and dry amid the wavelets. Here and there warm isles of [6434] sand gleamed above the shallow tide and about the isles and around the [6435] long bank and amid the shallow currents of the beach were lightclad [6436] figures, wading and delving. [6437] [6438] In a few moments he was barefoot, his stockings folded in his pockets [6439] and his canvas shoes dangling by their knotted laces over his shoulders [6440] and, picking a pointed salt-eaten stick out of the jetsam among the [6441] rocks, he clambered down the slope of the breakwater. [6442] [6443] There was a long rivulet in the strand and, as he waded slowly up its [6444] course, he wondered at the endless drift of seaweed. Emerald and black [6445] and russet and olive, it moved beneath the current, swaying and [6446] turning. The water of the rivulet was dark with endless drift and [6447] mirrored the high-drifting clouds. The clouds were drifting above him [6448] silently and silently the seatangle was drifting below him and the grey [6449] warm air was still and a new wild life was singing in his veins. [6450] [6451] Where was his boyhood now? Where was the soul that had hung back from [6452] her destiny, to brood alone upon the shame of her wounds and in her [6453] house of squalor and subterfuge to queen it in faded cerements and in [6454] wreaths that withered at the touch? Or where was he? [6455] [6456] He was alone. He was unheeded, happy and near to the wild heart of [6457] life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a [6458] waste of wild air and brackish waters and the sea-harvest of shells and [6459] tangle and veiled grey sunlight and gayclad lightclad figures of [6460] children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air. [6461] [6462] A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to [6463] sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a [6464] strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate [6465] as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had [6466] fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and [6467] soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white [6468] fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her [6469] slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed [6470] behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft [6471] as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was [6472] girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her [6473] face. [6474] [6475] She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his [6476] presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet [6477] sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she [6478] suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent [6479] them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither [6480] and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the [6481] silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; [6482] hither and thither, hither and thither; and a faint flame trembled on [6483] her cheek. [6484] [6485] --Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy. [6486] [6487] He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His [6488] cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On [6489] and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly [6490] to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him. [6491] [6492] Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the [6493] holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had [6494] leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate [6495] life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal [6496] youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open [6497] before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error [6498] and glory. On and on and on and on! [6499] [6500] He halted suddenly and heard his heart in the silence. How far had he [6501] walked? What hour was it? [6502] [6503] There was no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the [6504] air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the [6505] wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the [6506] sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a [6507] ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence [6508] of the evening might still the riot of his blood. [6509] [6510] He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of [6511] the heavenly bodies; and the earth beneath him, the earth that had [6512] borne him, had taken him to her breast. [6513] [6514] He closed his eyes in the languor of sleep. His eyelids trembled as if [6515] they felt the vast cyclic movement of the earth and her watchers, [6516] trembled as if they felt the strange light of some new world. His soul [6517] was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under [6518] sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings. A world, a glimmer or a [6519] flower? Glimmering and trembling, trembling and unfolding, a breaking [6520] light, an opening flower, it spread in endless succession to itself, [6521] breaking in full crimson and unfolding and fading to palest rose, leaf [6522] by leaf and wave of light by wave of light, flooding all the heavens [6523] with its soft flushes, every flush deeper than the other. [6524] [6525] Evening had fallen when he woke and the sand and arid grasses of his [6526] bed glowed no longer. He rose slowly and, recalling the rapture of his [6527] sleep, sighed at its joy. [6528] [6529] He climbed to the crest of the sandhill and gazed about him. Evening [6530] had fallen. A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of skyline, [6531] the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand; and the tide was [6532] flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding [6533] a few last figures in distant pools. [6534] [6535] [6536] [6537]

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Chapter 4

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
Chapter 4