A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man


by

James Joyce




Chapter 1


Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming
down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road
met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...

His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a
glass: he had a hairy face.

He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne
lived: she sold lemon platt.

    O, the wild rose blossoms
    On the little green place.

He sang that song. That was his song.

    O, the green wothe botheth.

When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put
on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.

His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano
the sailor's hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:

    Tralala lala,
    Tralala tralaladdy,
    Tralala lala,
    Tralala lala.

Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father and
mother but uncle Charles was older than Dante.

Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon velvet
back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back
was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a
piece of tissue paper.

The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and
mother. They were Eileen's father and mother. When they were grown up
he was going to marry Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother said:

--O, Stephen will apologize.

Dante said:

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

--What is your name?

Stephen had answered: Stephen Dedalus.

Then Nasty Roche had said:

--What kind of a name is that?

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

--What is your father?

Stephen had answered:

--A gentleman.

Then Nasty Roche had asked:

--Is he a magistrate?

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

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

Cantwell had answered:

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

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

--Goodbye, Stephen, goodbye!

--Goodbye, Stephen, goodbye!

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

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


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


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

A voice cried far out on the playground:

--All in!

Then other voices cried from the lower and third lines:

--All in! All in!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack Lawton looked over from his side. The little silk badge with the
red rose on it looked very rich because he had a blue sailor top on.
Stephen felt his own face red too, thinking of all the bets about who
would get first place in elements, Jack Lawton or he. Some weeks Jack
Lawton got the card for first and some weeks he got the card for first.
His white silk badge fluttered and fluttered as he worked at the next
sum and heard Father Arnall's voice. Then all his eagerness passed away
and he felt his face quite cool. He thought his face must be white
because it felt so cool. He could not get out the answer for the sum
but it did not matter. White roses and red roses: those were beautiful
colours to think of. And the cards for first place and second place and
third place were beautiful colours too: pink and cream and lavender.
Lavender and cream and pink roses were beautiful to think of. Perhaps a
wild rose might be like those colours and he remembered the song about
the wild rose blossoms on the little green place. But you could not
have a green rose. But perhaps somewhere in the world you could.

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

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

He drank another cup of hot tea and Fleming said:

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

--I don't know, Stephen said.

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

--O yes, Stephen said.

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

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

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

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

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

Stephen answered:

--I do.

Wells turned to the other fellows and said:

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

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

--I do not.

Wells said:

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

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

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

Sitting in the study hall he opened the lid of his desk and changed the
number pasted up inside from seventy-seven to seventy-six. But the
Christmas vacation was very far away: but one time it would come
because the earth moved round always.

There was a picture of the earth on the first page of his geography: a
big ball in the middle of clouds. Fleming had a box of crayons and one
night during free study he had coloured the earth green and the clouds
maroon. That was like the two brushes in Dante's press, the brush with
the green velvet back for Parnell and the brush with the maroon velvet
back for Michael Davitt. But he had not told Fleming to colour them
those colours. Fleming had done it himself.

He opened the geography to study the lesson; but he could not learn the
names of places in America. Still they were all different places that
had different names. They were all in different countries and the
countries were in continents and the continents were in the world and
the world was in the universe.

He turned to the flyleaf of the geography and read what he had written
there: himself, his name and where he was.


    Stephen Dedalus
    Class of Elements
    Clongowes Wood College
    Sallins
    County Kildare
    Ireland
    Europe
    The World
    The Universe


That was in his writing: and Fleming one night for a cod had written on
the opposite page:


    Stephen Dedalus is my name,
    Ireland is my nation.
    Clongowes is my dwellingplace
    And heaven my expectation.


He read the verses backwards but then they were not poetry. Then he
read the flyleaf from the bottom to the top till he came to his own
name. That was he: and he read down the page again. What was after the
universe?

Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it
stopped before the nothing place began?

It could not be a wall; but there could be a thin thin line there all
round everything. It was very big to think about everything and
everywhere. Only God could do that. He tried to think what a big
thought that must be; but he could only think of God. God was God's
name just as his name was Stephen. DIEU was the French for God and that
was God's name too; and when anyone prayed to God and said DIEU then
God knew at once that it was a French person that was praying. But,
though there were different names for God in all the different
languages in the world and God understood what all the people who
prayed said in their different languages, still God remained always the
same God and God's real name was God.

It made him very tired to think that way. It made him feel his head
very big. He turned over the flyleaf and looked wearily at the green
round earth in the middle of the maroon clouds. He wondered which was
right, to be for the green or for the maroon, because Dante had ripped
the green velvet back off the brush that was for Parnell one day with
her scissors and had told him that Parnell was a bad man. He wondered
if they were arguing at home about that. That was called politics.
There were two sides in it: Dante was on one side and his father and Mr
Casey were on the other side but his mother and uncle Charles were on
no side. Every day there was something in the paper about it.

It pained him that he did not know well what politics meant and that he
did not know where the universe ended. He felt small and weak. When
would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric? They had big
voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry. That was very far
away. First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation
again and then again another term and then again the vacation. It was
like a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of
the boys eating in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps
of the ears. Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop. How far away it
was! It was better to go to bed to sleep. Only prayers in the chapel
and then bed. He shivered and yawned. It would be lovely in bed after
the sheets got a bit hot. First they were so cold to get into. He
shivered to think how cold they were first. But then they got hot and
then he could sleep. It was lovely to be tired. He yawned again. Night
prayers and then bed: he shivered and wanted to yawn. It would be
lovely in a few minutes. He felt a warm glow creeping up from the cold
shivering sheets, warmer and warmer till he felt warm all over, ever so
warm and yet he shivered a little and still wanted to yawn.

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

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


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


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

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


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


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

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


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

by James Joyce




-- I --

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of
lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown,
ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He
held the bowl aloft and intoned:

--_Introibo ad altare Dei_.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:

--Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about
and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the
awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent
towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat
and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned
his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking
gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light
untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the
bowl smartly.

--Back to barracks! he said sternly.

He added in a preacher's tone:

--For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul
and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One
moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.

He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused
awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there
with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered
through the calm.

--Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off
the current, will you?

He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering
about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and
sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages.
A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

--The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!

He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily
halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as
he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and
lathered cheeks and neck.

Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.

--My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a
Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself.
We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out
twenty quid?

He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:

--Will he come? The jejune jesuit!

Ceasing, he began to shave with care.

--Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.

--Yes, my love?

--How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.

--God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks
you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money
and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you
have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you
is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.

He shaved warily over his chin.

--He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is
his guncase?

--A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?

--I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark
with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a
black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If
he stays on here I am off.

Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down
from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

--Scutter! he cried thickly.

He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper
pocket, said:

--Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.

Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a
dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.
Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:

--The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.
You can almost taste it, can't you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair
oakpale hair stirring slightly.

--God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey
sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. _Epi oinopa
ponton_. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them
in the original. _Thalatta! Thalatta_! She is our great sweet mother.
Come and look.

Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked
down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of
Kingstown.

--Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said.

He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's
face.

--The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't
let me have anything to do with you.

--Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.

--You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother
asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to
think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and
pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you...

He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant
smile curled his lips.

--But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest
mummer of them all!

He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously.

Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against
his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve.
Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in
a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its
loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her
breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of
wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a
great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay
and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had
stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had
torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.

Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.

--Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt
and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?

--They fit well enough, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.

--The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God
knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair
stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You
look damn well when you're dressed.

--Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey.

--He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey
trousers.

He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the
smooth skin.

Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its
smokeblue mobile eyes.

--That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan,
says you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. General
paralysis of the insane!

He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad
in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and
the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong
wellknit trunk.

--Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard!

Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by
a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this
face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

--I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her
all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead
him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.

Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.

--The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If
Wilde were only alive to see you!

Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:

--It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.

Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him
round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he
had thrust them.

--It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly.
God knows you have more spirit than any of them.

Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The
cold steelpen.

--Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap
downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and
thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling
jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I
could only work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise
it.

Cranly's arm. His arm.

--And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one
that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you
up your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll
bring down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave
Clive Kempthorpe.

Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces:
they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall
expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit
ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the
table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the
tailor's shears. A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't
want to be debagged! Don't you play the giddy ox with me!

Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf
gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, pushes his mower
on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms.

To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos.

--Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at
night.

--Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm
quite frank with you. What have you against me now?

They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the
water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly.

--Do you wish me to tell you? he asked.

--Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything.

He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow,
fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of
anxiety in his eyes.

Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:

--Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's
death?

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:

--What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and
sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God?

--You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to
get more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the
drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room.

--Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget.

--You said, Stephen answered, _O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is
beastly dead._

A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck
Mulligan's cheek.

--Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that?

He shook his constraint from him nervously.

--And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You
saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and
Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It's a beastly
thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel
down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why?
Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the
wrong way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes
are not functioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks
buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her
last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like
some hired mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I
didn't mean to offend the memory of your mother.

He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping
wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:

--I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.

--Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked.

--Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.

--O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.

He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post,
gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew
dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt
the fever of his cheeks.

A voice within the tower called loudly:

--Are you up there, Mulligan?

--I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered.

He turned towards Stephen and said:

--Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola,
Kinch, and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers.

His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level
with the roof:

--Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the
moody brooding.

His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of
the stairhead:

     _And no more turn aside and brood
     Upon love's bitter mystery
     For Fergus rules the brazen cars._


Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the
stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of
water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of
the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the
harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words
shimmering on the dim tide.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in
deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song:
I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her
door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity
I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those
words, Stephen: love's bitter mystery.

Where now?

Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk,
a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny
window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the
pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he sang:

     _I am the boy
     That can enjoy
     Invisibility._


Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.

_And no more turn aside and brood._


Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his
brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had
approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar,
roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely
fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children's
shirts.

In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its
loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath,
bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes.

Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me
alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured
face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on
their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. _Liliata rutilantium te
confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat._

Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!

No, mother! Let me be and let me live.

--Kinch ahoy!

Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the
staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry,
heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.

--Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is
apologising for waking us last night. It's all right.

--I'm coming, Stephen said, turning.

--Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our
sakes.

His head disappeared and reappeared.

--I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch
him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean.

--I get paid this morning, Stephen said.

--The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one.

--If you want it, Stephen said.

--Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll
have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent
sovereigns.

He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of
tune with a Cockney accent:

     _O, won't we have a merry time,
     Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
     On coronation,
     Coronation day!
     O, won't we have a merry time
     On coronation day!_


Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone,
forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there
all day, forgotten friendship?

He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness,
smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck.
So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and
yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant.

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form
moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its
yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor
from the high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of
coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning.

--We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you?

Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the
hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open
the inner doors.

--Have you the key? a voice asked.

--Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I'm choked!

He howled, without looking up from the fire:

--Kinch!

--It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.

The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been
set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the
doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and
sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside
him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set
them down heavily and sighed with relief.

--I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a
word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines,
come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts.
Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk.

Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from
the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

--What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.

--We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the
locker.

