menu_book Chapter 9

Section 9 of 1916, First Chapters Collection, Part 1. 1916, First Chapters Collection, by Varius. Section 9. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. E. Ignotos animum dimitit in artes, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 8.18. 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 nice 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 plait.

Oh, the wild rose blossoms on a little green place. He sang that song. That was his song. Oh, the green wore the both of. When you wet the bed, first it is warm, then it gets cold. His mother put on the oil sheet. 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. Uncle Charles and Danty clapped. They were older than his father and mother, but Uncle Charles was older than Danty.

Danty 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. Danty gave him a cashew every time he brought her a piece of tissue paper. The Vansers 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,

His mother said, Oh, Stephen will apologise. Danty said, 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. Roddy Kickham was not like that.

He would be captain of the third line, all the fellows said. Roddy Kickham was a decent fellow, but Nasty Roche was a stink. Roddy 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? What kind of a name is that? And when Stephen had not been able to answer, Nasty Roche had said, 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 good-bye, She had put up her veiled 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 suteen 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, Good-bye, Stephen. Good-bye. Good-bye, Stephen. Good-bye.

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 77 to 76. 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 flower beds at that time under the window. One day, when he had been called to the castle, The butler had shown him the marks of the soldier's 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 Lester Abbey was like that, And there were nice sentences in Dr. Cornwall's spelling book.

They were like poetry, But they were only sentences to learn the spelling from. Wolsey died in Lester Abbey, Where the abbots buried him. Canker is a disease of plants,

Cancer one of animals. It would be nice to lie on the hearth rug before the fire, Leaning his head upon his hands, And think on those sentences. He shivered as if he had cold slimy water next to his skin.

That was mean of Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch, Because he would not swap his little snuff box For Wells' 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 Dantie, Waiting for Bridget to bring in the tea. She had her feet on the fender, And her jewel-y slippers were so hot,

And they had such a lovely warm smell. Dantie 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 Arnold knew more than Dantie, Because he was a priest. But both his father and uncle Charles Said that Dantie was a clever woman, And a well-read woman.

And when Dantie 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. Roady 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 Moonen told him not to, Because the prefect was looking. The fellow turned to Simon Moonen and said,

We all know why you speak. You are Maclade Suck. Suck was a queer word. The fellow called Simon Moonen that name, Because Simon Moonen used to tie the prefect's

Full 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 then he went to the toilet. 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 wet-ish. 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 fellow stopped talking in the playroom, You could hear it.

It was the hour for sums. Father Arnold 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, And he tried his best so that York might not lose. Father Arnold's face looked very black, But he was not in a wax. He was laughing.

Then Jack Lawton cracked his fingers, And Father Arnold 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 Arnold'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, Gert 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 Rush and Soren 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. Sicken your breadbasket, Fleming said,

Because your face looks white, it'll go away. Oh, 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 Dalke 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 Raff and Jimmy McGee 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 Moomin 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, Daddolas, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?

Stephen answered, I do. Wells turned to the other fellows and said, Oh, 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, Oh, 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' mother, but he did not dare to raise his eyes to Wells' face. He did not like Wells' face. It was Wells who had shielded him into the square ditch the day before,

because he would not swap his little snuff-box for Wells' 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 77 to 76.

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 Dente'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 flyleap of the geography and read what he had written there, himself, his name, and where he was. Stephen Dedalus, Class of Elements, Clongos Wood College, Salins, 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, Clongos is my dwelling place, and heaven my expectation. He read the verses backwards, but then they were not poetry. Then he read the flyleap 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 around 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. Dear was the French for God, and that was God's name too. And when anyone prayed to God and said Dear, 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 fly-leaf 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 Pannell one day with her scissors, and had told him that Pannell 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.

Turn, 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 in his eyes.

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 will 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 sea wall 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 mouth 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 Cline, 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 salons. 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, oh, the road there between the trees was dark. You will be lost in the dark.

It made him afraid to think of how it would be and 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 night-shirt 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 Auntie and Uncle Charles

and spare them to me. He blessed himself and climbed quickly into bed, and tucking the end of the night-shirt 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 spat the boys in the dormitory good night. He peered out for an instant over the coverlet

and saw the yellow curtains round and before his bed that shut him off on all sides. The light was lowered quietly. The prefect's shoes went away, where? Down the staircase and along the corridors

or to his room at the end. He saw the dark. Was it true about the black dog that walked there at night with eyes as big as carriage lamps? They said it was the ghost of a murderer.

A long shiver of fear flowed over his body. He saw the dark entrance hall of the castle. Old servants in old dress were in the ironing room above the staircase. It was long ago.

The old servants were quiet. There was a fire there, but the hall was still dark. A figure came up the staircase from the hall. He wore the white cloak of a marshal.

His face was pale and strange. He held his hand pressed to his side. He looked out of strange eyes at the old servants. They looked at him and saw their master's face and cloak and knew that he had received his death wound.

But only the dark was where they looked. Only dark, silent air. Their master had received his death wound on the battlefield of Prague far away over the sea. He was standing on the field.

His hand was pressed to his side. His face was pale and strange. And he wore the white cloak of a marshal. Oh, how cold and strange it was to think of that! All the dark was cold and strange.

There were pale, strange faces there, great eyes like carriage lamps. They were the ghosts of murderers, the figures of marshals who had received their death wounds on battlefields far away over the sea.

What did they wish to say that their faces were so strange? Visit, we beseech the O Lord, this habitation and drive away from it all, going home for the holidays, that would be lovely. The fellows had told him.

Getting up on the cars in the early wintery morning outside the door of the castle. The cars were rolling on the gravel. Cheers for the rector! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

The cars drove past the chapel and all caps were raised. They drove merrily along the country roads. The drivers pointed with their whips to Bowdoin's Tan. The fellows cheered. They passed the farmhouse of the Jolly Farmer.

Cheer after cheer after cheer through clain they drove. Cheering and cheered. The peasant women stood at the half doors. The men stood here and there. The lovely smell there was in the wintery air.

The smell of clain, rain and wintery air, and turf smouldering and corduroy. The train was full of fellows. A long, long chocolate train with cream facings. The guards went to and fro, opening, closing, locking, unlocking the doors.

They were men in dark blue and silver. They had silvery whistles, and their keys made a quick music. Click, click, click, click. And the train raced on over the flatlands and past the hill of Allen. The telegraph poles were passing, passing.

The train went on and on. It knew. There were lanterns in the hall of his father's house, and ropes of green branches. There were holly and ivy round the beer glass,

and holly and ivy, green and red, twined round the chandeliers. There were red holly and green ivy round the old portraits on the walls. Holly and ivy for him and for Christmas. Lovely, all the people. Welcome home, Stephen.

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

Noises. There was a noise of curtain rings running back along the rods of water being splashed in the basin. There was a noise of rising and dressing and washing in the dormitory. A noise of clapping of hands as the prefect went up and down, telling the fellows to look sharp. A pale sunlight showed the yellow curtains drawn back, the tossed beds.

His bed was very hot, and his face and body were very hot. He got up and sat down on the side of his bed. He was weak. He tried to pull on his stocking. It had a horrid, rough feel.

The sunlight was queer and cold. Fleming said, Are you not well? He did not know. And Fleming said, Get back into bed. I'll tell Maglade you're not well.

He's sick. Who is? Tell Maglade. Get back into bed. Is he sick?

A fellow held his arms while he loosened the stocking clinging to his foot and climbed back into the hot bed. He crouched down between the sheets, glad of their tepid glow. He heard the fellows talk among themselves about him as they dressed for mass. It was a mean thing to do, to shoulder him into the square ditch, they were saying. Then their voices ceased.

They had gone. A voice at his bed said, Daedalus, don't spy on us, sure you won't. Wells's face was there. He looked at it and saw that Wells was afraid. I didn't mean to.

Sure you won't. His father had told him, whatever he did, never to peach on a fellow. He shook his head and answered no and felt glad. Wells said, I didn't mean to honour Bright. It was only for Cod.

I'm sorry. The face and the voice went away. Sorry because he was afraid, afraid that it was some disease. Canker was a disease of plants and cancer one of animals or another different. That was a long time ago when out on the playgrounds in the evening glides, creeping from point to point on the fringe of his line, a heavy bird flying low through the grey light.

Lester Abbey lit up. Wolsey died there. The abbots buried him themselves. It was not Wells's face. It was the prefect's.

He was not foxing. No, no. He was sick, really. He was not foxing. And he felt the prefect's hand on his forehead.

And he felt his forehead warm and damp against the prefect's cold damp hand. That was the way a rat felt, slimy and damp and cold. Every rat had two eyes to look out of. Sleek, slimy coats. Little, little feet tucked up to jump.

Black, slimy eyes to look out of. They could understand how to jump. But the minds of rats could not understand tokenometry. When they were dead, they lay on their sides. Their coats dried them.

They were only dead things. The prefect was there again. And it was his voice that was saying that he was to get up. The father minister had said he was to get up and dress and go to the infirmary. And while he was dressing himself as quickly as he could, the prefect said,

We must pack off to Brother Michael, because we have the collie wobbles. He was very decent to say that. That was all to make him laugh. But he could not laugh, because his cheeks and lips were all shivery. And then the prefect had to laugh by himself.

The prefect cried, Quick, march! Hey, foot, straw foot! They went together down the staircase and along the corridor and past the bath. As he passed the door, he remembered with a vague fear the warm, turf-coloured bog water, the warm moist air, the noise of plungers,

the smell of the towels, like medicine. Brother Michael was standing at the door of the infirmary. And from the door of the dark cabinet on his right came a smell like medicine. That came from the bottles on the shelves. The prefect spoke to Brother Michael, and Brother Michael answered

and called the prefect sir. He had reddish hair mixed with grey and a queer look. It was queer that he would always be a brunette. It was queer, too, that you could not call him sir, because he was a brother and had a different kind of look.

Was he not holy enough, or why could he not catch up on the others? There were two beds in the room, and in one bed there was a fellow. And when they went in he called out, Hello, it's young Dedalus, what's up? The sky is up, Brother Michael said. He was a fellow out of the third of grammar, and while Stephen was undressing

he asked Brother Michael to bring him a round of buttered toast. Ah, do, he said. Butter you up, said Brother Michael, you'll get your walking papers in the morning when the doctor comes. Well, I, the fellow said, I'm not well yet.

Brother Michael repeated, you'll get your walking papers, I tell you. He bent down to rake the fire. He had a long back, like the long back of a tram horse. He shook the poker gravely and nodded his head at the fellow out of third of grammar. Then Brother Michael went away, and after a while the fellow out of third of grammar

turned in towards the wall and fell asleep. That was the infirmary. He was sick then. Had they written home to tell his mother and father, but it would be quicker for one of the priests to go himself to tell them, or he would write a letter for the priest to

bring. Dear mother, I am sick. I want to go home. Please come and take me home. I'm in the infirmary.

Your fond son, Stephen. How far away they were. There was cold sunlight outside the window. He wondered if he would die. You could die just the same on a sunny day.

He might die before his mother came. Then he would have a dead mass in the chapel, like the way the fellows had told him it was was when little had died. All the fellows would be at the mass dressed in black, or with sad faces. Wells too would be there, but no fellow would look at him.

The rector would be there, in a cope of black and gold, and there would be tall yellow candles on the altar and around the catafalque, and they would carry the coffin out of the chapel slowly, and he would be buried in the little graveyard of the community, off the main avenue of Limes. And Wells would be sorry then for what he had done, and the bell would toll slowly.

He could hear the tolling. He said over to himself the song that Brigid had taught him. Jing dong the castle bell, far well my mother, bury me in the old churchyard, beside my elder's brother. My coffin shall be black, six angels at my back,

two to sing and two to pray, and two to carry my soul away. How beautiful and sad that was! How beautiful the words were, where they said bury me in the old churchyard! A tremor passed over his body. How sad and how beautiful!

He wanted to cry quietly, but not for himself, for the words so beautiful and sad, like music. The bell, the bell, far well, oh, far well. The cold sunlight was weaker, and Brother Michael was standing at his bedside with a bowl of beef tea. He was glad for his mouth was hot and dry.

He could hear them playing in the playgrounds, and the day was going on in the college, just as if he were there. Then Brother Michael was going away, and the fellow out of the third of grammar told him to be sure and come back and tell him all the news in the paper. He told Stephen that his name was Athie, and that his father kept a lot of racehorses that

were spiffing jumpers, and that his father would give a good tip to Brother Michael any time he wanted it, because Brother Michael was very decent, and always told in the news out of the paper they got every day up in the castle. There was every kind of news in the paper. Accidents, shipwrecks, sports and politics.

Now, it is all about politics in the papers, he said. Do your people talk about that too? Yes, Stephen said. Mine too, he said. Then he thought for a moment and said,

You have a queer name, Daedalus, and I have a queer name too, Athie. My name is the name of a tern. Your name is like Latin. Then he asked, Are you good at riddles?

Stephen answered, Not very good. Then he said, Can you answer me this one? Why is the county of Kildare like the leg of a fellow's britches? Stephen thought what could be the answer and then said,

I give it up because there is a thigh in it, he said. Do you see the joke? Athie is the tern in the county Kildare, and a thigh is the other thigh. Oh, I see, Stephen said. That's an old riddle, he said.

After a moment he said, I say. What? asked Stephen. You know, he said, you can ask that riddle another way. Can you, said Stephen.

The same riddle, he said. Do you know the other way to ask it? No, said Stephen. Can you not think of the other way, he said. He looked at Stephen over the bedclothes as he spoke.

Then he lay back on the pillow and said, There is another way, but I won't tell you what it is. Why did he not tell it? His father, who kept the racehorses, must be a magistrate too, like Soren's father and Nasty Roche's father.

He thought of his own father, of how he sang songs while his mother played, and of how he always gave him a shilling when he asked for sixpence, and he felt sorry for him that he was not a magistrate like the other boys' fathers. Then why was he sent to that place with them? But his father had told him that he would be no stranger there, because his grand-uncle

had presented an address to the Liberator there fifty years before. You could know the people of that time by their old dress. It seemed to him a solemn time, and he wondered if that was the time when the fellows in clangos wore blue coats with brass buttons and yellow whisk coats and caps of rabbit skin and drank beer like grown-up people, and kept greyhands of their own to course the hairs with.

He looked at the window and saw that the daylight had grown weaker. There would be cloudy grey light over the playgrounds. There was no noise on the playgrounds. The class must be doing the themes, or perhaps Father Arnold was reading out of the book. It was queer that they had not given him any medicine.

Perhaps Brother Michael would bring it back when he came. They said you got stinking stuff to drink when you were in the infirmary, but he felt better now than before. It would be nice getting better slowly. You could get a book then.

There was a book in the library about Holland. There were lovely foreign names in it, and pictures of strange-looking cities and ships. It made you feel so happy. How pale the light was at the window, but that was nice. The fire rose and fell on the wall.

It was like waves. Someone had put coal on, and he heard voices. They were talking. It was the noise of the waves, or the waves were talking among themselves as they rose and fell.

He saw the sea of waves, long dark waves rising and falling, dark under the moonless night. A tiny light twinkled at the pierhead where the ship was entering, and he saw a multitude of people gathered by the water's edge to see the ship that was entering their harbour. A tall man stood on the deck, looking out towards the flat dark land, and by the light

at the pierhead he saw his face, the sorrowful face of Brother Michael. He saw him lift his hand towards the people, and heard him say in a loud voice of sorrow over the waters, He is dead. We saw him lying upon the catafalque.

A wail of sorrow went up from the people. Parnell, Parnell, he is dead. They fell upon their knees, moaning in sorrow, and he saw Dante in a maroon velvet dress, and with a green velvet mantle hanging from her shoulders, walking proudly and silently past the people who knelt by the water's edge.

End of Section 9 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Chapter 1 Part 1 By James Joyce