Complete Works of James Joyce Read online

  — Then do so, Cranly said. Do as she wishes you to do. What is it for you? You disbelieve in it. It is a form: nothing else. And you will set her mind at rest.

  He ceased and, as Stephen did not reply, remained silent. Then, as if giving utterance to the process of his own thought, he said:

  — Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not. Your mother brings you into the world, carries you first in her body. What do we know about what she feels? But whatever she feels, it, at least, must be real. It must be. What are our ideas or ambitions? Play. Ideas! Why, that bloody bleating goat Temple has ideas. MacCann has ideas too. Every jackass going the roads thinks he has ideas.

  Stephen, who had been listening to the unspoken speech behind the words, said with assumed carelessness:

  — Pascal, if I remember rightly, would not suffer his mother to kiss him as he feared the contact of her sex.

  — Pascal was a pig, said Cranly.

  — Aloysius Gonzaga, I think, was of the same mind, Stephen said.

  — And he was another pig then, said Cranly.

  — The church calls him a saint, Stephen objected.

  — I don’t care a flaming damn what anyone calls him, Cranly said rudely and flatly. I call him a pig.

  Stephen, preparing the words neatly in his mind, continued:

  — Jesus, too, seems to have treated his mother with scant courtesy in public but Suarez, a jesuit theologian and Spanish gentleman, has apologized for him.

  — Did the idea ever occur to you, Cranly asked, that Jesus was not what he pretended to be?

  — The first person to whom that idea occurred, Stephen answered, was Jesus himself.

  — I mean, Cranly said, hardening in his speech, did the idea ever occur to you that he was himself a conscious hypocrite, what he called the jews of his time, a whited sepulchre? Or, to put it more plainly, that he was a blackguard?

  — That idea never occurred to me, Stephen answered. But I am curious to know are you trying to make a convert of me or a pervert of yourself?

  He turned towards his friend’s face and saw there a raw smile which some force of will strove to make finely significant.

  Cranly asked suddenly in a plain sensible tone:

  — Tell me the truth. Were you at all shocked by what I said?

  — Somewhat, Stephen said.

  — And why were you shocked, Cranly pressed on in the same tone, if you feel sure that our religion is false and that Jesus was not the son of God?

  — I am not at all sure of it, Stephen said. He is more like a son of God than a son of Mary.

  — And is that why you will not communicate, Cranly asked, because you are not sure of that too, because you feel that the host, too, may be the body and blood of the son of God and not a wafer of bread? And because you fear that it may be?

  — Yes, Stephen said quietly, I feel that and I also fear it.

  — I see, Cranly said.

  Stephen, struck by his tone of closure, reopened the discussion at once by saying:

  — I fear many things: dogs, horses, fire-arms, the sea, thunder-storms, machinery, the country roads at night.

  — But why do you fear a bit of bread?

  — I imagine, Stephen said, that there is a malevolent reality behind those things I say I fear.

  — Do you fear then, Cranly asked, that the God of the Roman catholics would strike you dead and damn you if you made a sacrilegious communion?

  — The God of the Roman catholics could do that now, Stephen said. I fear more than that the chemical action which would be set up in my soul by a false homage to a symbol behind which are massed twenty centuries of authority and veneration.

  — Would you, Cranly asked, in extreme danger, commit that particular sacrilege? For instance, if you lived in the penal days?

  — I cannot answer for the past, Stephen replied. Possibly not.

  — Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?

  — I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?

  They had walked on towards the township of Pembroke and now, as they went on slowly along the avenues, the trees and the scattered lights in the villas soothed their minds. The air of wealth and repose diffused about them seemed to comfort their neediness. Behind a hedge of laurel a light glimmered in the window of a kitchen and the voice of a servant was heard singing as she sharpened knives. She sang, in short broken bars:

  Rosie O’Grady.

  Cranly stopped to listen, saying:

  — MULIER CANTAT.

  The soft beauty of the Latin word touched with an enchanting touch the dark of the evening, with a touch fainter and more persuading than the touch of music or of a woman’s hand. The strife of their minds was quelled. The figure of a woman as she appears in the liturgy of the church passed silently through the darkness: a white-robed figure, small and slender as a boy, and with a falling girdle. Her voice, frail and high as a boy’s, was heard intoning from a distant choir the first words of a woman which pierce the gloom and clamour of the first chanting of the passion:

  — ET TU CUM JESU GALILAEO ERAS.

  And all hearts were touched and turned to her voice, shining like a young star, shining clearer as the voice intoned the proparoxytone and more faintly as the cadence died.

  The singing ceased. They went on together, Cranly repeating in strongly stressed rhythm the end of the refrain:

  And when we are married,

  O, how happy we’ll be

  For I love sweet Rosie O’Grady

  And Rosie O’Grady loves me.

  — There’s real poetry for you, he said. There’s real love.

  He glanced sideways at Stephen with a strange smile and said:

  — Do you consider that poetry? Or do you know what the words mean?

  — I want to see Rosie first, said Stephen.

  — She’s easy to find, Cranly said.

  His hat had come down on his forehead. He shoved it back and in the shadow of the trees Stephen saw his pale face, framed by the dark, and his large dark eyes. Yes. His face was handsome and his body was strong and hard. He had spoken of a mother’s love. He felt then the sufferings of women, the weaknesses of their bodies and souls; and would shield them with a strong and resolute arm and bow his mind to them.

  Away then: it is time to go. A voice spoke softly to Stephen’s lonely heart, bidding him go and telling him that his friendship was coming to an end. Yes; he would go. He could not strive against another. He knew his part.

  — Probably I shall go away, he said.

  — Where? Cranly asked.

  — Where I can, Stephen said.

  — Yes, Cranly said. It might be difficult for you to live here now. But is it that makes you go?

  — I have to go, Stephen answered.

  — Because, Cranly continued, you need not look upon yourself as driven away if you do not wish to go or as a heretic or an outlaw. There are many good believers who think as you do. Would that surprise you? The church is not the stone building nor even the clergy and their dogmas. It is the whole mass of those born into it. I don’t know what you wish to do in life. Is it what you told me the night we were standing outside Harcourt Street station?

  — Yes, Stephen said, smiling in spite of himself at Cranly’s way of remembering thoughts in connexion with places. The night you spent half an hour wrangling with Doherty about the shortest way from Sallygap to Larras.

  — Pothead! Cranly said with calm contempt. What does he know about the way from Sallygap to Larras? Or what does he know about anything for that matter? And the big slobbering washing-pot head of him!

  He broke into a loud long laugh.

  — Well? Stephen said. Do you remember the rest?

  — What you said, is it? Cranly asked. Yes, I remember i
t. To discover the mode of life or of art whereby your spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.

  Stephen raised his hat in acknowledgement.

  — Freedom! Cranly repeated. But you are not free enough yet to commit a sacrilege. Tell me would you rob?

  — I would beg first, Stephen said.

  — And if you got nothing, would you rob?

  — You wish me to say, Stephen answered, that the rights of property are provisional, and that in certain circumstances it is not unlawful to rob. Everyone would act in that belief. So I will not make you that answer. Apply to the jesuit theologian, Juan Mariana de Talavera, who will also explain to you in what circumstances you may lawfully Kill your king and whether you had better hand him his poison in a goblet or smear it for him upon his robe or his saddlebow. Ask me rather would I suffer others to rob me, or if they did, would I call down upon them what I believe is called the chastisement of the secular arm?

  — And would you?

  — I think, Stephen said, it would pain me as much to do so as to be robbed.

  — I see, Cranly said.

  He produced his match and began to clean the crevice between two teeth. Then he said carelessly:

  — Tell me, for example, would you deflower a virgin?

  — Excuse me, Stephen said politely, is that not the ambition of most young gentlemen?

  — What then is your point of view? Cranly asked.

  His last phrase, sour smelling as the smoke of charcoal and disheartening, excited Stephen’s brain, over which its fumes seemed to brood.

  — Look here, Cranly, he said. You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use — silence, exile, and cunning.

  Cranly seized his arm and steered him round so as to lead him back towards Leeson Park. He laughed almost slyly and pressed Stephen’s arm with an elder’s affection.

  — Cunning indeed! he said. Is it you? You poor poet, you!

  — And you made me confess to you, Stephen said, thrilled by his touch, as I have confessed to you so many other things, have I not?

  — Yes, my child, Cranly said, still gaily.

  — You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity too.

  Cranly, now grave again, slowed his pace and said:

  — Alone, quite alone. You have no fear of that. And you know what that word means? Not only to be separate from all others but to have not even one friend.

  — I will take the risk, said Stephen.

  — And not to have any one person, Cranly said, who would be more than a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had.

  His words seemed to have struck some deep chord in his own nature. Had he spoken of himself, of himself as he was or wished to be? Stephen watched his face for some moments in silence. A cold sadness was there. He had spoken of himself, of his own loneliness which he feared.

  — Of whom are you speaking? Stephen asked at length.

  Cranly did not answer.

  * * *

  MARCH 20. Long talk with Cranly on the subject of my revolt.

  He had his grand manner on. I supple and suave. Attacked me on the score of love for one’s mother. Tried to imagine his mother: cannot. Told me once, in a moment of thoughtlessness, his father was sixty-one when he was born. Can see him. Strong farmer type. Pepper and salt suit. Square feet. Unkempt, grizzled beard. Probably attends coursing matches. Pays his dues regularly but not plentifully to Father Dwyer of Larras. Sometimes talks to girls after nightfall. But his mother? Very young or very old? Hardly the first. If so, Cranly would not have spoken as he did. Old then. Probably, and neglected. Hence Cranly’s despair of soul: the child of exhausted loins.

  MARCH 21, MORNING. Thought this in bed last night but was too lazy and free to add to it. Free, yes. The exhausted loins are those of Elizabeth and Zacchary. Then he is the precursor. Item: he eats chiefly belly bacon and dried figs. Read locusts and wild honey. Also, when thinking of him, saw always a stern severed head or death mask as if outlined on a grey curtain or veronica. Decollation they call it in the gold. Puzzled for the moment by saint John at the Latin gate. What do I see? A decollated percursor trying to pick the lock.

  MARCH 21, NIGHT. Free. Soul free and fancy free. Let the dead bury the dead. Ay. And let the dead marry the dead.

  MARCH 22. In company with Lynch followed a sizeable hospital nurse. Lynch’s idea. Dislike it. Two lean hungry greyhounds walking after a heifer.

  MARCH 23. Have not seen her since that night. Unwell? Sits at the fire perhaps with mamma’s shawl on her shoulders. But not peevish. A nice bowl of gruel? Won’t you now?

  MARCH 24. Began with a discussion with my mother. Subject: B.V.M. Handicapped by my sex and youth. To escape held up relations between Jesus and Papa against those between Mary and her son. Said religion was not a lying-in hospital. Mother indulgent. Said I have a queer mind and have read too much. Not true. Have read little and understood less. Then she said I would come back to faith because I had a restless mind. This means to leave church by back door of sin and re-enter through the skylight of repentance. Cannot repent. Told her so and asked for sixpence. Got threepence.

  Then went to college. Other wrangle with little round head rogue’s eye Ghezzi. This time about Bruno the Nolan. Began in Italian and ended in pidgin English. He said Bruno was a terrible heretic. I said he was terribly burned. He agreed to this with some sorrow. Then gave me recipe for what he calls RISOTTO ALLA BERGAMASCA. When he pronounces a soft O he protrudes his full carnal lips as if he kissed the vowel. Has he? And could he repent? Yes, he could: and cry two round rogue’s tears, one from each eye.

  Crossing Stephen’s, that is, my green, remembered that his countrymen and not mine had invented what Cranly the other night called our religion. A quartet of them, soldiers of the ninety-seventh infantry regiment, sat at the foot of the cross and tossed up dice for the overcoat of the crucified.

  Went to library. Tried to read three reviews. Useless. She is not out yet. Am I alarmed? About what? That she will never be out again.

  Blake wrote:

  I wonder if William Bond will die

  For assuredly he is very ill.

  Alas, poor William!

  I was once at a diorama in Rotunda. At the end were pictures of big nobs. Among them William Ewart Gladstone, just then dead. Orchestra played O WILLIE, WE HAVE MISSED YOU.

  A race of clodhoppers!

  MARCH 25, MORNING. A troubled night of dreams. Want to get them off my chest.

  A long curving gallery. From the floor ascend pillars of dark vapours. It is peopled by the images of fabulous kings, set in stone. Their hands are folded upon their knees in token of weariness and their eyes are darkened for the errors of men go up before them for ever as dark vapours.

  Strange figures advance as from a cave. They are not as tall as men. One does not seem to stand quite apart from another. Their faces are phosphorescent, with darker streaks. They peer at me and their eyes seem to ask me something. They do not speak.

  MARCH 30. This evening Cranly was in the porch of the library, proposing a problem to Dixon and her brother. A mother let her child fall into the Nile. Still harping on the mother. A crocodile seized the child. Mother asked it back. Crocodile said all right if she told him what he was going to do with the child, eat it or not eat It.

  This mentality, Lepidus would say, is indeed bred out of your mud by the operation of your sun.

  And mine? Is it not too? Then into Nile mud with it!


  APRIL 1. Disapprove of this last phrase.

  APRIL 2. Saw her drinking tea and eating cakes in Johnston’s, Mooney and O’Brien’s. Rather, lynx-eyed Lynch saw her as we passed. He tells me Cranly was invited there by brother. Did he bring his crocodile? Is he the shining light now? Well, I discovered him. I protest I did. Shining quietly behind a bushel of Wicklow bran.

  APRIL 3. Met Davin at the cigar shop opposite Findlater’s church. He was in a black sweater and had a hurley stick. Asked me was it true I was going away and why. Told him the shortest way to Tara was VIA Holyhead. Just then my father came up. Introduction. Father polite and observant. Asked Davin if he might offer him some refreshment. Davin could not, was going to a meeting. When we came away father told me he had a good honest eye. Asked me why I did not join a rowing club. I pretended to think it over. Told me then how he broke Pennyfeather’s heart. Wants me to read law. Says I was cut out for that. More mud, more crocodiles.

  APRIL 5. Wild spring. Scudding clouds. O life! Dark stream of swirling bogwater on which apple-trees have cast down their delicate flowers. Eyes of girls among the leaves. Girls demure and romping. All fair or auburn: no dark ones. They blush better. Houpla!

  APRIL 6. Certainly she remembers the past. Lynch says all women do. Then she remembers the time of her childhood — and mine, if I was ever a child. The past is consumed in the present and the present is living only because it brings forth the future. Statues of women, if Lynch be right, should always be fully draped, one hand of the woman feeling regretfully her own hinder parts.

  APRIL 6, LATER. Michael Robartes remembers forgotten beauty and, when his arms wrap her round, he presses in his arms the loveliness which has long faded from the world. Not this. Not at all. I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.

  APRIL 10. Faintly, under the heavy night, through the silence of the city which has turned from dreams to dreamless sleep as a weary lover whom no caresses move, the sound of hoofs upon the road. Not so faintly now as they come near the bridge; and in a moment, as they pass the darkened windows, the silence is cloven by alarm as by an arrow. They are heard now far away, hoofs that shine amid the heavy night as gems, hurrying beyond the sleeping fields to what journey’s end — what heart? — bearing what tidings?