A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Chapter 5 Part 4

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter five, Part four of A Portrait of the Artist
as a young Man by James Joyce. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Peter Bobby. A Portrait of the Artist as

(00:23):
a young Man by James Joyce, Chapter five, Part four.
Cranleigh had taken another dried fig from the supply in
his pocket and was eating it slowly and noisily. Temple
sat on the pediment of a pillar, leaning back, his
cap pulled down on his sleepy eyes. A squat young

(00:43):
man came out of the porch, a leather portfolio tucked
under his arm pit. He marched towards the group, striking
the flags with the heels of his boots and with
the ferule of his heavy umbrella. Then raising the umbrella
in salute, he said to all good evening sirs. He
struck the flags again and tittered, while his head trembled

(01:04):
with a slight nervous movement. The tall, consumptive student and
Dixon and O'Keefe were speaking in Irish and did not
answer him. Then turning to Cranleigh. He said, good evening,
particularly to you. He moved the umbrella in indication and
tittered again. Cranley, who was still chewing the fig, answered
with loud movements of his jaws, and yes, it is

(01:28):
a good evening. The squat student looked at him seriously
and shook his umbrella gently and reprovingly. I can see.
He said that you are about to make obvious remarks.
Am Cranley answered, holding out what remained of the half
chewed fig and jerking it towards the squat student's mouth
in sign that he should eat. The squat student did

(01:51):
not eat it, but indulging his special humor, said gravely,
still tittering and prodding his phrase with his umbrella. Do
you intend that? He broke off, pointed bluntly to the
munched pulp of the fig, and said loudly, I allude
to that. Um Cranly said, as before. Do you intend

(02:12):
that now? The squat student said, as ipso facto, or
let us say as so to speak. Dixon turned aside
from his group, saying, Goggins was waiting for you, Glynn.
He has gone round to the Adelphi to look for you,
and moynihan, What have you there, he asked, tapping the
portfolio under Glynn's arm examination papers. Glynn answered, I give

(02:33):
them monthly examinations to see that they are profiting by
my tuition. He also tapped the portfolio and coughed gently
and smiled. Tuition said Cranly rudely, I suppose you mean
the barefooted children that are taught by a bloody ape
like you, God help them. He bit off the rest
of the fig and flung away the butt. I suffer

(02:56):
little children to come unto me, Glynn said, amiably, A
bloody ape. Cranly repeated with emphasis and a blasphemous bloody ape.
Temple stood up and, pushing past Cranley, addressed Glynn. That
phrase you said, now, he said, is from the New
Testament about suffer the children to come to me. Go
to sleep again, Temple said O'Keefe very well. Then Temple continued, still,

(03:20):
addressing Glyn, And if Jesus suffered the children to come,
why does the church send them all to hell? If
they die unbaptized? Why is that? Were you baptized yourself? Temple?
The consumptive student asked, but why are they sent to hell?
If Jesus said they were all to come, Temple said,
his eyes searching in Glynn's eyes. Glynn coughed and said, gently,

(03:42):
holding back with difficulty, the nervous titter in his voice
and moving his umbrella at every word, And as you remark,
if it is thus, I ask emphatically, whence comes this thusness?
Because the church is cruel like all old sinners, Temple said,
are you quite orthodox on that point? Temple? Dixon said, suavely,

(04:04):
Saint Augustine says that about unbaptized children going to hell.
Temple answered, because he was a cruel old sinner too.
I bow to you, Dixon said, but I had the
impression that limbo existed for such cases. Don't argue with him,
Dixon grandly said, brutally, don't talk to him or look
at him. Lead him home with a sugan, the way
you'd lead a bleeding goat limbo. Temple cried, that's a

(04:28):
fine invention, too, like Hell, but with the unpleasantness left out.
Dixon said. He turned smiling to the others and said,
I think I am voicing the opinions of all present
in saying so much you are. Glynn said, in a
firm tone. On that point, Ireland is united. He struck
the ferule of his umbrella on the stone floor of

(04:49):
the colonnade. Hell Temple said, I can respect that invention
of the gray spouse of Satan. Hell is Roman, like
the walls of the Romans, strong and ugly, But what
is limbo? Put him back into the perambulator, Cranleigh O'Keefe
called out. Cranley made a swift step towards Temple, halted,
stamping his foot, crying as if to a fowl. Hush.

(05:12):
Temple moved away nimbly. Do you know what limbo is,
he cried. Do you know what we call a notion
like that in roscommon? Hush? Blast you, Cranley cried, clapping
his hands. Neither my arse nor I EBow. Temple cried out, scornfully.
And that's what I call limbo. Give us that stick here,
Cranley said. He snatched the ashplant roughly from Stephen's hand

(05:33):
and sprang down the steps, but Temple, hearing him move
in pursuit, fled through the dusk like a wild creature.
Nimble and fleet footed. Cranley's heavy boots were heard loudly
charging across the quadrangle, and then returning heavily foiled and
spurning the gravel at each step. His step was angry,
and with an angry, abrupt gesture, he thrust the stick

(05:54):
back into Stephen's hand. Stephen felt that his anger had
another cause, but feigning patient, and touched his arm slightly
and said quietly, Cranley, I told you I wanted to
speak to you. Come away. Cranley looked at him for
a few moments and asked now, yes, now, Stephen said,
we can't speak here, come away. They crossed the quadrangle

(06:16):
together without speaking. The bird call from Siegfried, whistled softly
followed them from the steps of the porch. Cranley turned
and Dixon, who had whistled, called out, where are you?
Fellows off too? What about that game Cranleg They parleyed
in shouts across the still air about a game of
billiards to be played in the Adelphi Hotel. Stephen walked

(06:39):
on alone and out on to the quiet of Kildare Street,
opposite Maple's hotel. He stood to wait patient again. The
name of the hotel, a colorless polished wood, and its
colorless quiet front stung him like a glance of polite disdain.
He stared angrily back at the softly lit drawing room
of the hotel, in which he imagined the sleek line

(07:00):
waves of the patricians of Ireland. Housed in calm, They
thought of army commissions and land grants. Peasants greeted them
along the roads in the country. They knew the names
of certain French dishes, and gave orders to Jarvis in
high pitched provincial voices which pierced through their skin tight accents.
How could he hit their conscience, or how cast his

(07:20):
shadow over the imaginations of their daughters before their squires
begat upon them, that they might breed a race less
ignoble than their own. And under the deepened dusk, he
felt the thoughts and desires of the race to which
he belonged, flitting like bats across the dark country lanes,
under trees, by the edges of streams, and near the

(07:41):
pool mottled bogs. A woman had waited in the doorway
as Davon had passed by at night, and, offering him
a cup of milk, had all but wooed him to
her bed. For Davon had the mild eyes of one
who could be secret but him. No woman's eyes had wooed.
His arm was taken in a strong and Cranley's voice said,

(08:01):
let us eke go. They walked southward in silence. Then
Cranley said, that blithering idiot temple, I swear to Moses.
Do you know that I'll be the death of that
fellow one time? But his voice was no longer angry,
and Stephen wondered was he thinking of her greeting to
him under the porch. They turned to the left and
walked on as before when they had gone on so

(08:24):
for some time. Stephen said, Cranly, I had an unpleasant
quarrel this evening with your people. Cranley asked, with my
mother about religion? Yes, Stephen answered. After a pause, Cranley
asked what age is your mother? Not old? Stephen said,
she wishes me to make my Easter duty and will

(08:45):
you I will not. Stephen said, why not? Cranly said,
I will not serve, answered Stephen. That remark was made before.
Cranly said, calmly, it is made behind now, said Stephen. Hotly.
Cranly pressed Stephen's arms, saying, go easy, my dear man.
You are an excitable bloody man. Do you know? He

(09:07):
laughed nervously as he spoke, and, looking up into Stephen's
face with moved and friendly eyes, said, do you know
that you are an excitable man? I dare say I am,
said Stephen, laughing. Also, their minds, lately estranged, seemed suddenly
to have been drawn closer one to the other. Do
you believe in the Eucharist, Cranley asked, I do not.

(09:31):
Stephen said, do you disbelieve? Then? I neither believe in
it nor disbelieve in it. Stephen answered, Many persons have doubts,
even religious persons, yet they overcome them or put them aside.
Cranley said, are your doubts on that point too strong?
I do not wish to overcome them, Stephen answered. Cranly,

(09:53):
embarrassed for a moment, took another fig from his pocket
and was about to eat it when Stephen said, don't please.
You cannot disco as this question with your mouth full
of chewed fig. Cranley examined the fig by the light
of a lamp, under which he halted. Then he smelt
it with both nostrils, bit a tiny piece, spat it out,
and threw the fig rudely into the gutter. Addressing it

(10:15):
as it lay, he said, depart from me, ye, curse
it into everlasting fire. Taking Stephen's arm, he went on
again and said, do you not fear that those words
may be spoken to you on the day of judgment?
What has offered me? On the other hand, Stephen asked
an eternity of bliss in the company of the Dean
of studies. Remember, Cranley said that he would be glorified. Aye,

(10:40):
Stephen said, somewhat bitterly, bright, agile, impassable, and above all subtle.
It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranley said, dispassionately,
how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which
you say you disbelieve. Did you believe in it when
you were at school? I bet you did? I did?
Stephen answered? And were you happier then, Cranly asked, softly,

(11:05):
happier than you are now? For instance? Often happy, Stephen said,
and often unhappy? I was some one else then, how
some one else? What do you mean by that statement?
I mean, said Stephen, that I was not myself as
I am now, as I had to become, not as
you are now, not as you had to become. Cranly repeated,

(11:28):
let me ask you a question. Do you love your mother?
Stephen shook his head slowly. I don't know what your
words mean, he said, simply. Have you never loved any one?
Cranly asked, do you mean women? I am not speaking
of that, Cranly said, in a colder tone. I asked
you if you ever felt love towards any one or anything.

(11:51):
Stephen walked on beside his friend, staring gloomily at the footpath.
I tried to love God, he said, at length. It
seems now I failed. It is very difficult. I tried
to unite my will with the will of God, instant
by instant. In that I did not always fail. I
could perhaps do that. Still. Cranley cut him short by

(12:14):
asking has your mother had a happy life? How do
I know? Stephen said? How many children? Has she? Nine?
Or ten? Stephen answered, some died? Was your father? Cranley
interrupted himself for an instant, and then said, I don't
want to pry into your family affairs, but was your father?

(12:36):
What is called well to do? I mean when you
were growing up? Yes, Stephen said, what was he? Cranley asked,
after a pause, Stephen began to enumerate glibly his father's attributes.
A medical student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor,
a shouting politician, a small landlord, a small investor, a drinker,

(12:59):
a good fellow, a story teller, somebody's secretary, something in
a distillery, a tax gatherer, a bankrupt, and at present,
a praiser of his own past. Cranley laughed, tightening his
grip on Stephen's arm, and said, the distillery is damned good.
Is there anything else you want to know? Stephen asked?

(13:21):
Are you in good circumstances at present? Do I look it?
Stephen asked, bluntly so. Then Cranley went on, musingly, you
were born in the lap of luxury. He used the
phrase broadly and loudly, as he often used technical expressions,
as if he wished his hearer to understand that they
were used by him without conviction. Your mother must have

(13:43):
gone through a good deal of suffering, he said, then
would you not try to save her from suffering more?
Even if or would you if I could? Stephen said
that would cost me very little. Then do so, Cranleigh said,
do as she wishes you to do. What is it
for you, you disbelieve in it. It is a form, nothing else,

(14:04):
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.

(14:24):
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? Ma can has
ideas to every jackass going the roads thinks he has ideas. Stephen,
who had been listening to the unspoken speech behind the words, said,

(14:48):
with assumed carelessness, Pascal, if I remember rightly, would not
suffer his mother to kiss him, as he feared the
contact of her sex. Bascal was a pig, said Cranly.
Aluisius Gonzaga, I think was of the same mind, Stephen said,
And he was another pig, then, said Cranly, the church

(15:09):
calls him a saint. Stephen objected, I don't care a
flaming damn what any one calls him, Cranley 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.

(15:32):
Did the idea ever occur to you? Cranley 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,

(15:52):
a whited sepulcher, 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 confid 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. Cranley asked, suddenly, in a plain,

(16:16):
sensible tone, tell me the truth. Were you at all
shocked by what I said? Somewhat? Stephen said, And why
were you shocked? Granly 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.

(16:39):
And is that why you will not communicate? Cranley 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, Cranley said. Stephen, struck by his tone of closure,

(17:04):
reopened the discussion at once by saying, I fear many things, dogs, horses, firearms,
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? Cranley asked

(17:26):
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, Cranley asked, in

(17:47):
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 Cranley, 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?

(18:10):
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

(18:31):
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 rosy O'Grady cranly stopped
to listen, saying, muliere cantat the soft beauty of the

(18:52):
Latin word, touched with an enchanting touch the dark of
the evening, with a touch fainter and more persuading than
the touch of music of a woman's hand, the strife
of their minds was quelled. The figure of woman as
she appears in the Liturgy of the Church, passed silently
through the darkness. A white robed figure, small and slender

(19:13):
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
pierced the gloom and clamor of the first chanting of
the passion Ettu kum jesu gerileo eras, and all hearts
were touched and turned to her voice, shining like a

(19:34):
young star, shining clearer. As the voice intoned, the proper Oxeton,
and more faintly. As the cadence died, the singing ceased.
They went on together, grandly, repeating in strongly stressed rhythm
the end of the refrain. And when we are married,
Oh how happy will be for I love sweet Rosy,

(19:55):
O Grady, and Rosy, Oh Grady loves me. Theirs 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 Rosy first, said Stephen. She's easy

(20:15):
to find, granly 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

(20:36):
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

(20:58):
not strive against another. He knew his part. Probably I
shall go away, he said where. Cranley asked where I can?
Stephen said yes. Cranley said, it might be difficult for
you to live here now, But is it that that
makes you go? I have to go, Stephen answered, because,

(21:20):
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

(21:42):
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 Cranley's way of remembering
thoughts and connection with places. The night you spent half
an hour wrangling with Dougherty about the shortest way from
sally Ga to Laris Pothead, Cranly said, with calm contempt,

(22:04):
what does he know about the way from Sallygap to lares,
or what does he know about anything? For that matter?
And the big slobbering washing pot ahead of him, he
broke out into a long laugh. Well, Stephen said, do
you remember the rest what you said? Is it? Cranley asked, yes,
I remember it? To discover the mode of life or

(22:25):
of art whereby your spirit could express itself in unfettered freedom.
Stephen raised his hat in acknowledgment 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 wished

(22:47):
me to say? Stephen answered that the rights of property
are provisional, and that in certain circumstances it is not
unlawful to rob. Every One would act in that belief,
So I will not make you that answer. Apply to
the Jesuit theologian Juan Marianna de Talavera, who will also
explain to you in what circumstances you may lawfully kill

(23:07):
your king, and whether you had better hand him his
poison in a goblet or smear it for him upon
his robe or his saddle bow. 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

(23:29):
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,

(23:51):
is your point of view? Cranly asked, his last phrase sour,
smelling as the smoke of charicoal and disheartening, excited to
even's brain, over which its fumes seemed to brood. Look here, Cranley,
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.

(24:11):
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 lie or art, as freely as I can and
as holy as I can, using for my defense the
only arms. I allow myself to use silence, exile and cunning.

(24:33):
Cranley seized his arm and steered him round so as
to head 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

(24:53):
other things, have I not? Yes, my child, Cranley said, still, gaily,
you made me confess 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 life long mistake, and perhaps as

(25:16):
long as eternity too. Granly 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,

(25:36):
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

(25:58):
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. Cranley

(26:19):
did not answer. Twenty March long talk with Cranley 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. Try to imagine his mother
cannot told me once in a moment of thoughtlessness. His

(26:41):
father was sixty one when he was born. Can see
him strong, farmer type, pepper and salt suit, square feet, unkempt,
grizzled beard, probably at tense coursing matches. Pays his dues regularly,
but not plentifully, to fathered wire of Laris, sometimes talks
to girls after nightfall. But his mother very young or

(27:01):
very old, hardly the first, if so. Cranley would not
have spoken as he did old then probably and neglected,
hence Cranley's despair of soul, the child of exhausted loins
twenty one March morning. Thought this in bed last night,
but was too lazy and free to add it. Free. Yes,

(27:24):
the exhausted loins are those of Elizabeth and Zachary. 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 gray curtain or
Veronica decalation. They call it in the fold. Puzzled for

(27:45):
the moment by Saint John at the Latin Gate, what
do I see? A declated precursor trying to pick the lock?
Twenty one March night, Free, Soul, free and fancy free.
Let the dead bury the dead, Aye, and let the
dead marry the dead. Twenty two March. In company with Lynch,

(28:08):
followed a sizeable hospital. Nurse Lynch's idea, dislike it. Two lean,
hungry greyhounds walking after a heifer twenty three March. 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? Twenty four

(28:30):
March 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

(28:52):
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 wrangled with little round head rogues eye getzi, this

(29:14):
time about Bruno the Nolan. Began an Italian and ended
in Pigeon English. He said Bruno was a terrible heretic.
I said he was terribly burned. He agreed to this
with some sorrow, then gave me a recipe for what
he calls risotto a la bergamasca. When he pronounces a
soft O he protrudes his full carnal lips, as if

(29:35):
he kissed the vowel? Has he and could he repent? Yes?
He could, and cry two round rogues tears, one from
each eye. Crossing Stephens, that is my green remembered that
his countrymen, and not mine, had invented what Cranleigh the
other Knight called our religion. A quartet of them soldiers

(29:55):
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, try 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

(30:18):
is very ill alas poor William. I was once at
a diorama in Rotunda. At the end were pictures of
big knobs, among them William Ewart Gladstone just then dead.
Orchestra played, O, Willie, we have missed you. A race
of clod hoppers twenty five March morning, A troubled night

(30:38):
of dreams, want to get them off my chest? A
long curving gallery from the floor ascend pillars of dark vapors.
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 forever. As dark

(30:59):
vapor strange figures advance 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. Thirty March, this evening,

(31:20):
Cranleigh 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

(31:43):
your mud by the operation of your son and mine.
Is it not too, then into nile mud with it?
One April disapprove of this last phrase. Two April saw
her drinking tea and eating cakes, and Johnston Mooney and
O'Brien's rather Lynk sied Lynch saw her as we passed.

(32:06):
He tells me Cranley 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. Three April met Davin
at the cigar shop opposite Findlader's Church. He was in

(32:27):
a black sweater and had a hurly stick. Asked me
was it true I was going away? And why? Told
him the shortest way to Terra was via Holy Head.
Just then my father came up introduction. Father, polite and observant,
asked Davin if he might offer him some refreshment. Davon
could not, was going to a meeting when we came away.

(32:49):
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. Five
April wild spring, scudding clouds o life, dark stream of

(33:12):
swirling bog water 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 hooplah. Six April. Certainly she remembers the past,
Lynch says, all women do. Then she remembers the time

(33:34):
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.
Six April later, Michael Robartis remembers forgotten beauty, And when

(33:58):
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.
Ten April. Faintly under the heavy night, through the silence
of the city which has turned from dreams to dreamless sleep,

(34:19):
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

(34:40):
beyond the sleeping fields. To what journeys end? What heart bearing?
What tidings? Eleven April Read what I wrote last night,
vague words for a vague emotion. Would she like it?
I think so? Then I should have to like it also.
Thirteen April that Tundish has been on my mind for

(35:02):
a long time. I looked it up and find it English,
and good old blunt English too. Damn the Dean of
Studies and his funnel. What did he come here for?
To teach us his own language or to learn it
from us? Damn him one way or the other. Fourteen April.
John Alphonsis Mulrainan has just returned from the West of Ireland.

(35:22):
European and Asiatic papers please copy. He told us he
met an old man there in a mountain cabin. Old
man had red eyes and short pipe. Old man spoke Irish.
Molrennan spoke Irish. Then old man and Moulrennan spoke English.
Molrennin spoke to him about universe and stars. Old man
sat listened, smoked spat, then said, ah, there must be

(35:48):
terrible queer creatures at the latter end of the world.
I fear him. I fear his red rimmed, horny eyes.
It is with him. I must struggle all through this
night till day come, till he or I lie dead,
gripping him by the sinewy throat, till till what till
he yield to me. No, I mean him, no harm.

(36:14):
Fifteen April met her to day point blank in Grafton Street.
The crowd brought us together. We both stopped. She asked
me why I never came, said she had heard all
sorts of stories about me. This was only to gain time.
Asked me, was I writing poems about whom? I asked her.
This confused her more, and I felt sorry and mean.

(36:37):
Turned off that valve at once and opened the spiritual
heroic refrigerating apparatus, invented and patented in all countries by Dantellieri.
Talked rapidly of myself and my plans. In the midst
of it. Unluckily, I made a sudden gesture of a
revolutionary nature. I must have looked like a fellow throwing
a handful of peas into the air. People began to

(36:59):
look at us. She shook hands a moment after, and
in going away, said she hoped I would do what
I said. Now. I call that friendly, don't you. Yes?
I liked her to day, a little or much. Don't know.
I liked her, and it seems a new feeling to me.
Then in that case, all the rest, all that I

(37:21):
thought I thought, and all that I felt, I felt
all the rest before. Now, in fact, oh give it up,
old Chap, sleep it off. Sixteen April. Away away the
spell of arms and voices, the white arms of roads,
their promise of close embraces, and the black arms of

(37:42):
tall ships that stand against the moon, their tail of
distant nations. They are held out to say we are alone. Come,
and the voices say with them, we are your kinsmen.
And the air is thick with their company, as they
call to me, their kinsmen, making ready to go, shaking
the wings of their exultant and terrible youth. Twenty six April.

(38:08):
Mother is putting my new second hand clothes in order,
she prays. Now she says that I may learn in
my own life, and away from home and friends, what
the heart is and what it feels. Amen, so be
it welcome, O life. I go to encounter for the
millionth time the reality of experience, and to forge in

(38:30):
the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
Twenty seven April, Old Father, Old Artificer, stand me now
and ever in good Stead, Dublin, nineteen o four, Trieste,

(38:50):
nineteen fourteen, end of a portrait of the artist as
a young man.