Ch2 Pt1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter two, Part one of a Portrait of the Artist
as a young man. 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 a young

(00:22):
man by James Joyce, Chapter two, Part one. Uncle Charles
smoked such black twist that at last his nephew suggested
to him to enjoy his morning smoke in a little
outhouse at the end of the garden. Very good, Simon,
All serene, Simon, said the old man. Tranquility anywhere you like.

(00:46):
The outhouse will do me nicely. It will be more salubrious.
Damn me, said mister Daedalus, frankly, if I know how
you can smoke such villainous, awful tobacco, it's like gunpowder.
By god, it's very nice, Simon replied the old man,
very cool and mollifying every morning. Therefore, Uncle Charles repaired

(01:10):
to his outhouse, but not before he had creased and
brushed scrupulously his back hair, and brushed and put on
his tall hat. While he smoked. The brim of his
tall hat and the bowl of his pipe were just
visible beyond the jambs of the outhouse door. His arbor,
as he called the Reeking Outhouse, which he shared with

(01:30):
the cat and the garden tools, served him also as
a sounding box, and every morning he hummed contentedly one
of his favorite songs, Oh Twine me a bower, or
Blue Eyes and Golden Hair, or the Groves of Blarney,
while the gray and blue coils of smoke rose slowly

(01:51):
from his pipe and vanished in the pure air. During
the first part of the summer in black Rock, Uncle
Charles was steel Even's constant companion. Uncle Charles was a
hale old man with a well tanned skin, rugged features,
and white side whiskers. On week days he did messages

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between the house in Carrysford Avenue and those shops in
the main street of the town with which the family dealt.
Stephen was glad to go with him on these errands,
for Uncle Charles helped him very liberally to handfuls of
whatever was exposed in open boxes and barrels. Outside the counter.
He would seize a handful of grapes and sawdust, or

(02:32):
three or four American apples and thrust them generously into
his grand nephew's hand, while the shopman smiled uneasily, and
on Stephen's feigning reluctance to take them, he would frown
and say, take them, sir. Do you hear me, sir?
They are good for your bowels. When the order list

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had been booked, the two would go on to the park,
where an old friend of Stephen's father, Mike Flynn, would
be found seated on a bench waiting for them. Then
would begin Stephen's run round the park. Mike Flynn would
stand at the gate near the railway station, watch in
hand while Stephen ran round the track in the style
Mike Flynn favored, his head high lifted, his knees well lifted,

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and his hands held straight down by his sides. When
the morning practice was over, the trainer would make his
comments and sometimes illustrate them by shuffling along for a
yard or so comically in an old pair of blue
canvas shoes. A small ring of wonderstruck children and nursemaids
would gather to watch him and linger, even when he

(03:38):
and Uncle Charles had sat down again and were talking
athletics and politics. Though he had heard his father say
that Mike Flynn had put some of the best runners
of modern times through his hands. Stephen often glanced with
mistrust at his trainer's flabby, stubble covered face as it
bent over the long stained fingers through which he rolled

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his cigarette, and with pity at the mild, lustreless blue
eyes which would look up suddenly from the task and
gaze vaguely into the blue distance, while the long, swollen
fingers ceased their rolling, and grains and fibers of tobacco
fell back into the pouch. On the way home, Uncle
Charles would often pay a visit to the chapel, and

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as the font was above Stephen's reach, the old man
would dip his hand and then sprinkle the water briskly
about Stephen's clothes and on the floor of the porch.
While he prayed, he knelt on his red handkerchief and
read above his breath from a thumb blackened prayer book,
wherein catchwords were printed at the foot of every page.

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Stephen knelt at his side, respecting. Though he did not
share his piety. He often wondered what his grand uncle
prayed for so seriously. Perhaps he prayed for the souls
in purgatory or for the grace of a happy death,
or perhaps he prayed that God might send him back
apart the big fortune he had squandered in Cork. On Sundays, Stephen,

(05:05):
with his father and his grand uncle took their constitutional.
The old man was a nimble walker in spite of
his corns, and often ten or twelve miles of the
road were covered. The little village of still Organ was
the parting of the ways. Either they went to the
left towards the Dublin Mountains, or along the Goatstown Road,
and thence into Dundrum, coming home by Sandyford. Trudging along

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the road, or standing in some grimy wayside public house,
his elder spoke constantly of the subjects nearer their hearts,
of Irish politics, of Munster, and of the legends of
their own family, to all of which Stephen lent an
avid ear. Words which he did not understand, he said
over and over to himself, till he had learned them

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by heart, and through them he had glimpses of the
real world about him. The hour when he too would
take part in the life of that world seemed drawing near,
and in secret he began to make ready for the
great part which he felt awaited him, the nature of
which he only dimly apprehended. His evenings were his own,

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and he poured over a ragged translation of the Count
of Monte Cristo. The figure of that dark avenger stood
forth in his mind for whatever he had heard or
divined in childhood of the strange and terrible. At night
he built up on the parlor table an image of
the wonderful island cave, out of transfers and paper flowers,

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and colored tissue paper, and strips of the silver and
golden paper in which chocolate is wrapped. When he had
broken up this scenery, weary of its tinsel, there would
come to his mind the bright picture of Marseilles, of
sunny trellises, and of Mercedes. Outside black Rock, on the
road that led to the mountains, stood a small whitewashed house,

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in the garden of which grew many ROAs those bushes.
And in this house, he told himself another Mercedes lived
both on the outward and on the homeward journey. He
measured distance by this landmark, and in his imagination he
lived through a long train of adventures marvelous as those
in the book itself, towards the close of which there

(07:19):
appeared an image of himself, grown older and sadder, standing
in a moonlit garden with Mercedes, who had so many
years before slighted his love, and with a sadly proud
gesture of refusal, saying, Madam, I never eat muscatel grapes.

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He became the ally of a boy named Aubrey Mills,
and founded with him a gang of adventurers in the avenue.
Aubrey carried a whistle dangling from his button hole and
a bicycle lamp attached to his belt, while the others
had short sticks thrust daggerwise through theirs. Stephen, who had
read of Napo Polean's plain style of dress, chose to

(08:02):
remain unadorned, and thereby heightened for himself the pleasure of
taking counsel with his lieutenant. Before giving orders, the gang
made forays into the gardens of old maids, or went
down to the castle and fought a battle on the
shaggy weed grown rocks. Coming home after it, weary stragglers,
with the stale odors of the foreshore in their nostrils

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and the rank oils of the sea rack upon their
hands and in their hair, Aubrey and Stephen had a
common milkman, and often they drove out in the milk
car to Carrick mines, where the cows were at grass.
While the men were milking, the boys would take turns
in riding the tractable mare round the field. But when

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autumn came, the cows were driven home from the grass,
and the first sight of the filthy cow yard at Stradbrook,
with its foul green puddles and clots of liquid dung
and steaming Brantroft's, sickened Stephen's heart. The cattle, which had
seemed so beautiful in the country on sunny days, revolted him,
and he could not even look at the milk they yielded.

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The coming of September did not trouble him this year,
for he was not to be sent back to Clongo's.
The practice in the park came to an end when
Mike Flynn went into hospital. Aubrey was at school and
had only an hour or two free in the evening.
The gang fell asunder and there were no more nightly
forays or battles on the rocks. Stephen sometimes went round

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with the car which delivered the evening milk, and these
chilly drives blew away his memory of the filth of
the cowyard, and he felt no repugnance at seeing the
cow hairs and hay seeds on the milkman's coat. Whenever
the car drew up before a house, he waited to
catch a glimpse of a well scrubbed kitchen, or of
a softly lighted haul, and to see how the servant

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would hold the jug and how she would close the door.
He thought it should be a pleasant life enough, driving
along the roads every evening to deliver milk, if he
had warm gloves and a fat bag of ginger nuts
in his pocket to eat from. But the same foreknowledge
which had sickened his heart and made his legs sag
suddenly as he raced round the park, the same intuition

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which had made him glance with mistrust at his trainer's flabby,
stubble covered face as it bent heavily over his long
stained fingers, dissipated any vision of the future. In a
vague way, he understood that his father was in trouble,
and that this was the reason why he himself had
not been sent back to Klongo's. For some time, he

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had felt the slight changes in his house, and these
changes in what he had deemed unchangeable were so many
slight shocks to his boyish conception of the world. The ambition,
which he felt astir at times, in the darkness of
his soul, sought no outlet. A dusk like that of
the outer world obscured his mind as he heard the

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mare's hoofs clattering along the tram track on the rock road,
and the great can swaying and rattling behind him. He
returned to Mercedes, and as he brooded upon her image,
a strange unrest crept into his blood. Sometimes a fever
gathered within him and led him to rove alone in

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the evening along the quiet avenue. The peace of the
gardens and the kindly lights in the windows poured a
tender influence into his restless heart. The noise of children
at play annoyed him, and their silly voices made him
feel even more keenly than he had felt at Klongo's
that he was different from others. He did not want

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to play. He wanted to meet in the real world
the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld. He
did not know where to seek it. Or how But
a premonition which led him on told him that this
image would, without any overt act of his encounter him.
They would meet quietly, as if they had known each

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other and made their tryst, perhaps at one of the
gates or in some more secret place. They would be alone,
surrounded by darkness and silence, and in that moment of
supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into
something impalpable under her eyes. And then in a moment

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he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would
fall from him in that magic moment. Two great yellow
caravans had halted one morning before the door, and men
had come tramping into the house to dismantle it. The

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furniture had been hustled out through the front garden, which
was strewn with wisps of straw and rope ends, and
into the huge vans at the gate. When all had
been safely stowed, the vans had set off noisily down
the avenue, and from the window of the railway carriage
in which he had sat with him, his red eyed
mother Stephen, had seen them lumbering heavily along the Marion road.

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The parlor fire would not draw that evening, and mister
Daedalus wrested the poker against the bars of the grate
to attract the flame. Uncle Charles dozed in a corner
of the half furnished, uncarpeted room, and near him the
family portraits leaned against the wall. The lamp on the
table shed a weak light over the boarded floor, muddied

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by the feet of the van men. Stephen sat on
a footstool beside his father, listening to a long and
incoherent monolog He understood little or nothing of it at first,
but he became slowly aware that his father had enemies,
and that some fight was going to take place. He felt, too,

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that he was being enlisted for the fight, that some
duty was being laid upon his shoulders. The sudden flight
from the comfort and reverie of black Rock, the passage
through the gloomy, foggy city, the thought of the bare,
cheerless house in which they were now to live, made
his heart heavy, and again an intuition or foreknowledge of
the future came to him. He understood also why the

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servants had often whispered together in the hall, and why
his father had often stood on the hearth rug with
his back to the fire, talking loudly to Uncle Charles,
who urged him to sit down and eat his dinner.
There's a crack of the whip in me yet, Stephen
old Chap, said mister Daedalus, poking at the dull fire
with fierce energy. We're not dead yet, sunny. No, by

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the Lord Jesus, God, forgive me nor half dead. Dublin
was a new and complex sensation. Uncle Charles had grown
so witless that he could no longer be sent out
on errands, and the disorder in settling in the new
house left Stephen freer than he had been in black Rock.
In the beginning, he contented himself with circling timidly round

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the neighboring square, or at most going half way down
one of the side streets. But when he had made
a skeleton map of the city in his mind, he
followed boldly one of its central lines until he reached
the custom house. He passed unchallenged among the docks and
along the keys, wondering at the multitude of corks that

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lay bobbing on the surface of the water in a
thick yellow scum. At the crowds of key porters, and
the rumbling carts, and the ill dressed bearded policemen. The
vastness and strangeness of the life suggested to him by
the bales of merchandise stalked along the walls or swung
aloft out of the holds of steamers, wakened again in

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him the unrest which had sent him wandering in the
evening from garden to garden in search of Mercedes. And
amid this new bustling life, he might have fancied himself
in another Marseilles, but that he missed the bright sky
and the sun warmed trellises of the wine shops. A
vague dissatisfaction grew up within him as he looked on

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the keys, and on the river, and on the lowering skies.
And yet he continued to wander up and down day
after day, as if he really sought some one that
eluded him. He went once or twice with his mother
to visit their relatives, and though they passed a jovial
array of shops lit up and adorned for Christmas, his

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mood of embittered silence did not leave him. The causes
of his embitterment were many, remote and near He was
angry with himself for being young and the prey of restless,
foolish impulses. Angry also with the change of fortune, which
was reshaping the world about him into a vision of
squalor and insincerity. Yet his anger lent nothing to the vision.

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He chronicled with patience what he saw, detaching himself from
it and testing its mortifying flavor. In secret. He was
sitting on the backless chair in his aunt's kitchen. A
lamp with a reflector hung on the japanned wall of
the fireplace, and by its light his aunt was reading
the evening paper that lay on her knees. She looked

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a long time at a smiling picture that was set
in it, and said, musingly, the beautiful Mabel Hunter, a
ringleted girl, stood on tiptoe to peer at the picture,
and said, softly, what is she in mud? In the
pantomime Love? The child leaned her ringleted head against her

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mother's sleeve, gazing on the picture, and murmured, as if fascinated,
the beautiful Mabel Hunter, As if fascinated. Her eyes rested
long upon those demurely taunting eyes, and she murmured again,
devotedly isn't she an exquisite creature? And the boy who

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came in from the street, stamping crookedly under his stone
of coal, heard her words. He dropped his load promptly
on the floor and hurried to her side to see.
But she did not raise her easeful head to let
him see. He mauled the edges of the paper with
his reddened and blackened hands, shouldering her aside and complaining

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that he could not see. He was sitting in the
narrow breakfast room, high up in the old, dark, windowed house.
The firelight flickered on the wall, and beyond the window
a spectral dusk was gathering upon the river. Before the fire,
an old woman was busy making tea, and as she

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bustled at her task, she told in a low voice
of what the priest and the doctor had said. She
told too, of certain changes she had seen in her
of late, and of her odd ways and sayings. He
sat listening to the words and following the ways of
adventure that lay open in the coals, arches and vaults,
and winding galleries and jagged caverns. Suddenly he became aware

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of something in the doorway, a skull appeared suspended in
the gloom of the doorway. A feeble creature like a
monkey was there, drawn thither by the sound of voices
at the fire. A whining voice came from the door,
asking is that Josephine. The old bustling woman answered cheerily

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from the fireplace. No, Ellen, it's Stephen. Oh, oh, good evening, Stephen.
He answered the greeting, and saw a silly smile break
over the face in the doorway. Do you want anything, Ellen,
asked the old woman at the fire, But she did
not answer the question, and said, I thought it was Josephine.

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I thought you were Josephine Stephen, and repeating this several times,
she fell to laughing feebly. He was sitting in the
midst of a children's party at Harold's Cross. His silent
watch manner had grown upon him, and he took little
part in the games. The children, wearing the spoils of

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their crackers, danced and romped noisily, and though he tried
to share their merriment, he felt himself a gloomy figure
amid the gay cocked hats and sunbonnets. But when he
had sung his song and withdrawn into a snug corner
of the room, He began to taste the joy of
his loneliness. The mirth, which in the beginning of the

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evening had seemed to him false and trivial, was like
a soothing air to him, passing gaily by his senses,
hiding from other eyes the feverish agitation of his blood.
While through the circling of the dancers, and amid the
music and laughter, her glance traveled to his corner, flattering, taunting, searching,

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exciting his heart. In the hall, the children who had
stayed latest were putting on their things. The party was over.
She had thrown a shawl about her, and as they
went together towards the tram, sprays of her fresh warm
breath flew gaily above her cowled head, and her shoes
tapped blithely on the glassy road. It was the last tram.

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The lank brown horses knew it, and shook their bells
to the clear night in admonition. The conductor talked with
the driver, both nodding often in the green light of
the lamp. On the empty seats of the tram were
scattered a few colored tickets. No sound of footsteps came
up or down the road. No sound broke the piece

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of the night, save when the lank brown horses rubbed
their noses together and shook their bells. They seemed to listen.
He on the upper step and she on the lower.
She came up to his step many times and went
down to hers again between their phrases, and once or
twice stood close beside him for some moments on the

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upper step forgetting to go down, and then went down.
His art danced upon her movements like a cork upon
a tide. He heard what her eyes said to him
from beneath their cowl, and knew that in some dim past,
whether in life or in reverie, he had heard their tale.
Before he saw her urge her vanities, her fine dress

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and sash and long black stockings, and knew that he
had yielded to them a thousand times. Yet a voice
within him spoke above the noise of his dancing heart,
asking him would he take her gift to which he
had only to stretch out his hand. And he remembered
the day when he and Eileen had stood looking into
the hotel grounds, watching the waiters running up a trail

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of bunting on the flagstaff and the fox terrier scampering
to and fro on the sunny lawn, And how all
of a sudden she had broken out into a peal
of laughter and had run down the sloping curve of
the path. Now as then, he stood listlessly in his place,
seemingly a tranquil watcher of the scene before him. She

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too wants me to catch hold of her, he thought.
That's why she came with me to the tram. I
could easily catch hold of her when she comes up
to my step, nobody is looking. I could hold her
and kiss her. But he did neither, And when he
was sitting alone in the deserted tram, he tore his
ticket into shreds and stared gloomily at the corrugated foot board.

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The next day, he sat at his table in the
bare upper room for many hours. Before him lay a
new pen, a new bottle of ink, and a new
emerald exercise from force of habit. He had written at
the top of the first page the initial letters of
the Jesuit motto A M D G. On the first

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line of the page appeared the title of the verses
he was trying to write to E. C. He knew
it was right to begin so, for he had seen
similar titles in the collected poems of Lord Byron. When
he had written this title and drawn an ornamental line underneath,
he fell into a day dream and began to draw

(24:09):
diagrams on the cover of the book. He saw himself
sitting at his table in Bray the morning after the
discussion at the Christmas dinner table, trying to write a
poem about Parnell on the back of one of his
father's second moety notices. But his brain had then refused
to gravel with the theme, and desisting, he had covered

(24:30):
the page with the names and addresses of certain of
his class mates, Roderick Kickham, John Lawton, Anthony mc swiney,
Simon Moonan. Now it seemed as if he would fail again,
but by dint of brooding on the incident, he thought
himself into confidence. During this process, all these elements, which

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he deemed common and insignificant, fell out of the scene.
There remained no trace of the tram itself, nor of
the tram men, nor of the horses, nor did he
and she appear vividly. The verses told only of the
night and the balmy breeze and the maiden luster of
the moon. Some undefined sorrow was hidden in the hearts

(25:15):
of the protagonists as they stood in silence beneath the
leafless trees, And when the moment of farewell had come,
the kiss, which had been withheld by one, was given
by both. After this, the letters L D S were
written at the foot of the page. And having hidden
the book, he went into his mother's bedroom and gazed

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at his face for a long time in the mirror
of her dressing table. But his long spell of leisure
and liberty was rawing to its end. One evening, his
father came home full of news which kept his tongue
busy all through dinner. Stephen had been awaiting his father's return,
for there had been mutton hash that day, and he

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knew that his father would make him dip his bread
in the gravy. But he did not relish the hash,
for the mention of klongoes had coated his palate with
a scum of disgust. I walked bang into him, said
mister Dadalus, for the fourth time, just at the corner
of the square. Then, I suppose, said Missus Dadlas, he

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will be able to arrange it I mean about Belvidere.
Of course he will, said mister Daedalus. Don't I tell
you he's provencial of the order. Now. I never liked
the idea of sending him to the Christian Brothers myself,
said Missus Daedalus. Christian brothers be damned, said mister Daedalus.

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Is it with Paddy Stink and Mickey mud? No? Let
him stick to the Jesuits in God's name, since he
began with them. They'll be of service to him in
after years. Those other fellows that can get you a position,
and they're a very rich order, aren't they, Simon? Rather
they live well. I tell you you saw their table

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at Klongo's fed up by god like game cocks. Mister
Daedalus pushed his plate over to Stephen and bade him
finish what was on it now. Then, Stephen, he said,
you must put your shoulder to the wheel, old chap.
You've had a fine long holiday. Oh I'm sure he'll
work very hard now, said Missus Daedalus, especially when he

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has Maurice with him. Oh, Holy Paul, I forgot about Maurice,
said mister Daedalus. Here, Maurice, come here, you thick headed ruffian.
Do you know I'm going to send you to a
college whell they'll teach you how to spell C a
T cat and I'll buy you a nice little penny
handkerchief to keep your nose dry. Won't that be grand fun?

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Maurice grinned at his father, and then at his brother.
Mister Daedalus screwed his glass into his eye and stared
hard at both his sons. Stephen mumbled his bread without
answering his father's gaze. By the bye, said mister Daedalus
at length. The rector or provincial rather was telling me
that story about you and father Dolan. You're an impudent thief,

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he said, Oh he didn't, Simon, not, he said mister Daedalus.
But he gave me a great account of the whole affair.
We were chatting, you know, and one word borrowed another.
And by the way, who do you think he told
me will get that job in the corporation? But I'll
tell you that after well, as I was saying, we

(28:27):
were chatting away quite friendly, and he asked me did
our friend hear wear glasses still? And then he told
me the whole story, And was he annoyed. Simon annoyed.
Not he manly little chap, he said. Mister Daedalus imitated
the mincing nasal tone of the provincial father Dolan and

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I when I told them all at dinner about it,
Father Dolan and I had a great laugh over it.
You better mind yourself, father Dolan, said I, or young
Daedalus will send you up for twice nine. We had
a famous laugh together over it. Ha ha ha. Mister
Daedalus turned to his wife and interjected, in his natural voice,

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shows you the spirit in which they take the boys. There, Oh,
a jesuit for your life for diplomacy. He reassumed the
provincial's voice and repeated, I told them all at dinner
about it, and Father Dolden and I and all of
us we had a hearty laugh together over it. Ha
ha ha. End of Chapter two, Part one,