第76章

They parleyed in shouts across the still air about a game of billiards to be played in the Adelphi hotel. Stephen walked on alone and out into the quiet of Kildare Street opposite Maple's hotel he stood to wait, patient again. The name of the hotel, a colourless polished wood, and its colourless 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 lives of the patricians of Ireland housed in calm. They thought of army commissions and land agents: peasants greeted them along the roads in the country; they knew the names of certain French dishes and gave orders to jarvies in high-pitched provincial voices which pierced through their skin-tight accents.

How could he hit their conscience or how cast his 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 pool-mottled bogs. A woman had waited in the doorway as Davin had passed by at night and, offering him a cup of milk, had all but wooed him to her bed; for Davin 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 grip and Cranly's voice said:

-- Let us eke go.

They walked southward in silence. Then Cranly 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 for some time Stephen said:

-- Cranly, I had an unpleasant quarrel this evening.

-- With your people? Cranly asked.

-- With my mother.

-- About religion?

-- Yes, Stephen answered.

After a pause Cranly asked:

-- What age is your mother?

-- Not old, Stephen said. She wishes me to make my easter duty.

-- And will 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 arm, saying:

-- Go easy, my dear man. You're an excitable bloody man, do you know.

He 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 daresay 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? Cranly asked.

-- I do not, 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, Cranly said. Are your doubts on that point too strong?

-- I do not wish to overcome them, Stephen answered.

Cranly, embarrassed for a moment, took another fig from his pocket and was about to eat it when Stephen said:

-- Don't, please. You cannot discuss this question with your mouth full of chewed fig.

Cranly 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 as it lay, he said:

-- Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire! Taking Stephen's arms, he went on again and said:

-- Do you not fear that those words may be spoken to you on the day of Judgement?

-- What is offered me on the other hand? Stephen asked. An eternity of bliss in the company of the dean of studies?

-- Remember, Cranly said, that he would be glorified.

-- Ay, Stephen said somewhat bitterly, bright, agile, impassible and, above all, subtle.

-- It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly 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, happier than you are now, for instance?

-- Often happy, Stephen said, and often unhappy. I was someone else then.

-- How someone 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. 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 anyone? Cranly asked.

-- Do you mean women?

-- I am not speaking of that, Cranly said in a colder tone. I ask you if you ever felt love towards anyone or anything?

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 --

Cranly cut him short by asking:

-- Has your mother had a happy life?

-- How do I know? Stephen said.

-- How many children had she?

-- Nine or ten, Stephen answered. Some died.

-- Was your father Cranly interrupted himself for an instant, and then said: I don't want to pry into your family affairs. But was your father what is called well-to-do? I mean, when you were growing up?

-- Yes, Stephen said.

-- What was he? Cranly 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, 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.

Cranly laughed, tightening his grip on Stephen's arm, and said:

-- The distillery is damn good.

-- Is there anything else you want to know? Stephen asked.