Complete Works of James Joyce (262 page)

 
— Good Lord, mother, said Stephen, don’t believe that. The students are awfully nice fellows. They love their religion: they wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

 
— Wherever you’ve learnt it I will not allow you to use such language to me when you speak of holy things. Keep that for the street-corners at night.

 
— Very well, mother, said Stephen. But you began the conversation.

 
— I never thought I would see the day when a child of mine would lose the faith. God knows I didn’t. I did my best for you to keep you in the right way.

Mrs Daedalus began to cry. Stephen, having eaten and drunk all within his province, rose and went towards the door:

 
— It’s all the fault of those books and the company you keep. Out at all hours of the night instead of in your home, the proper place for you. I’ll burn every one of them. I won’t have them in the house to corrupt anyone else.

Stephen halted at the door and turned towards his mother who had now broken out into tears:

 
— If you were a genuine Roman Catholic, mother, you would burn me as well as the books.

 
— I knew no good would come of your going to that place. You are ruining yourself body and soul. Now your faith is gone!

 
— Mother, said Stephen from the threshold, I don’t see what you’re crying for. I’m young, healthy, happy. What is the crying for? . . . It’s too silly . . .

Stephen went over to the Library that evening expressly to see Cranly and [tell him of] narrate his latest conflict with orthodoxy. Cranly was standing under the Library porch announcing the results of the examinations beforehand. He was surrounded, as usual, by a little group among whom were his friend, the clerk from the Custom House, and another bosom friend, a very grave-looking elderly student named Lynch. Lynch was of a very idle disposition and had allowed six or seven years to intervene between [his] leaving school and beginning a course in medicine at the College of Surgeons. He was much esteemed by his colleagues because he had a deep bass voice, never ‘stood’ any drinks in return for those which he accepted from others, and seldom uttered any remarks in return for those he listened to. He always kept both his a hands in his trousers’ pockets when he walked and jutted out his chest in a manner which was intended as a criticism of life. He spoke, however, to Cranly principally about women and for this reason Cranly had nicknamed him Nero. It was possible to accuse his mouth of a Neronic tendency but he destroyed the illusion of imperialism by wearing his cap very far back from a shock forehead. He had unbounded contempt for medical students and their ways and, if he had not absorbed so much Dublin into his mind, he would have been a lover of the fine arts. He was, in fact, very interested in the art of singing. [and] He used this interest to attempt an intimacy with Stephen and, his gravity covering a shame-faced idealism, he had already begun to feel through Cranly the influence of Stephen’s vivifying disorderliness. His objection, singular enough in a lax character, to trite and meaningless execrations, to the facile iniquities of the lips, had resulted for him in two moments of inspiration. He execrated in yellow in protest against the sanguine adjective of uncertain etymology and, to describe the hymeneal tract, he had one invariable term. He called it oracle and all within the frontiers he called oracular. The term was considered distinguished in his circle and he was careful never to explain the process which had discovered it.

Stephen stood on one of the steps of the porch but Cranly did not honour him with any kind of welcome. Stephen inserted a few phrases into the conversation but his presence was still a unhonoured by Cranly. He was not in the least daunted by this reception, much as he was puzzled by it, and waited quietly for his opportunity. Once he addressed Cranly directly but got no answer. His mind began to ruminate upon this and at last his ruminations expressed themselves in a prolonged smile. While he was enjoying his smile he saw that Lynch was observing him. Lynch came down from the group and said ‘Good evening.’ He then took a packet of Woodbine cigarettes from his side pocket and offered one to Stephen, saying:

 
— Five a penny.

Stephen, who knew that Lynch was a very poor young man, accepted the cigarette appreciatively. They smoked in silence for some minutes and at length the group under the porch fell silent also:

 
— Have you a copy of your essay? said Lynch

 
— Do you want it?

 
— I’d like to read it.

 
— I’ll bring it to you tomorrow night, said Stephen going up the steps.

He went up to Cranly who was leaning against a pillar and gazing straight before him and touched him lightly on the shoulder:

 
— I want to speak to you, he said.

Cranly turned slowly round and looked at him. Then he asked:

 
— Now?

 
— Yes.

They walked together up along Kildare St without speaking. When they came to the Green Cranly said:

 
— I’m going home on Saturday. Will you come as far as Harcourt St Station? I want to see the hour the train goes at

 
— All right.

In the station Cranly spent a great deal of time reading the time-tables and making abstruse calculations. Then he went up to the platform and watched for a long time the shunting of the engine of a goods train on to a passenger train. The engine was steaming and blowing a deafening whistle and rolling billows of thick smoke towards the roof of the station. Cranly said that the engine-driver came from his part of the country and that he was the son of a cobbler in Tinahely. The engine executed a series of indecisive movements and finally settled itself on to the train. The engine-driver stuck his head out through the side and gazed languidly along the train:

 
— I suppose you would call him sooty Jaysus, said Cranly.

 
— Cranly, said Stephen, I have left the Church.

Cranly took his arm at the word and they turned away from the platform and went down the staircase. As soon as they had emerged into the street he said encouragingly:

 
— You have left the Church?

Stephen went over the interview phrase by phrase.

 
— Then you do not believe any longer?

 
— I cannot believe.

 
— But you could at one time.

 
— I cannot now.

 
— You could now if you wanted to.

 
— Well, I don’t want to.

 
— Are you sure you do not believe?

 
— Quite sure.

 
— Why do you not go to the altar?

 
— Because I do not believe.

 
— Would you make a sacrilegious communion?

 
— Why should I?

 
— For your mother’s sake.

 
— I don’t see why I should.

 
— Your mother will suffer very much. You say you do not believe. The Host for you is a piece of ordinary bread. Would you not eat a piece of ordinary bread to avoid causing your mother pain?

 
— I would in many cases.

 
— And why not in this case? Have you any reluctance to commit a sacrilege? If you do not believe you should not have any.

 
— Wait a minute, said Stephen. At present I have a reluctance to commit a sacrilege. I am a product of Catholicism; I was sold to Rome before my birth. Now I have broken my slavery but I cannot in a moment destroy every feeling in my nature. That takes time. However if it were a case of needs must — for my life, for instance — I would commit any enormity with the host.

 
— Many Catholics would do the same, said Cranly, if their lives were at stake.

 
— Believers?

 
— Ay, believers. So by your own showing you are a believer.

 
— It is not from fear that I refrain from committing a sacrilege.

 
— Why then?

 
— I see no reason for committing sacrilege.

 
— But you have always made your Easter Duty. Why do you change? The thing for you is mockery, mummery.

 
— If I mum it is an act of submission, a public act of submission to the Church. I will not submit to the Church.

 
— Even so far as to mum?

 
— It is mumming with an intention. The outward show is nothing but it means a good deal.

 
— Again you are speaking like a Catholic. The host is nothing in outward show — a piece of bread.

 
— I admit: but all the same I insist on disobeying the Church. I will not submit any longer.

 
— But could you not be more diplomatic? Could you not rebel in your heart and yet conform out of contempt? You could be a rebel in spirit.

 
— That cannot be done for long by anyone who is sensitive. The Church knows the value of her services: her priest must hypnotise himself every morning before the tabernacle. If I get up every morning, go to the looking-glass and say to myself “You are the Son of God” at the end of twelve months I will want disciples.

 
— If you could make your religion pay like Christianity I would advise you to get up every morning and go to the lookingglass.

 
— That would be good for my vicars on earth but I would find crucifixion a personal inconvenience.

 
— But here in Ireland by following your new religion of unbelief you may be crucifying yourself like Jesus — only socially not physically.

 
— There is this difference. Jesus was good-humoured over it. I will die hard.

 
— How can you propose such a future to yourself and yet be afraid to trust yourself to perform even the simplest mumming in a church? said Cranly.

 
— That is my business, said Stephen, tapping at his forehead.

When they had come to the Green they crossed the streets and began to walk round the enclosure inside the chains. A few mechanics and their sweethearts were sitting on the swinging-chains turning the shadows to account. The footpath was deserted except for the metallic image of a distant policeman who had been posted well in the gaslight as an admonition. When the two young men passed the college they both looked up at the same moment towards the dark windows.

 
— May I ask you why you left the Church? asked CranlY.

 
— I could not observe the precepts.

 
— Not even with grace?

 
— No.

 
— Jesus gives very simple precepts. The Church is severe.

 
— Jesus or the Church — it’s all the same to me. I can’t follow him. I must have liberty to do as I please.

 
— No man can do as he pleases.

 
— Morally.

 
— No, not morally either.

 
— You want me, said Stephen, to toe the line with those sycophants and hypocrites in the college. I will never do so.

 
— No. I mentioned Jesus.

 
— Don’t mention him. I have made it a common noun. They don’t believe in him; they don’t observe his precepts. In any case let us leave Jesus aside. My sight will only carry me as far as his lieutenant in Rome. It is quite useless: I will not be frightened into paying tribute in money or in thought.

 
— You told me — do you remember the evening we were standing at the top of the staircase talking about . . .

 
— Yes, yes, I remember, said Stephen who hated Cranly’s a method of remembering the past, what did I tell you?