Complete Works of James Joyce (259 page)

 
— Doesn’t he look a wirrasthrue Jaysus? said Stephen pointing to the Tsar’s photograph and using the Dublin version of the name as an effective common noun.

Cranly looked in the direction of McCann and replied, nodding his head:

 
— Wirrasthrue Jaysus and hairy Jaysus.

At that moment McCann caught sight of Stephen and signalled that he would be with him in a moment:

 
— Have you signed? asked Cranly.

 
— This thing? No — have you?

Cranly hesitated and then brought out a well deliberated ‘Yes.’

 
— What for?

 
— What for?

 
— Ay.

 
— For . . . .

Stephen looked up under the bucket-shaped hat but could read no expression on his neighbour’s face. His eyes wandered up to the dinged vertex of the hat.

 
— In the name of God what do you wear that hat for? It’s not so terribly hot, is it? he asked.

Cranly took off the hat slowly and gazed into its depths. After a little pause he pointed into it and said:

 
— .

 
— Where? said Stephen.

 
— I bought it, said Cranly very impressively and very flatly, last summer in Wickla.

He looked back into the hat and said, smiling with a sour affection:

 
— It’s not . . . too bloody bad . . . of a hat . D’ye know.

And he replaced it on his head slowly, murmuring to himself, from force of habit ‘.’

 
— , said Stephen.

The subject was not discussed further. Cranly produced a little grey ball from one of his pockets and began to examine it carefully, indenting the surface at many points. Stephen was watching this operation when he heard McCann addressing him.

 
— I want you to sign this testimonial.

 
— What about?

 
— It’s a testimonial of admiration for the courage displayed by the Tsar of Russia in issuing a rescript to the Powers, advocating arbitration instead of war as a means of settling national disputes.

Stephen shook his head. Temple who had been wandering round the hall in search of sympathy came over at this moment and said to Stephen:

 
— Do you believe in peace?

No-one answered him.

 
— So you won’t sign? said McCann.

Stephen shook his head again:

 
— Why not? said McCann sharply.

 
— If we must have a Jesus, answered Stephen, let us have a legitimate Jesus.

 
— By hell! said Temple laughing, that’s good. Did you hear that? he said to Cranly and McCann both of whom he seemed to regard as very hard of hearing. D’you hear that? Legitima’ Jesus!

 
— I presume then you approve of war and slaughter, said McCann.

 
— I did not make the world, said Stephen.

 
— By hell! said Temple to Cranly. I believe in universal brotherhood. ‘Scuse me, he said, turning to McCann, do you believe in universal brotherhood?

McCann took no heed of the question but continued addressing Stephen. He began an argument in favour of peace which Temple listened to for a few moments, but, as he spoke with his back to Temple, that revolutionary young man who could not hear him very well began to wander round the hall again. Stephen did not argue with McCann but at a convenient pause he said:

 
— I have no intention of signing.

McCann halted and Cranly said, taking Stephen’s arm:

 
—
.

 
—
All right, said McCann promptly, as if he was accustomed to rebuffs, if you won’t, you won’t.

He went off to get more signatures for the Tsar while Cranly and Stephen went out into the garden. The ball-alley was deserted so they arranged a match of twenty, Cranly allowing Stephen seven points. Stephen had not had much practice at the game and so he was only seventeen when Cranly cried out ‘Game Ball.’ He lost the second game also. Cranly was a strong, accurate player but Stephen thought too heavy of foot to be a brilliant one. While they were playing Madden came into the alley and sat down on an old box. He was much more excited than either of the players and kept kicking the box with his heels and crying out “Now, Cranly! Now, Cranly!” “But it, Stevie!” Cranly who had to serve the third game put the ball over the side of the alley into Lord Iveagh’s grounds and the game had to wait while he went in search of it. Stephen sat down on his heels beside Madden and they both looked up at the figure of Cranly who was holding on to the netting and making signals to one of the gardeners from the top of the wall. Madden took out smoking materials:

 
— Are you and Cranly long here?

 
— Not long, said Stephen.

Madden began to stuff very coarse tobacco into his pipe:

 
— D’ye know what, Stevie?

 
— What?

 
— Hughes . . . doesn’t like you . . . at all. I heard him speaking of you to someone.

—’Someone’ is vague.

 
— He doesn’t like you at all.

 
— His enthusiasm carries him away, said Stephen.

On the evening of the Saturday before Palm Sunday Stephen found himself alone with Cranly. The two were leaning over the marble staircase of the Library, idly watching the people coming in and going out. The big windows in front of them were thrown and the mild air [entered] came through: [them]

 
— Do you like the services of Holy Week? said Stephen.

 
— Yes, said Cranly.

 
— They are wonderful, said Stephen. Tenebrae — it’s so damned childish to frighten us by knocking prayerbooks on a bench. Isn’t it strange to see the Mass of the Presanctified — no lights or vestments, the altar naked, the door of the tabernacle gaping open, the priests lying prostrate on the altar steps?

 
— Yes, said Cranly.

 
— Don’t you think the Reader who begins the mass is a strange person. No-one knows where he comes from: he has no connection with the mass. He comes out by himself and opens a book at the right hand side of the altar and when he has read the lesson he closes the book and goes away as he came. Isn’t he strange?

 
— Yes, said Cranly.

 
— You know how his lesson begins? .

He chanted the opening of the lesson in and his voice went flowing down the staircase and round the circular hall, each tone coming back upon the ear enriched and softened.

 
— He pleads, said Stephen. He is what that chalk-faced chap was for me, . Jesus has no friend on Good Friday. Do you know what kind of a figure rises before me on Good Friday?

 
— What kind?

 
— An ugly little man who has taken into his body the sins of the world. Something between Socrates and a Gnostic Christ — A Christ of the Dark Ages. That’s what his mission of redemption has got for him: a crooked ugly body for which neither God nor man have pity. Jesus is on strange terms with that father of his. His father seems to me something of a snob. Do you notice that he never notices his son publicly but once — when Jesus is in full dress on the top of Thabor?

 
— I don’t like Holy Thursday much, said Cranly.

 
— Neither do I. There are too many mammas and daughters going chapel-hunting. The chapel smells too much of flowers and hot candles and women. Besides girls praying put me off my stroke.

 
— Do you like Holy Saturday?

 
— The service is always too early but I like it.

 
— I like it.

 
— Yes, the Church seems to have thought the matter over and to be saying “Well, after all, you see, it’s morning now and he wasn’t so dead as we thought he was.” The corpse has become a paschal candle with five grains of incense stuck in it instead of its five wounds. The three faithful Mary’s too who thought all was over on Friday have a candle each. The bells ring and the service is full of irrelevant alleluias.t It’s rather a technical affair, blessing this, that and the other but it’s cheerfully ceremonious.

 
— But you don’t imagine the damned fools of people see anything in these services, do you?

 
— Do they not? said Stephen.

 
— Bah, said Cranly.

One of Cranly’s friends came up the stairs while they were talking. He was a young man who was by day a clerk in Guinness’s Brewery and by night a student of mental and moral philosophy in the night classes of the College. It was, of course, Cranly who had induced him to attend. This young man, who was named Glynn, was unable to keep his head steady as he suffered from inherited nervousness and his hands trembled very much whenever he tried to do anything with them. He spoke with nervous hesitations and seemed to obtain satisfaction only in the methodic stamp of his feet. He was a low-sized young man, with a nigger’s face and the curly black head of a nigger. He usually carried an umbrella and his conversation was for the most part a translation of commonplaces into polysyllabic phrases. This habit he cultivated partly because it saved him from the inconvenience of cerebrating at the normal rate and perhaps because he considered it was the channel best fitted for his peculiar humour.

 
— Here is Professor Bloody-Big-Umbrella Glynn, said Cranly.

 
— Good evening, Gentlemen, said Glynn, bowing.

 
— Good . . . evening, said Cranly vacantly. Well, yes . . . it is a good evening.

 
— I can see, said Glynn shaking a trembling forefinger in reproof, I can see that you are about to make obvious remarks.

On Spy Wednesday night Cranly and Stephen attended the office of Tenebrae in the Pro-Cathedral. They went round to the back of the altar and knelt behind the students from Clonliffe who were chanting the office. Stephen was right opposite Wells and he observed the great change which a surplice made in that young man’s appearance. Stephen did not like the office which was gabbled over quickly. He said to Cranly that the chapel with its polished benches and incandescent lamps reminded him of an insurance office. Cranly arranged that on Good Friday they should attend the office in the Carmelite Church, Whitefriar’s St where, he said, the office was much more homely. Cranly accompanied Stephen part of the way home and explained very minutely, using his large hands for the purpose, all the merits of Wicklow bacon.

 
— You are no Israelite, said Stephen, I see you eat the unclean animal.

Cranly replied that it was nonsense to consider the pig unclean because he ate dirty garbage and at the same time to consider the oyster, which fed chiefly on excrements, a delicacy. He believed that the pig was much maligned: he said there was a lot of money to be made out of pigs. He instanced all the Germans who made small fortunes in Dublin by opening porkshops.

 
— I often thought seriously, he said stopping in his walk to give emphasis to his remark, of opening a pork-shop, d’ye know . . . and putting or some German name, d’ye know, over the door . . . and makin’ a flamin’ fortune out of pig’s meat.

 
— God bless us! said Stephen. What a terrible idea!

 
— Ay, said Cranly walking on heavily, a flamin’ bloody fortune I’d make.

On Good Friday as Stephen was wandering aimlessly about the city he caught sight of a placard on a wall which announced that the Three Hours’ Agony would be preached by the Very Reverend W. Dillon S.J. and the Very Reverend J. Campbell S.J. in the Jesuit Church, Gardiner St. Stephen felt very solitary and purposeless as he traversed empty street after empty street and, without being keenly aware of it, he began to proceed in the direction of Gardiner St. It was a warm sunless day and the city wore an air of sacred torpor. As he passed under S. George’s Church he saw that it was already half past two; — he had been three hours wandering up and down the city. He entered the Church in Gardiner St and, passing by without honouring the table of the lay-brother who roused himself from a stupefied doze in expectation of silver, arrived in the right wing of the chapel. The chapel was crowded from altar to doors with a well-dressed multitude. Everywhere he saw the same flattered affection for the Jesuits who are in the habit of attaching to their order the souls of thousands of the insecurely respectable middle-class by offering them a refined asylum, an interested, a considerate confessional, a particular amiableness of manners which their spiritual adventures in no way entitled them to. Not very far from him in the shelter of one of the pillars Stephen saw his father and two friends. His father had directed his eyeglass upon the distant choir and his face wore an expression of impressed piety. The choir was executing some florid tracery which was intended as an expression of mourning. The walk, the heat, the crush, the darkness of the chapel overcame Stephen and, leaning against the lintel of the door, he half closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to drift. Rhymes began to make themselves in his head.