CHAPTER SUMMARY AND NOTES

CHAPTER 2

Summary (continued)

While StephenÂ’s mind had been "pursuing its intangible phantoms" and turning away from such a pursuit, he had heard around him "the constant voices of his father and of his masters urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things." Now, these voices sound hollow to him. At the opening of the gymnasium, he had heard "another voice urging him to be strong and manly and healthy." When the nationalist movement for Ireland had started on campus, "yet another voice had bidden him to be true to his country and help to raise up her fallen language and tradition." In the world outside of academia and religion, he knows another voice will urge him to raise his fatherÂ’s fallen fortunes. Meanwhile, the voice of his school buddies urged him to stand up for other students. In the "din of all these hollowsounding voices" he feels irresolute in the pursuit of his phantoms. He is only happy when he is far from these voices, alone, or in the company of "phantasmal comrades."

When Stephen gets to the vestry, he sees a young Jesuit and elderly man dabbling in the case of paints and chalks. The boys who had been painted walk around touching their painted faces. A young Jesuit, who is on a visit to the college, stands in the midst of them rocking back and forth on his heels. As Stephen looks at him and tries to figure out what heÂ’s smiling about, he remembers a saying his father had told him before he went to Clongowes, "that you could always tell a Jesuit by the style of his clothes." Stephen thinks he sees a likeness between his fatherÂ’s mind and that of this well-dressed priest. He also thinks of the desecration of the priestÂ’s office and of the vestry itself.

While his face is being made-up by the elderly man, he listens to the young Jesuit who is telling him to speak up and make his points clearly. The band is playing "The Lily of Killarney" and he knows his turn is coming up, but feels no stage fright. However, he does feel humiliated at the thought of the part he will play. He thinks of E.C.Â’s "serious alluring eyes watching him from among the audience and their image at once swept away his scruples, leaving his will compact." His mood lifts and he gets caught up in the excitement around him. "For one rare moment he seemed to be clothed in the real apparel of boyhood."

Then, he is on stage. He is surprised that the play, which, in rehearsals was disjointed and lifeless, now comes alive. After the last scene, he listens to the applause from offstage. He peeks out at the audience and sees it dispersing. He hurries to get his costume off and goes out to the college garden looking for "some further adventure." He forces his way through the crowd in the hall only half-conscious of people smiling at his powdered head. He sees his family waiting for him outside on the steps. He sees that E.C. is not among them and feels angry. He tells his father he has to leave a message down in GeorgeÂ’s Street and will see him at home, then he runs across the road before his father has a chance to respond.

He walks very fast down the hill, not really knowing where he is going. He feels pride and hope and desire are all crushed in his heart, like herbs that when crushed, give out a strong scent. Finally, the air is clean and clear again. He comes to a stop and looks at the somber porch of the morgue and across the street at the street with the word "Lotts" written on the wall. He thinks to himself "That is horse piss and rotten straw. It is a good odour to breathe. It will calm my heart. My heart is quite calm now. I will go back."

Stephen is sitting beside his father in a railway carriage at Kinsbridge, traveling by night mail to Cork. He remembers his first day at Clongowes. Now he feels no wonder as he did then. He sees the telegraph poles pass by, the little stations and a few sentries. He listens to his fatherÂ’s description of Cork and scenes from his youth, but feels nothing. His father interrupts his storytelling with sighs or sips from the flask he carries in his pocket whenever he mentions some friend who has died or whenever he remembers why he is going to Cork. Stephen hears but feels no pity. The dead that his father mention mean nothing to Stephen. Only his uncle Charles evokes feeling, but lately, Stephen had noticed even his memory was beginning to fade. He does know that his fatherÂ’s property is to be sold by auction "and in the manner of his own dispossession he felt the world give the lie rudely to his phantasy."

He falls asleep when the train gets to Maryborough, and when he wakes up, they have passed out of Mallow and his father is asleep on the other seat. He feels a sort of terror of sleep and he prays that day will come quickly. His prayer is not addressed to God or a saint. It begins in a shiver and ends in a "trail of foolish words which he made to fit the insistent rhythm of the train; and silently, at intervals of four seconds, the telegraphpoles held the galloping notes of the music between punctual bars." This "furious music" lessens his feeling of fear and he falls asleep again.

He and his father drive in a small carriage across Cork in the early morning and they check into the Victoria Hotel where Stephen finishes his sleep. When he awakens, he sees his father standing at the dressing table looking closely at his hair and face and mustache. He is singing a song "‘Tis youth and folly / Makes young men marry . . . " It is a song about a young man going to "Amerikay" and leaving behind a beautiful woman who will one day be old and faded. The sunny day and his father’s song make Stephen lose the bad mood of the night before. He gets up and comments on his father’s song "That’s much prettier than any of our other ‘come-all-yous." Mr. Dedalus tells him he should have heard Mick Lacy sing it.

At breakfast, Mr. Dedalus questions the waiter about the news of the town, but at every name he mentions, the waiter tells him about the son, while Mr. Dedalus is thinking of the father or grandfather. Stephen and his father visit the college. They are escorted by a porter with whom Mr. Dedalus discusses the local people he once knew, many of them dead now. Stephen feels feverishly restless with the plodding pace. Stephen is irritated by the southern accent which just that morning had so charmed him. In the anatomy theatre (lecture hall), Mr. Dedalus searches the desks for his initials. Stephen stands by uncomfortably. In a desk in front of him, he reads the word "Foetus" cut into the wood. Stephen feels startled by the word and he feels the absent students around him. He envisions their life. He imagines a broad shouldered student carving the word "Foetus" on the desk. He imagines other students hanging around the desk laughing at his work. StephenÂ’s reverie is interrupted when his name is called. He hurries away from the desk to be as far away from the vision as he can. He looks at his fatherÂ’s initials. The word and the vision, however, stay on his mind as he walks across the quadrangle toward the college gate. "It shocked him to find in the outer world a trace of what he had deemed till them a brutish and individual malady of his own mind." He canÂ’t stop himself from thinking of his "recent monstrous reveries." They had also sprung into his mind evoked by words he saw. He had given into them and allowed them to "abase his intellect." He wondered where they came from.

StephenÂ’ father exclaims over seeing the Groceries. He launches into a story of the times he and his friends used to go down there. Stephen notices that the leaves of the trees along the Mardyke river whispering in the sunlight. A team of cricket players passes them. On a side street a small German band plays to a group of people. A maid waters some plants on a sill. From another window, Stephen hears the sound of a piano practice. Stephen walks beside his father hearing him tell tales he has told before, "hearing again the names of the scattered and dead revelers who had been the companions of his fatherÂ’s youth." He feels faintly sick at heart. He thinks of his equivocal position at Belvedere. HeÂ’s "a free boy, a leader afraid of his own authority, proud and sensitive and suspicious, battling against the squalor of his life and against the riot of his mind." He pictures the letters cut into the desk. He loathes himself for "his own mad and filthy orgies."

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