Chapter 3

Proteus Summary

Stephen walks down to the sea. He muses over the various modes in which experience can come to us. He is recollecting the various forms of his own past and present existence. First he considers the colors and shapes that he can see. By closing his eyes as he continues walking, his thoughts move from philosophical speculation to more practical matters. He uses his stick as blind men do, but has momentary childish fears that he will find himself permanently blind. When he opens his eyes, he sees two midwives coming down from LeahyÂ’s Terrace. He meditates, first on his own birth, then on birth in general. Arius, the heretic, who spent his whole life in arguments on the jaw breaking words of theology, comes to his mind. Stephen remembers his errands. Wondering whether he should visit his Aunt Sara, he recollects the family visits of his youth and his fatherÂ’s scorn for his wifeÂ’s relatives. He briefly recalls the childhood scene centering on the eccentric Uncle Richie, the solicitor. Richie sits in bed drinking, cursing and humming airs from old-fashioned operas.

Stephen used to lie to his schoolfellows with fabricated tales of his familyÂ’s wealth and position. Thoughts of school trigger remembrances of the priests who taught him and the ringing bells of the Mass. The audible experiences predominate here: the songs of Richie and the twanging of the bells. However, Stephen recalls that he was not fitted to clerical life. The promptings of sexual desire inflamed his young manhood. He remembers the ridiculous youthful ambition he had to be a writer. The desolate, unwholesome, littered beach reminds him of his inconclusive and uncertain past life. Suddenly he realizes that he had unwittingly passed the road that leads to Aunt SaraÂ’s. Changing his direction he walks towards the Pigeon House. His thoughts turn about too, prompted by a recollected French joke about pigeons. By association he recalls his Parish conversations with Kevin Egan and his son Patrice Egan, and the futility of political action. In reality he had been fearful of the police and mistreated by a post office clerk. He had come home, laden with tourist curiosities and a fake French manner. He was summoned by the news of his motherÂ’s final sickness. Memories of friends and snatches of remembered conversation flash through his mind. He gradually switches on to memories of lust and of imagined dissolution.

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