A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Page 6

He
was no good at sums, but he tried his best so that York might not lose. Father Arnall's
face looked very black, but he was not in a wax: he was laughing. Then Jack Lawton
cracked his fingers and Father Arnall looked at his copybook and said:
--Right. Bravo Lancaster! The red rose wins. Come on now, York! Forge ahead!
Jack Lawton looked over from his side. The little silk badge with the red rose on it looked
very rich because he had a blue sailor top on. Stephen felt his own face red too, thinking
of all the bets about who would get first place in elements, Jack Lawton or he. Some
weeks Jack Lawton got the card for first and some weeks he got the card for first. His
white silk badge fluttered and fluttered as he worked at the next sum and heard Father
Arnall's voice. Then all his eagerness passed away and he felt his face quite cool. He
thought his face must be white because it felt so cool. He could not get out the answer for
the sum but it did not matter. White roses and red roses: those were beautiful colours to
think of. And the cards for first place and second place and third place were beautiful
colours too: pink and cream and lavender. Lavender and cream and pink roses were
beautiful to think of. Perhaps a wild rose might be like those colours and he remembered
the song about the wild rose blossoms on the little green place. But you could not have a
green rose. But perhaps somewhere in the world you could.
The bell rang and then the classes began to file out of the rooms and along the corridors

towards the refectory. He sat looking at the two prints of butter on his plate but could not
eat the damp bread. The tablecloth was damp and limp. But he drank off the hot weak tea
which the clumsy scullion, girt with a white apron, poured into his cup. He wondered
whether the scullion's apron was damp too or whether all white things were cold and
damp. Nasty Roche and Saurin drank cocoa that their people sent them in tins. They said
they could not drink the tea; that it was hogwash. Their fathers were magistrates, the
fellows said.
All the boys seemed to him very strange. They had all fathers and mothers and different
clothes and voices. He longed to be at home and lay his head on his mother's lap. But he
could not: and so he longed for the play and study and prayers to be over and to be in
bed.
He drank another cup of hot tea and Fleming said:
--What's up? Have you a pain or what's up with you?
--I don't know, Stephen said.
--Sick in your breadbasket, Fleming said, because your face looks white. It will go away.
--O yes, Stephen said.
But he was not sick there. He thought that he was sick in his heart if you could be sick in
that place. Fleming was very decent to ask him. He wanted to cry. He leaned his elbows
on the table and shut and opened the flaps of his ears. Then he heard the noise of the
refectory every time he opened the flaps of his ears. It made a roar like a train at night.
And when he closed the flaps the roar was shut off like a train going into a tunnel. That
night at Dalkey the train had roared like that and then, when it went into the tunnel, the
roar stopped. He closed his eyes and the train went on, roaring and then stopping; roaring
again, stopping. It was nice to hear it roar and stop and then roar out of the tunnel again
and then stop.
Then the higher line fellows began to come down along the matting in the middle of the
refectory, Paddy Rath and Jimmy Magee and the Spaniard who was allowed to smoke
cigars and the little Portuguese who wore the woolly cap. And then the lower line tables
and the tables of the third line. And every single fellow had a different way of walking.
He sat in a corner of the playroom pretending to watch a game of dominoes and once or
twice he was able to hear for an instant the little song of the gas. The prefect was at the
door with some boys and Simon Moonan was knotting his false sleeves. He was telling
them something about Tullabeg.
Then he went away from the door and Wells came over to Stephen and said:
--Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?
Stephen answered:
--I do.
Wells turned to the other