The rain-laden trees of the avenue evoked in him, as always, memories of the girls and women in the plays of Gerhart Hauptmann and the memory of their pale sorrows and the fragrance falling from the wet branches mingled in a mood of quiet joy. He drove their echoes even out of his heart with an execration but, as he walked down the avenue and felt the grey morning light falling about him through the dripping trees and smelt the strange wild smell of the wet leaves and bark, his soul was loosed of her miseries. His father‘s whistle, his mother‘s mutterings, the screech of an unseen maniac were to him now so many voices offending and threatening to humble the pride of his youth. He shook the sound out of his ears by an angry toss of his head and hurried on, stumbling through the mouldering offal, his heart already bitten by an ache of loathing and bitterness. The lane behind the terrace was waterlogged and as he went down it slowly, choosing his steps amid heaps of wet rubbish, he heard a mad nun screeching in the nuns‘ madhouse beyond the wall. Good morning, everybody, said Stephen, smiling and kissing the tips of his fingers in adieu. Ah, it‘s a scandalous shame for you, Stephen, said his mother, and you‘ll live to rue the day you set your foot in that place. He has a curious idea of genders if he thinks a bitch is masculine. The girl came back, making signs to him to be quick and go out quietly by the back. Is your lazy bitch of a brother gone out yet? Dry yourself and hurry out for the love of goodness.Ī second shrill whistle, prolonged angrily, brought one of the girls to the foot of the staircase. But it gives you pleasure, said Stephen calmly.Īn ear-splitting whistle was heard from upstairs and his mother thrust a damp overall into his hands, saying:
Well, it‘s a poor case, she said, when a university student is so dirty that his mother has to wash him. When the enamelled basin had been fitted into the well of the sink and the old washing glove flung on the side of it he allowed his mother to scrub his neck and root into the folds of his ears and into the interstices at the wings of his nose. Boody, fill out the place for Stephen to wash. Katey, fill out the place for Stephen to wash. Fill out the place for me to wash, said Stephen. The dear knows you might try to be in time for your lectures. An hour and twenty-five minutes, she said. His mother straightened the battered alarm clock that was lying on its side in the middle of the mantelpiece until its dial showed a quarter to twelve and then laid it once more on its side. Then he put them aside and gazed thoughtfully at the lid of the box, speckled with louse marks, and asked vaguely: The box of pawn tickets at his elbow had just been rifled and he took up idly one after another in his greasy fingers the blue and white dockets, scrawled and sanded and creased and bearing the name of the pledger as Daly or MacEvoy.
The yellow dripping had been scooped out like a boghole and the pool under it brought back to his memory the dark turf-coloured water of the bath in Clongowes. He drained his third cup of watery tea to the dregs and set to chewing the crusts of fried bread that were scattered near him, staring into the dark pool of the jar.