Her loud forced manners shocked him at first until his mind had thoroughly mastered the stupidity of hers. She criticised the Miss Daniels very sharply, assuming, much to Stephen’s discomfort, an identical temper in him. She coquetted with knowledge, asking Stephen could he not persuade the President of his College to admit women to the college. Stephen told her to apply to McCann who was the champion of women. She laughed at this and said with « genuine dismay » “Well, honestly, isn’t he a dreadful-looking artist?” She treated femininely everything that young men are supposed to regard as serious but she made polite exception for Stephen himself and for the Gaelic Revival. She asked him wasn’t he reading a paper and what was it on. She would give anything to go and hear him: she was awfully fond of the theatre herself and a gypsy woman had once read her hand and told her she would be an actress. She had been three times to the pantomime and asked Stephen what he liked best in pantomime. Stephen said he liked a good clown but she said that she preferred ballets. Then she wanted to know did he go out much to dances and pressed him to join an Irish dancing-class of which she was a member. Her eyes had begun to « imitate the expression » of Father Moran’s — an expression of tender «significance » when the conversation was at the lowest level of banality. Often as he walked beside her Stephen wondered how she had employed her time since he had last seen her and he congratulated himself that he had caught an impression of her when she was at her finest moment. In his heart he deplored the change in her for he would have liked nothing so well as an adventure with her now but he felt that even that warm ample body could hardly compensate him for her distressing pertness and middle-class affectations. « In the centre of her attitude towards him he thought he discerned a point of defiant illwill and he thought he understood the cause of it. » He had swept the moment into his memory, the figure and the landscape into his treasure-room, and conjuring with all three had brought forth some pages of « sorry verse. » One rainy night when the streets were too bad for walking she took the Rathmines tram at the Pillar and as she held down her hand to him from the step, thanking him for his kindness and wishing him good-night, that « episode of their childhood seemed to magnetise » the minds of both at the same instant. The change of circumstances had reversed their positions, giving her the upper hand. He took her hand caressingly, caressing one after another the three lines on the « back of her kid glove and numbering her knuckles, » caressing also his own past towards which this inconsistent hater of [antiquity] inheritances was always lenient. They smiled at each other; and again in the centre of her amiableness he discerned a [centre] point of illwill and he suspected that by her code of honour she was obliged to insist on the forbearance of the male and to despise him for forbearing.

* In Joyce’s notes for Stephen Hero, printed by Gorman (p. 135), appear the words: “Ireland — an afterthought of Europe.”

* “West Britonism.” From Seon, John, especially John Bull.

† The English language.

* This is Michael Cusack, the “Citizen” of Ulysses, and founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association.

† Arthur Griffith and The United Irishman.

* Hurley-sticks.

* Named for Irish military heroes. Patrick Sarsfield d. 1693) was a general in the war against King William III, and was idolized by all classes of Irishmen in his time. Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone (1540?–1616) was the ablest and most famous of Irish leaders in the wars against England. Red Hugh — Hugh Roe O’Donnell (1571?–1602) — was an associate of O’Neill. He was the last of the old Gaelic kings.

* In Joyce’s notes, as printed by Gorman (p. 135), occurs the phrase: “Priests and police in Ireland.”

-XVIII-

Stephen’s paper was fixed for the second Saturday in March. Between Christmas and that date he had therefore an ample space of time wherein to perform preparative abstinences. His forty days were consumed in aimless solitary walks during which he forged out his sentences. In this manner he had his whole essay in his mind « from the first word to the last » before he had put any morsel of it on paper. In thinking or constructing the form of the essay he found himself much « hampered by the sitting posture.