ch17d

17 17a 17b 17c 17d 17e 17f 17g 17h





Stephen had decided to address himself to Madden to ascertain where Miss Clery was to be found. He set about this task carefully. Madden and he were often together but their conversations were rarely serious and though the rustic mind of one was very forcibly impressed by the metropolitanism of the other both young men were on relations of affectionate familiarity. Madden who had previously tried in vain to infect Stephen with nationalistic fever was surprised to hear these overtures of his friend. He was delighted at the prospect of making such a convert and he began to appeal eloquently to the sense of justice. Stephen allowed his critical faculty a rest. The so-desired community for the realising of which Madden sought to engage his personal force seemed to him anything but ideal and the liberation which would have satisfied Madden would by no means have satisfied him. The Roman, not the Sassenach, was for him the tyrant of the islanders: and so deeply had the tyranny eaten into all souls that the intelligence, first overborne so arrogantly, was now eager to prove that arrogance its friend. The watchcry was Faith and Fatherland, a sacred word in that world of cleverly inflammable enthusiasms. With literal obedience and with annual doles the Irish bid eagerly for the honour which was studiously withheld from them to be given to nations which in the past, as in the present, had never bent the knee but in defiance. While the multitude of preachers assured them that high honours were on the way and encouraged them ever to hope. The last should be first, according to the Christian sentiment, and whosoever humbled himself, exalted and in reward for several centuries of obscure fidelity the Pope's Holiness had presented a tardy cardinal to an island which was for him, perhaps, only the afterthought of Europe.



Madden was prepared to admit the truth of much of this but he gave Stephen to understand that the new movement was politic. If the least infidelity were hoisted on the standard the people would not flock to it and for this reason the promoters desired as far as possible to work hand in hand with the priests. Stephen objected that this working hand in hand with the priests had over and over again ruined the chances of revolutions. Madden agreed: but now at least the priests were on the side of the people.



— Do you not see, said Stephen, that they encourage the study of Irish that their flocks may be more safely protected from the wolves of disbelief; they consider it is an opportunity to withdraw the people into a past of literal, implicit faith?



— But really our peasant has nothing to gain from English Literature.



— Rubbish!



— Modern at least. You yourself are always railing...



— English is the medium for the Continent.



— We want an Irish Ireland.



— It seems to me you do not care what banality a man expresses so long as he expresses it in Irish.



— I do not entirely agree with your modern notions. We want to have nothing of this English civilisation.



— But the civilisation of which you speak is not English — it is Aryan. The modern notions are not English; they point the way of Aryan civilisation.



— You want our peasants to ape the gross materialism of the Yorkshire peasant?



— One would imagine the country was inhabited by cherubim. Damme if I see much difference in peasants: they all seem to me as like one another as a peascod is like another peascod. The Yorkshireman is perhaps better fed.

— Of course you despise the peasant because you live in the city.



— I don't despise his office in the least.



— But you despise him — he's not clever enough for you.



— Now, you know, Madden that's nonsense. To begin with he's as cute as a fox — try to pass a false coin on him and you'll see. But his cleverness is all of a low order. I really don't think that the Irish peasant represents a very admirable type of culture.



— That's you all out! Of course you sneer at him because he's not up-to-date and lives a simple life.



— Yes, a life of dull routine — the calculation of coppers, the weekly debauch and the weekly piety — a life lived in cunning and fear between the shadows of the parish chapel and the asylum!



— The life of a great city like London seems to you better?



— The intelligence of an English city is not perhaps at a very high level but at least it is higher than the mental swamp of the Irish peasant.



— And what about the two as moral beings?



— Well?



— The Irish are noted for at least one virtue all the world over.



— Oho! I know what's coming now!



— But it's a fact — they are chaste.



— To be sure.



— You like to run down your own people at every hand's turn but you can't accuse them...



— Very good: you are partly right. I fully recognise that my countrymen have not yet advanced as far as the machinery of Parisian harlotry because...



— Because...?



— Well, because they can do it by hand, that's why!



— Good God, you don't mean to say you think...



— My good youth, I know what I am saying is true and so do you know it. Ask Father Pat and ask Dr Thisbody and ask Dr Thatbody. I was at school and you were at school — and that's enough about it.



— O, Daedalus!



This accusation laid a silence on the conversation. Then Madden spoke:



— Well, if these are your ideas I don't see what you want coming to me and talking about learning Irish.



— I would like to learn it — as a language, said Stephen lyingly. At least I would like to see first.



— So you admit you are an Irishman after all and not one of the red garrison.



— Of course I do.



— And don't you think that every Irishman worthy of the name should be able to speak his native tongue?



— I really don't know.



— And don't you think that we as a race have a right to be free?



— O, don't ask me such questions, Madden. You can use these phrases of the platform but I can't.



— But surely you have some political opinions, man!



— I am going to think them out. I am an artist, don't you see? Do you believe that I am?



— O, yes, I know you are.



— Very well then, how the devil can you expect me to settle everything all at once? Give me time.



So it was decided that Stephen was to begin a course of lessons in Irish. He bought the O'Growney's primers published by the Gaelic League but refused either to pay a subscription to the League or to wear the badge in his buttonhole. He had found out what he had desired, namely, the class in which Miss Clery was. People at home did not seem opposed to this new freak of his. Mr Casey taught him a few Southern songs in Irish and always raised his glass to Stephen saying "Sinn Fein" instead of "Good Health." Mrs Daedalus was probably pleased for she thought that the superintendence of priests and the society of harmless enthusiasts might succeed in influencing her son in the right direction: she had begun to fear for him. Maurice said nothing and asked no questions. He did not understand what made his brother associate with the patriots and he did not believe that the study of Irish seemed in any way useful to Stephen: but he was silent and waited. Mr Daedalus said that he did not mind his son's learning the language so long as it did not keep him from his legitimate work.




17 17a 17b 17c 17d 17e 17f 17g 17h