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The monster in Stephen had lately taken to misbehaving himself and on the least provocation was ready for bloodshed. Almost every incident of the day was a goad for him and the intellect had great trouble keeping him within bounds. But the episode of religious fervour which was fast becoming a memory had resulted in a certain outward self-control which was now found to be very useful. Besides this Stephen was quick enough to see that he must disentangle his affairs in secrecy and reserve had ever been a light penance for him. His reluctance to debate scandal, to seem impolitely curious of others, aided him in his real indictment and was not without a satisfactory flavour of the heroic. Already while that fever-fit of holiness lay upon him, he had encountered but out of charity had declined to penetrate disillusioning forces. These shocks had driven him from breathless flights of zeal shamefully inwards and the most that devotional exercises could do for him was to soothe him. This soothing he badly needed for he suffered greatly from contact with his new environment. He hardly spoke to his colleagues and performed the business of the class without remark or interest. Every morning he rose and came down to breakfast. After breakfast he took the tram for town, settling himself on the front seat outside with his face to the wind. He got down off the tram at Amiens St Station instead of going on to the Pillar because he wished to partake in the morning life of the city. This morning walk was pleasant for him and there was no face that passed him on its way to its commercial prison but he strove to pierce to the motive centre of its ugliness. It was always with a feeling of displeasure that he entered the Green and saw on the far side the gloomy building of the College.

PoA04: "In spite, however, of continued shocks, which drove him from breathless flights of zeal shamefully inwards, he was still soothed by devotional exercises when he entered the University. About this period the enigma of a manner was put up at all comers to protect the crisis. He was quick enough now to see that he must disentangle his affairs in secrecy and reserve had ever been a light penance. His reluctance to debate scandal, to seem curious of others, aided him in his real indictment and was not without a satisfactory flavour of the heroic."



As he walked thus through the ways of the city he had his ears and eyes ever prompt to receive impressions. It was not only in Skeat that he found words for his treasure-house, he found them also at haphazard in the shops, on advertisements, in the mouths of the plodding public. He kept repeating them to himself till they lost all instantaneous meaning for him and became wonderful vocables. He was determined to fight with every energy of soul and body against any possible consignment to what he now regarded as the hell of hells — the region, otherwise expressed, wherein everything is found to be obvious — and the saint who formerly was chary of speech in obedience to a commandment of silence could just be recognised in the artist who schooled himself to silence lest words should return him his discourtesy. Phrases came to him asking to have themselves explained. He said to himself: I must wait for the Eucharist to come to me: and then he set about translating the phrase into common sense. He spent days and nights hammering noisily as he built a house of silence for himself wherein he might await his Eucharist, days and nights gathering the first fruits and every peace-offering and heaping them upon his altar whereon he prayed clamorously the burning token of satisfaction might descend. In class, in the hushed library, in the company of other students he would suddenly hear a command to begone, to be alone, a voice agitating the very tympanum of his ear, a flame leaping into divine cerebral life. He would obey the command and wander up and down the streets alone, the fervour of his hope sustained by ejaculations until he felt sure that it was useless to wander any more: and then he would return home with a deliberate, unflagging step piecing together meaningless words and phrases with deliberate unflagging seriousness.





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