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    Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man: "You can still die when the sun is shining."
    Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man: "You can still die when the sun is shining."
    Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man: "You can still die when the sun is shining."
    Ebook292 pages5 hours

    Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man: "You can still die when the sun is shining."

    By James Joyce

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. It is often classified by critics as a “fictional auto-biography” since the story’s protagonist is naturally identified with the author himself. Events in the novel are not as important as the psychological development and maturation that Joyce’s hero Stephen Dedalus goes through from the beginning till the end of the narrative. As an Irish young man, Dedalus wishes to pursue a career of an artist and a writer, yet he is continuously preoccupied with his existential and religious concerns. In fact, he has been raised as a Roman Catholic in a family and a society that often mingle religion with politics and nationalistic sentiments. His concerns are even more intensified when his father goes into serious financial troubles. After a first sexual experience, then a second, Dedalus indulges in a period of debauchery and in all sorts of desires of the flesh. He is soon drowned in feelings of remorse and guilt, however. He turns back to religiosity and decides to lead a life of abstinence and piety, though carrying on with his writing and acting activities. Dedalus’s monologues and contemplations often center on the relationship between religion, sensual desire and the appreciation of beauty. He ultimately determines to escape from all his religious, family and nationalistic chains to lead a life of complete independence and to live only for beauty and art.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherA Word To The Wise
    Release dateAug 20, 2013
    ISBN9781780004600
    Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man: "You can still die when the sun is shining."

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    Reviews for Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man

    3.5/5

    3,525 ratings79 reviews

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    • 3/5
      An autobiographical novel, it is very conventional compared to where he was going for the rest of his life. He chooses his framework characters, the male parts of the Daedalus family, and thyeir relationships to the growing Stephen.
    • 4/5
      The rhythm and detail of Joyce is here as he captures the passion, extremism, and narcissism of the adolescent mind.
    • 1/5
      Totally worthless.
    • 3/5
      Zwakke start, als een standaardcollegeroman, maar vanaf hoofdstuk 2 erg intrigerend door de breuk in constructie en stijl. Het hoofdpersonage is erg antipathiek en gecomplexeerd. Sterk autobiografisch. De donderpreekscene is subliem. Prachtige alternatieve Bildungsroman
    • 3/5
      This is a collection of philosophical arguments and theological sermons framed by the titular artist's school life. All in whole, interesting and introspective in parts, but completely forgettable.
    • 1/5
      I don't usually bother to write bad reviews, but this book takes the cake for me. Reading that whole sermon about hell was already hell in and of itself, and that's only one of many things wrong with this book. Why must you torment me, Joyce? I only wanted to read a novel of yours, for heaven's sake. I'm surprised I had it in me to even finish it.
    • 3/5
      Very enjoyable for its influential literary style. As someone reading from quite a different generation, the story wasn't enough to keep it afloat on its own but more than makes up for it in punctuation. Moved through it fairly quickly, so would be worthy of a second read to reveal more depth- it is certainly there.
    • 5/5
      My all time, hands down, favorite book. The classic coming of age tale of Stephen Dedalus in late 19th, early 20th century Dublin is the golden stadard of wordsmanship. A Portrait is challenging but rewarding with pleanty of depth but more accessible than some of Joyce's later works.
    • 4/5
      Very thoughtful about religion and Irish politics. I'm not really sure what I got out of it. the part about hell was kind of disturbing and far too long. the end seemed unconnected from the beginning (because it was written at a different time) I liked the part about boarding school the best. (the beginning)
    • 5/5
      Impossibly good (as is all Joyce). For weeks after finishing this one, I wished that I were an Irish Catholic schoolboy, and I threw myself into a fit of reading Byron.
    • 3/5
      Dubliners is more readable, but not the most brilliant. Ulysses is the most brilliant, but not really that readable. This one is right in between.
    • 4/5
      One of the most personal books in my reading: incarcerated as I was at the time in a Jesuit prep school, and not Roman Catholic, quite the lode.
    • 3/5
      I feel like I don't really get Joyce and why he's so admired.
    • 4/5
      Rich and deeply-felt charaterization in Stephen Dedalus make this a winner. Joyce's complex prose style is more accessable than in Ullyses (which I have tried many times to read, but couldn't), though it does have its stretches that I had to reread.
    • 2/5
      I survived! Wow! This study of an Irish Catholic boy on his journey to becoming an artist was hard to get through. The style and themes were interesting, but the religious bits, particularly the struggle over his soul's salvation made me feel like I was walking backwards waist deep through mud. I was clearly unprepared for this particular piece of literature, but am grateful, regardless, that I was able to muddle through it.
    • 5/5
      Another one of those I tried to read in High School and just couldn't finish. When I sat down as a grown-up and rea it, I cursed myself for waiting so long. Beautiful, captivating, and a great introduction to Joyce, who's not exactly an easy read overall. He's worth it though.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable book with lots of symbolism. It is very readable, unlike Ulyses or Finnegan's Wake.
    • 2/5
      This is as far as my Joyce adventure will go, I think. I've looked at "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake", and I doubt I will make it any further. "A Portrait..." was interesting, if not exactly world-changing; perhaps I approached it in the wrong frame of mind, and wasn't open to the possibilities it suggests and has suggested in others.
    • 4/5
      After having read "Ulysses" when i was 13, i read this book at 16 and found it a bit disappointing, since it was so much more conventional. This is not to say this is not a worthwhile read. And i realized it was written before "Ulysses", and some of the same characters make there appearance in that later book.
    • 3/5
      Joyce uses beautifully poetic language, and his portrayal of Catholic guilt was magnificent. However, the frequent jumps between the present and the thoughts in Dedalus's head made this a frustrating read.
    • 4/5
      The exception to my rule that novels whose protagonists are sensitive young men aspiring to be novelists are too insufferably self-regarding to be enjoyable. Joyce pulls it off, but he is a really good writer I guess. I still love the fifty page sermon about hell.
    • 4/5
      I don't much care for the later parts in the book, but the beginning--Stephen's childhood--is, in my opinion, one of the greatest and most beautiful bits of words ever put to paper. That alone is reason to pick this up, and as a sort of "gateway" book between the easy-to-read Dubliners and the notoriously difficult Ulysses, it works beautifully.
    • 1/5
      Sorry everybody. I know that Joyce is one of the quintessential authors of the twentieth century, but I just couldn't stand this book. And it's not that I don't like stream-of-consciousness...it's just the story--rather pathetic and rambling.
    • 3/5
      When I first started reading this book I really enjoyed it, I lost myself in the flow of the writing. However, towards the middle my interest was lost, not so due to the heavy prose about sinners & hell, although I did think it was overdone, it was more the long soliloquies about things such as the meaning of beauty or the works of classic writers & philosophers. They just seemed self indulgent & didn't bring anything to the story. What I enjoyed most about it was that its one of my favourite types of story - a coming of age tale. I do prefer more modern versions of this type though, mainly because I like to relate to the character & its hard to do that when there is such a gap in the times. I think this is a book you'd gain more from if you knew about the politics and Irish culture of that time. And a knowledge of religion would have helped too, as I'll readily claim ignorance to the different Christian denominations. Overall, long-winded but good.
    • 2/5
      Got to be honest, really struggled with this one. Well written but I thought rather dull.
    • 5/5
      I hesitate to give this book or any book perfect marks, although this book comes close. Superbly written with deep philosophical and religious underpinnings, this book approaches the realm of the sublime. Does perfection exist in book form? I usually think of Dickens or Dostoyevsky, but this book comes close.
    • 2/5
      I know it’s a great classic, which is why I read it. But can I just say that I could barely understand what was going on through the whole book without sounding like a complete idiot? I had been planning on reading Ulysses but maybe not.
    • 5/5
      The classic Bildungsroman. Of course, I hate to use the term Bildungsroman cause you sound like a pompous ass. However, since I am in fact a pompous ass, it works out ok.
    • 5/5
      Perhaps the ultimate tale of growing up as a gifted, sensitive, hyperaware young person, dealing with feeling like an outsider as a result of such circumstances, and eventually embracing ones gifts and deciding to rely upon them, despite the slings and arrows. Much more readable than Ulysses or Finnegan… transcendent in some parts, delightfuly cheeky and irreverent in others, and always painfully innocent and sincere just below the surface. Packed with awe and wonder and a feeling of gathering mastery and self-discovery.
    • 1/5
      While I recognize that this book had some new ideas for narrative structures, it really is just a series of scenes in which an arrogant little prick of a teenager jerks off and then feels guilty about it. Not at all entertaining.

    Book preview

    Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man - James Joyce

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

    James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on 2nd February 1882 in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar.

    He is an icon not just of the Irish but for book lovers everywhere although many complain that his prose is difficult to engage with and enjoy as much as they would wish.

    One of the most  influential of the modernist avant-garde school of the early 20th century he is best admired for Ulysses, published in 1922, a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he perfected. Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

    James Joyce died in Zurich on January 13th 1941 after surgery on a perforated ulcer.

    His style and work are perhaps best summed up in his own words For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.

    Index Of Contents

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 1

    Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...

    His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.

    He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.

    O, the wild rose blossoms    

    On the little green place.

    He sang that song. That was his song.

    O, the green wothe botheth.

    When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.

    His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano the sailor's hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:

    Tralala lala,    

    Tralala tralaladdy,    

    Tralala lala,    

    Tralala lala.

    Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father and mother but uncle Charles was older than Dante.

    Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon velvet back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a piece of tissue paper.

    The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and mother. They were Eileen's father and mother. When they were grown up he was going to marry Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother said:

    O, Stephen will apologize.

    Dante said:

    O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes.

    Pull out his eyes,    

    Apologize,    

    Apologize,    

    Pull out his eyes.    

    Apologize,    

    Pull out his eyes,    

    Pull out his eyes,    

    Apologize.

    The wide playgrounds were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid the throng of the players and his eyes were weak and watery. Rody Kickham was not like that: he would be captain of the third line all the fellows said.

    Rody Kickham was a decent fellow but Nasty Roche was a stink. Rody Kickham had greaves in his number and a hamper in the refectory. Nasty Roche had big hands. He called the Friday pudding dog-in-the-blanket. And one day he had asked:

    What is your name?

    Stephen had answered: Stephen Dedalus.

    Then Nasty Roche had said:

    What kind of a name is that?

    And when Stephen had not been able to answer Nasty Roche had asked:

    What is your father?

    Stephen had answered:

    A gentleman.

    Then Nasty Roche had asked:

    Is he a magistrate?

    He crept about from point to point on the fringe of his line, making little runs now and then. But his hands were bluish with cold. He kept his hands in the side pockets of his belted grey suit. That was a belt round his pocket. And belt was also to give a fellow a belt. One day a fellow said to Cantwell:

    I'd give you such a belt in a second.

    Cantwell had answered:

    Go and fight your match. Give Cecil Thunder a belt. I'd like to see you. He'd give you a toe in the rump for yourself.

    That was not a nice expression. His mother had told him not to speak with the rough boys in the college. Nice mother! The first day in the hall of the castle when she had said goodbye she had put up her veil double to her nose to kiss him: and her nose and eyes were red. But he had pretended not to see that she was going to cry. She was a nice mother but she was not so nice when she cried. And his father had given him two five-shilling pieces for pocket money. And his father had told him if he wanted anything to write home to him and, whatever he did, never to peach on a fellow. Then at the door of the castle the rector had shaken hands with his father and mother, his soutane fluttering in the breeze, and the car had driven off with his father and mother on it. They had cried to him from the car, waving their hands:

    Goodbye, Stephen, goodbye!

    Goodbye, Stephen, goodbye!

    He was caught in the whirl of a scrimmage and, fearful of the flashing eyes and muddy boots, bent down to look through the legs. The fellows were struggling and groaning and their legs were rubbing and kicking and stamping. Then Jack Lawton's yellow boots dodged out the ball and all the other boots and legs ran after. He ran after them a little way and then stopped. It was useless to run on. Soon they would be going home for the holidays. After supper in the study hall he would change the number pasted up inside his desk from seventy-seven to seventy-six.

    It would be better to be in the study hall than out there in the cold. The sky was pale and cold but there were lights in the castle. He wondered from which window Hamilton Rowan had thrown his hat on the ha-ha and had there been flowerbeds at that time under the windows. One day when he had been called to the castle the butler had shown him the marks of the soldiers' slugs in the wood of the door and had given him a piece of shortbread that the community ate. It was nice and warm to see the lights in the castle. It was like something in a book. Perhaps Leicester Abbey was like that. And there were nice sentences in Doctor Cornwell's Spelling Book. They were like poetry but they were only sentences to learn the spelling from.

    Wolsey died in Leicester Abbey    

    Where the abbots buried him.    

    Canker is a disease of plants,    

    Cancer one of animals.

    It would be nice to lie on the hearthrug before the fire, leaning his head upon his hands, and think on those sentences. He shivered as if he had cold slimy water next his skin. That was mean of Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch because he would not swop his little snuff box for Wells's seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror of forty. How cold and slimy the water had been! A fellow had once seen a big rat jump into the scum. Mother was sitting at the fire with Dante waiting for Brigid to bring in the tea. She had her feet on the fender and her jewelly slippers were so hot and they had such a lovely warm smell! Dante knew a lot of things. She had taught him where the Mozambique Channel was and what was the longest river in America and what was the name of the highest mountain in the moon. Father Arnall knew more than Dante because he was a priest but both his father and uncle Charles said that Dante was a clever woman and a well-read woman. And when Dante made that noise after dinner and then put up her hand to her mouth: that was heartburn.

    A voice cried far out on the playground:

    All in!

    Then other voices cried from the lower and third lines:

    All in! All in!

    The players closed around, flushed and muddy, and he went among them, glad to go in. Rody Kickham held the ball by its greasy lace. A fellow asked him to give it one last: but he walked on without even answering the fellow. Simon Moonan told him not to because the prefect was looking. The fellow turned to Simon Moonan and said:

    We all know why you speak. You are McGlade's suck.

    Suck was a queer word. The fellow called Simon Moonan that name because Simon Moonan used to tie the prefect's false sleeves behind his back and the prefect used to let on to be angry. But the sound was ugly. Once he had washed his hands in the lavatory of the Wicklow Hotel and his father pulled the stopper up by the chain after and the dirty water went down through the hole in the basin. And when it had all gone down slowly the hole in the basin had made a sound like that: suck. Only louder.

    To remember that and the white look of the lavatory made him feel cold and then hot. There were two cocks that you turned and water came out: cold and hot. He felt cold and then a little hot: and he could see the names printed on the cocks. That was a very queer thing.

    And the air in the corridor chilled him too. It was queer and wettish. But soon the gas would be lit and in burning it made a light noise like a little song. Always the same: and when the fellows stopped talking in the playroom you could hear it.

    It was the hour for sums. Father Arnall wrote a hard sum on the board and then said:

    Now then, who will win? Go ahead, York! Go ahead, Lancaster!

    Stephen tried his best, but the sum was too hard and he felt confused. The little silk badge with the white rose on it that was pinned on the breast of his jacket began to flutter. 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 fellows and said:

    O, I say, here's a fellow says he kisses his mother every night before he goes to bed.

    The other fellows stopped their game and turned round, laughing. Stephen blushed under their eyes and said:

    I do not.

    Wells said:

    O, I say, here's a fellow says he doesn't kiss his mother before he goes to bed.

    They all laughed again. Stephen tried to laugh with them. He felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment. What was the right answer to the question? He had given two and still Wells laughed. But Wells must know the right answer for he was in third of grammar. He tried to think of Wells's mother but he did not dare to raise his eyes to Wells's face. He did not like Wells's face. It was Wells who had shouldered him into the square ditch the day before because he would not swop his little snuff box for Wells's seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror of forty. It was a mean thing to do; all the fellows said it was. And how cold and slimy the water had been! And a fellow had once seen a big rat jump plop into the scum.

    The cold slime of the ditch covered his whole body; and, when the bell rang for study and the lines filed out of the playrooms, he felt the cold air of the corridor and staircase inside his clothes. He still tried to think what was the right answer. Was it right to kiss his mother or wrong to kiss his mother? What did that mean, to kiss? You put your face up like that to say good night and then his mother put her face down. That was to kiss. His mother put her lips on his cheek; her lips were soft and they wetted his cheek; and they made a tiny little noise: kiss. Why did people do that with their two faces?

    Sitting in the study hall he opened the lid of his desk and changed the number pasted up inside from seventy-seven to seventy-six. But the Christmas vacation was very far away: but one time it would come because the earth moved round always.

    There was a picture of the earth on the first page of his geography: a big ball in the middle of clouds. Fleming had a box of crayons and one night during free study he had coloured the earth green and the clouds maroon. That was like the two brushes in Dante's press, the brush with the green velvet back for Parnell and the brush with the maroon velvet back for Michael Davitt. But he had not told Fleming to colour them those colours. Fleming had done it himself.

    He opened the geography to study the lesson; but he could not learn the names of places in America. Still they were all different places that had different names. They were all in different countries and the countries were in continents and the continents were in the world and the world was in the universe.

    He turned to the flyleaf of the geography and read what he had written there: himself, his name and where he was.

    Stephen Dedalus    

    Class of Elements    

    Clongowes Wood College    

    Sallins    

    County Kildare    

    Ireland    

    Europe    

    The World    

    The Universe

    That was in his writing: and Fleming one night for a cod had written on the opposite page:

    Stephen Dedalus is my name,    

    Ireland is my nation.    

    Clongowes is my dwellingplace    

    And heaven my expectation.

    He read the verses backwards but then they were not poetry. Then he read the flyleaf from the bottom to the top till he came to his own name. That was he: and he read down the page again. What was after the universe?

    Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it stopped before the nothing place began?

    It could not be a wall; but there could be a thin thin line there all round everything. It was very big to think about everything and everywhere. Only God could do that. He tried to think what a big thought that must be; but he could only think of God. God was God's name just as his name was Stephen. DIEU was the French for God and that was God's name too; and when anyone prayed to God and said DIEU then God knew at once that it was a French person that was praying. But, though there were different names for God in all the different languages in the world and God understood what all the people who prayed said in their different languages, still God remained always the same God and God's real name was God.

    It made him very tired to think that way. It made him feel his head very big. He turned over the flyleaf and looked wearily at the green round earth in the middle of the maroon clouds. He wondered which was right, to be for the green or for the maroon, because Dante had ripped the green velvet back off the brush that was for Parnell one day with her scissors and had told him that Parnell was a bad man. He wondered if they were arguing at home about that. That was called politics. There were two sides in it: Dante was on one side and his father and Mr Casey were on the other side but his mother and uncle Charles were on no side. Every day there was something in the paper about it.

    It pained him that he did not know well what politics meant and that he did not know where the universe ended. He felt small and weak. When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric? They had big voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry. That was very far away. First came the vacation and then the next term and then vacation again and then again another term and then again the vacation. It was like a train going in and out of tunnels and that was like the noise of the boys eating in the refectory when you opened and closed the flaps of the ears. Term, vacation; tunnel, out; noise, stop. How far away it was! It was better to go to bed to sleep. Only prayers in the chapel and then bed. He shivered and yawned. It would be lovely in bed after the sheets got a bit hot. First they were so cold to get into. He shivered to think how cold they were first. But then they got hot and then he could sleep. It was lovely to be tired. He yawned again. Night prayers and then bed: he shivered and wanted to yawn. It would be lovely in a few minutes. He felt a warm glow creeping up from the cold shivering sheets, warmer and warmer till he felt warm all over, ever so warm and yet he shivered a little and still wanted to yawn.

    The bell rang for night prayers and he filed out of the study hall after the others and down the staircase and along the corridors to the chapel. The corridors were darkly lit and the chapel was darkly lit. Soon all would be dark and sleeping. There was cold night air in the chapel and the marbles were the colour the sea was at night. The sea was cold day and night: but it was colder at night. It was cold and dark under the seawall beside his father's house. But the kettle would be on the hob to make punch.

    The prefect of the chapel prayed above his head and his memory knew the responses:

    O Lord open our lips    

    And our mouths shall announce Thy praise.    

    Incline unto our aid, O God!    

    O Lord make haste to help us!

    There was a cold night smell in the chapel. But it was a holy smell. It was not like the smell of the old peasants who knelt at the back of the chapel at Sunday mass. That was a smell of air and rain and turf and corduroy. But they were very holy peasants. They breathed behind him on his neck and sighed as they prayed. They lived in Clane, a fellow said: there were little cottages there and he had seen a woman standing at the half-door of a cottage with a child in her arms as the cars had come past from Sallins. It would be lovely to sleep for one night in that cottage before the fire of smoking turf, in the dark lit by the fire, in the warm dark, breathing the smell of the peasants, air and rain and turf and corduroy. But O, the road there between the trees was dark! You would be lost in the dark. It made him afraid to think of how it was.

    He heard the voice of the prefect of the chapel saying the last prayers. He prayed it too against the dark outside under the trees.

    VISIT, WE BESEECH THEE, O LORD, THIS HABITATION AND DRIVE AWAY FROM IT ALL THE SNARES OF THE ENEMY. MAY THY HOLY ANGELS DWELL HEREIN TO PRESERVE US IN PEACE AND MAY THY BLESSINGS BE ALWAYS UPON US THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD.   AMEN.

    His fingers trembled as he undressed himself in the dormitory. He told his fingers to hurry up. He had to undress and then kneel and say his own prayers and be in bed before the gas was lowered so that he might not go to hell when he died. He rolled his stockings off and put on his nightshirt quickly

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