A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners - James Joyce [126]
-And would you?
—I think, Stephen said, it would pain me much to do as to be robbed.
—I see, Cranly said.
He produced his match and began to clean the crevice between two teeth. Then he said carelessly:
-Tell me, for example, would you deflower a virgin?
-Excuse me, Stephen said politely, is that not the ambition of most young gentlemen?
-What then is your point of view? Cranly asked.
His last phrase, sour smelling as the smoke of charcoal and disheartening, excited Stephen’s brain, over which its fumes seemed to brood.
-Look here, Cranly, he said. You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile and cunning.
Cranly seized his arm and steered him round so as to lead back towards Leeson Park. He laughed almost slyly and pressed Stephen’s arm with an elder’s affection.
-Cunning indeed! he said. Is it you? You poor poet, you!
-And you made me confess to you, Stephen said, thrilled by his touch, as I have confessed to you so many other things, have I not?
—Yes, my child, Cranly said, still gaily.
—You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.
Cranly, now grave again, slowed his pace and said:
—Alone, quite alone. You have no fear of that. And you know what that word means? Not only to be separate from all others but to have not even one friend.
—I will take the risk, said Stephen.
-And not to have any one person, Cranly said, who would be more than a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had.
His words seemed to have struck some deep chord in his own nature. Had he spoken of himself, of himself as he was or wished to be? Stephen watched his face for some moments in silence. A cold sadness was there. He had spoken of himself, of his own loneliness which he feared.
-Of whom are you speaking? Stephen asked at length.
Cranly did not answer.
20 March. Long talk with Cranly on the subject of my revolt.
He had his grand manner on. I supple and suave. Attacked me on the score of love for one’s mother. Tried to imagine his mother: cannot. Told me once, in a moment of thoughtlessness, his father was sixty-one when he was born. Can see him. Strong farmer type. Pepper and salt suit. Square feet. Unkempt grizzled beard. Probably attends coursing matches.qb Pays his dues regularly but not plentifully to Father Dwyer of Larras. Sometimes talks to girls after nightfall. But his mother? Very young or very old? Hardly the first. If so, Cranly would not have spoken as he did. Old then. Probably, and neglected. Hence Cranly’s despair of soul: the child of exhausted loins.
21 March, morning. Thought this in bed last night but was too lazy and free to add it. Free, yes. The exhausted loins are those of Elizabeth and Zachary.qc Then he is the precursor. Item: he eats chiefly belly bacon and dried figs. Read locusts and wild honey.qd Also, when thinking of him, saw always a stern severed head or death mask as if outlined on a grey curtain or veronica.qe Decollationqf they call it in the fold. Puzzled for the moment by saint John at the Latin gate.23 What do I see? A decollated precursor trying to pick the lock.
21 March, night. Free. Soul free and fancy free. Let the dead bury the dead.qgAy. And let the dead marry the dead.
22 March. In company with Lynch followed a sizable hospital nurse. Lynch’s idea. Dislike it. Two lean hungry greyhounds walking after a heifer.
23 March. Have not seen