Page 102 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

py only when he was far from them, beyond their call, alone
or in the company of phantasmal comrades.
In the vestry a plump fresh-faced jesuit and an elder-
ly man, in shabby blue clothes, were dabbling in a case of
paints and chalks. The boys who had been painted walked
about or stood still awkwardly, touching their faces in a gin-
gerly fashion with their furtive fingertips. In the middle of
the vestry a young jesuit, who was then on a visit to the col-
lege, stood rocking himself rhythmically from the tips of
his toes to his heels and back again, his hands thrust well
forward into his side-pockets. His small head set off with
glossy red curls and his newly shaven face agreed well with
the spotless decency of his soutane and with his spotless
shoes.
As he watched this swaying form and tried to read for
himself the legend of the priest’s mocking smile there came
into Stephen’s memory a saying which he had heard from
his father before he had been sent to Clongowes, that you
could always tell a jesuit by the style of his clothes. At the
same moment he thought he saw a likeness between his fa-
ther’s mind and that of this smiling well-dressed priest: and
he was aware of some desecration of the priest’s office or of
the vestry itself whose silence was now routed by loud talk
and joking and its air pungent with the smells of the gas-jets
and the grease.
While his forehead was being wrinkled and his jaws
painted black and blue by the elderly man, he listened dis-
tractedly to the voice of the plump young jesuit which bade
him speak up and make his points clearly. He could hear

102 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man