Page 193 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

made him feel a regret and pity as though he were slowly
passing out of an accustomed world and were hearing its
language for the last time. One day when some boys had
gathered round a priest under the shed near the chapel, he
had heard the priest say:
—I believe that Lord Macaulay was a man who probably
never committed a mortal sin in his life, that is to say, a de-
liberate mortal sin.
Some of the boys had then asked the priest if Victor
Hugo were not the greatest French writer. The priest had
answered that Victor Hugo had never written half so well
when he had turned against the church as he had written
when he was a catholic.
—But there are many eminent French critics, said the
priest, who consider that even Victor Hugo, great as he cer-
tainly was, had not so pure a French style as Louis Veuillot.
The tiny flame which the priest’s allusion had kindled
upon Stephen’s cheek had sunk down again and his eyes
were still fixed calmly on the colourless sky. But an unrest-
ing doubt flew hither and thither before his mind. Masked
memories passed quickly before him: he recognized scenes
and persons yet he was conscious that he had failed to per-
ceive some vital circumstance in them. He saw himself
walking about the grounds watching the sports in Clon-
gowes and eating slim jim out of his cricket cap. Some
jesuits were walking round the cycle-track in the company
of ladies. The echoes of certain expressions used in Clon-
gowes sounded in remote caves of his mind.
His ears were listening to these distant echoes amid the

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