Page 224 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

there was even a point of irritation in the name pointed
against that very reluctance of speech and deed in his friend
which seemed so often to stand between Stephen’s mind, ea-
ger of speculation, and the hidden ways of Irish life.
One night the young peasant, his spirit stung by the vio-
lent or luxurious language in which Stephen escaped from
the cold silence of intellectual revolt, had called up before
Stephen’s mind a strange vision. The two were walking
slowly towards Davin’s rooms through the dark narrow
streets of the poorer jews.
—A thing happened to myself, Stevie, last autumn, com-
ing on winter, and I never told it to a living soul and you are
the first person now I ever told it to. I disremember if it was
October or November. It was October because it was before
I came up here to join the matriculation class.
Stephen had turned his smiling eyes towards his friend’s
face, flattered by his confidence and won over to sympathy
by the speaker’s simple accent.
—I was away all that day from my own place over in But-
tevant.
—I don’t know if you know where that is—at a hurl-
ing match between the Croke’s Own Boys and the Fearless
Thurles and by God, Stevie, that was the hard fight. My first
cousin, Fonsy Davin, was stripped to his buff that day mind-
ing cool for the Limericks but he was up with the forwards
half the time and shouting like mad. I never will forget that
day. One of the Crokes made a woeful wipe at him one time
with his caman and I declare to God he was within an aim’s
ace of getting it at the side of his temple. Oh, honest to God,

224 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man